ELF Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by
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- Chemistry, Quantum Chemistry, Solvation, ELF

Consisting of two main parts this research paper focuses on how contextual variables influence in-class ESL teaching/learning environment which is based upon observations of three ESL lessons at the upper-intermediate level at the English Preparatory School of a private university in Istanbul, Turkey where students were required to complete a gradual three-level achievement program, starting at an appropriated level determined by a pre-enrolment proficiency and placement exams. Two of the instructors were bilinguals with Turkish as their first language and English as their second language. The third instructor was a native speaker of English with no knowledge in Turkish. The study is presented after a general literature review of contextual variables of ESL, and it focuses primarily on the role played by the teacher, the teacher's linguistic choices as means of instruction and communication, and the presence/absence of Turkish and English as L1 and L2 factors respectively in the classroom context.

- by Faruk Kural
- •
- ELF

Introduction: The present research aimed to examine Visual Working Memory (VWM) test scores,
as well as hormonal, genomic, and brain anatomic changes in the male rhesus macaques exposed to
Extremely Low Frequency Magnetic Field (ELF-MF).
Methods: Four monkeys were exposed to two different ELF-MF frequencies: 1 Hz (control) and 12
Hz (experiment) with 0.7 μT (magnitude) 4 h/d for 30 consecutive days. Before and after the exposure,
VWM test was conducted using a coated devise on a movable stand. About 10 mL of the animals’
blood was obtained from their femoral vain and used to evaluate their melatonin concentration. Blood
lymphocytes were used for assaying the expressions of N-Methyl-D-aspartate NMDA-receptor
genes expression before and after ELF exposure. Anatomical changes of hippocampus size were also
assessed using MRI images.
Results: Results indicated that VWM scores in primates exposed to 12 Hz frequency ELF increased
significantly. Plasma melatonin level was also increased in these animals. However, these variables did
not change in the animals exposed to 1 Hz ELF. At last, expression of the NMDA receptors increased
at exposure to 12 Hz frequency. However, hippocampal volume did not increase significantly in the
animals exposed to both frequencies.
Conclusion: In short, these results indicate that ELF (12 Hz) may have a beneficial value for memory
enhancement (indicated by the increase in VWM scores). This may be due to an increase in plasma
melatonin and or expression of NMDA glutamate receptors. However, direct involvement of the
hippocampus in this process needs more research.

- by Basic and Clinical Neuroscience Journal and +1
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- MRI, Visual Working Memory, Melatonin, Hippocampus

Focusing on the teaching of listening strategies to second language (L2) learners, this study sought to revisit Renandya and Farrell’s (2011) claims that explicit listening strategy instruction for lower- proficiency learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) is a fruitless endeavor. As such, we implemented a quasi-experimental study to measure the effectiveness of a metacognitive intervention for a convenience sample of lower-proficiency (CEFR A2) Japanese university EFL learners (n ! 129). The training program focused on an explicit process-based approach, involving integrated experiential learning tasks and guided reflections, to develop learners’ L2 listening skills. Data collection consisted of TOEIC® test scores, listening comprehension tests, cloze tests, a listening self-efficacy questionnaire, and a post-treatment survey. While the training program was received favorably by students, and students displayed a slightly more confident stance towards listening in their L2, we were unable to find any strong empirical evidence that our lower-proficiency EFL learners’ listening performance improved. As such, these results provide evidence of a potential proficiency threshold for EFL learners to start to benefit from a strategy-focused metacognitive intervention.

- by Mohammad Amir Samimi, PhD
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- Sociolinguistics, Arabic, Lingua Franca, Education Policy
- by Camillo Ignacio Gonzalez Aranda
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- Electricidad Y Magnetismo, ELF
- by Kurt Kohn
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- Standard English, English as a Lingua Franca, ELT, ELF
- by Kurt Kohn
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- Standard English, English as a Lingua Franca, ELT, ELF

