Views of university instructors and students on English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and World Englishes (WES) (original) (raw)
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English is no longer the language belonging to about 375 million native English speakers. It is also an international language spoken by more than a billion of second and foreign language users. The models used to teach English as a second or foreign language have traditionally been mainly native speaker models. However, in the last few years, a large number of researchers have suggested integrating a model of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) into the English classroom because it has several benefits for international communication, since international
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Second International Langauge-for-All Conference, 2023
In the globalizing world, English has gained the status of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and World Englishes have already manifested themselves in English Language Teaching (ELT). In light of this, exploring the perspectives of English instructors, who occupy a pivotal role in English language teaching, has become vital. Henceforth, this study aims to investigate English instructors' views and instructional practices regarding their ELF awareness in higher education. A mixed-methods research design was employed as a research methodology, encompassing quantitative and qualitative data collection through a statement list and semistructured interviews. The findings revealed that most English instructors showed a profound awareness regarding concepts of native speakerism and World Englishes as well as a forwardthinking approach towards incorporating ELF into higher education language classrooms by expressing a desire for English lessons to encompass a wide range of Englishes and world cultures, reflecting a more comprehensive and globally relevant attitude.
ENGLISH LEARNERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE: A QUALITATIVE INQUIRY
This article reports on a qualitative study that investigated English learners' attitudes toward English as an International Language (EIL). Four major findings were identified in the current study. First, majority of the participants thought that English belongs to all its users, regardless of being its native speakers or not. Second, lack of knowledge of Outer Circle varieties led the students to stick to the two major Inner Circle varieties of English-American and British Englishes as standard norms. Third, majority of participants embraced localisation of English and considered it as a manifestation of local cultures. Furthermore, the learners admitted that their local government has attached great value to learning English, but they were concerned about the utilitarian view of education, since majority of the learners focus merely on obtaining high scores on English exams. Fourth, the learners expressed their dissatisfaction with the imbalanced contemporary English teaching and stated that developing communication competence should be the main goal of English instruction. Therefore, the authors suggest that effective measures be taken at policy making, materials development and pedagogy levels to promote the legitimacy of all varieties of English and meet the needs of today's English learners.
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With the emergence of World Englishes (WE) and the continuous flow of international students into universities in the United States, issues surrounding the tolerance and acceptance of varieties of English, the notion of standards, and the concept of nativeness all come to the forefront of research and pedagogy. Since English is the dominant language of international academic publication and since it has been adapted and adopted by a number of countries for various instrumental, institutional, innovative/imaginative, and interpersonal functions , it is essential for teachers and administrators to be aware of the pluricentricity of English and their students' different sociolinguistic backgrounds as outlined in the WE paradigm (Kachru, Kachru, & Nelson, 2006).
ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (ELF): CROATIAN L1 STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVES
The current paper presents the results of a research which aimed at establishing the attitude of Croatian L1 students towards the role of English as a global international language. In particular, the focus is to examine whether their perspectives reflect the notion of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) by means of a three-part questionnaire designed to investigate: (a) students' attitudes towards the role of ELF as a contact language among non-native speakers; (b) their attitudes to English pronunciation; and (c) students' perspectives on the lexico-grammatical features of ELF. The research was conducted on a sample of 320 undergraduate university students from the Faculty of Economics and Tourism «Dr Mijo Mirković» of the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, including full-time first-and second-year students (median age 20). The participants largely recognize English as a global language that has far surpassed the needs of a single cultural and linguistic circle, and acknowledge the role of ELF as a useful tool in establishing efficient intercultural communication with other non-native speakers of English. Overall, students are quite pragmatically oriented and liberal towards non-native English accents, while gender and self-assessed English proficiency play a significant role in determining what exactly constitutes the ability to efficiently communicate in ELF contexts. The third part of the survey revealed interesting insights into the participants' view on ELF lexico-grammar, where a rather weak correlation between students' evaluation of accuracy (i.e. objective knowledge) and intelligibility (i.e. subjective comprehension) of the eight distinct features of ELF indicates a quite articulate perspective that deviations from the Standard English norm do not necessarily represent a serious impediment to establishing successful ELF communication. The current findings support the idea that domestic students already see themselves as users of ELF, with important practical implications for ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching. Such results can help us better understand the various student profiles and their needs in foreign language acquisition, as well as to deepen our understanding of the relationship between students' proficiency in English and their views on what is "required", "proper" or generally defined as desirable in language production. The author discusses potentials of implementing strategies to reflect such insights into English language teaching.