The need to recognise English language teaching (ELT) as a site for the interplay of cultural politics and competing discourses has been acknowledged in ELT literature. Writing as an English teacher in Japan, and not unfamiliar over the years with the confluencing of discourses whether relating to neoliberalism, globalisation or other forces bearing on the cultural politics of language teaching, the author argues for a deeper recognition of English as a resource for multicultural understandings as well as the need to acknowledge, among ELT circles, fast and ongoing changes in ethno-cultural landscapes in an increasingly borderless world. The article places these two issues amidst a larger contextual backdrop of essentialisms and reductionisms that have come to bear on English teaching in a place like Japan, with its historically variegated relationship with the language. It then examines how teachers can refute reductionist views of what are actually complex sociolinguistic and ethno-cultural formations by problematising discursively borne stereotypes of people and language through encouraging different perspectives. It is hoped that teachers operating out of situations where meaning, knowledge and ways to mean are regulated, reduced or other-wise essentialised will find the discussion useful and the opportunity to extend the concerns highlighted.