The unprecedented spread of the use of English in business worldwide has been accompanied by an increasing number of studies looking at the use of English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) (Louhiala-Salminen & Kankaanranta, 2011) among non-native English speakers, mostly in Europe but also in Asia. Research thus far has focused mainly on analysis of texts and discourses produced by BELF users, whereas in-depth research investigating users’ sense making of their use of English has been limited. In order to fill this gap, this thesis places BELF users at the centre of the research by listening to their narratives, to explore their subjective views on their experiences of language use in global business contexts.
The focus of the study is on Japanese business people who had relatively low exposure to English before they started using English at work, with the aim of illustrating the ways in which they perceive and make sense of their experiences as BELF users. The participants are 34 business people who were born and educated exclusively in Japan, and have accumulated a range of experiences using English in a global business context.
Thematic analysis of their narratives reveals that participants share certain challenges such as attending and contributing in multinational meetings, dealing with lower productivity and avoiding mistakes in various communicative situations. Common approaches among the participants to negotiate such challenges include continuously developing the English skills needed to perform their business goals, as well as other means such as gaining power in communication through developing the quality of information and utilising stronger economic relations. Their stories also highlight that their use of English is characterised by the coexistence of English and Japanese, owing to the ‘monolinguistic’ nature of Japanese business communication. Finally, it is revealed that they change their perception towards using English as they progress through their career. Their perceptions are influenced by various factors such as their career paths, the organisations they belong to, and the interlocutors they have dealt with.
To conclude, this thesis provides insight into the emic view of non-native English users when they are trying to achieve their professional goals in business contexts. By offering an alternative angle to existing BELF studies, the thesis contributes towards a more holistic and multi-dimensional understanding of this increasingly complex phenomenon.

- by Miyuki Takino
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- Globalization, Pragmatics, Multilingualism, TESOL

The paper presents a notional account of the challenges facing the introduction of English as an international lingua franca (ELF) curriculum in the state schools of the expanding circle, taking Greece as a case in point. It broadly delineates an ELF curriculum as one focusing on the skills necessary for carrying out successful communication involving non-native speakers and then highlights a set of challenges linked to both teaching context and teachers’ perceptions of professional identity. It focuses on challenges related to three facets of the professional identity of academically trained Greek state school EFL teachers, namely, their roles as users, specialists, and, ultimately, custodians of English for their learners and wider community. These facets are discussed with reference to a description of the country's current sociolinguistic and educational profile. The paper concludes with an overview of the strengths of an ELF curriculum for Greek state schools and discusses implications for ELF teacher education.

- by Nicos C. Sifakis
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- Teacher Education, Critical Pedagogy, English as a Lingua Franca, Greece
- by Will Baker
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- English as a Lingua Franca, Thailand, ASEAN, English language teaching
- by Will Baker
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- Identity (Culture), Language and Culture, ELF, English as a lingua franca (ELF)

Managed by the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF), the English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Program at Tamagawa University is a campus-wide English program designed to enable students to effectively communicate with people all over the world using English as a lingua franca. In 2015, approximately 2,500 students were taught by 40 instructors with different language and cultural backgrounds. CELF is about giving due recognition to the diverse contexts and situations in which English is now used as a lingua franca. The ELF paradigm is versatile and reflexive and captures the reality in which English is used for the creation and negotiation of a plurality of fresh meanings. The collection of articles in this journal represents the research and work from a handful of those ELF teachers. It is the teachers, their personal beliefs and principles, who determine the success of any language program. If teachers are going to hone their teaching skills, deepen their knowledge and develop professionally, they must receive proper support. To that end, the editors of this current issue were involved in creating the Center for English as a Lingua Franca Journal. All teachers in the ELF Program were invited to submit an academic article or research paper for consideration of publication in this Journal. For teachers, publication in this Journal represents a chance to add to their professional resume, but more importantly this is a platform for ELF teachers to share ideas and add value to our new Center for English as a Lingua Franca.
In this second issue, Yuri Jody Yujobo, Ethel Ogane, Tricia Okada, Brett Milliner, Takanori Sato, Blagoja Dimoski and report on using project-based learning (PBL) activities to promote awareness in ELF communicative strategies. Michelangelo Magasic shares his expert advice on how teachers can more effectively use webclips in their classroom. Daniel Worden introduces circumlocution activities as a way to promote fluency. Blair Barr investigates the effectiveness of the digital flashcard app, Quizlet® for vocabulary learning. This second issue concludes with a report on faculty development activities and the research achievements for the CELF in 2015. In closing, I would like to thank Tamagawa University for their continued financial support, the authors for making such valuable contributions to the center, and the reviewers who dedicated their time and specialist knowledge to the blind review process.
March 2016
Masaki Oda, Ph.D. Director, CELF

Extensive Reading (ER) was made a part of a new English language program at Tamagawa University in 2012. Questionnaire data from this first year revealed positive student responses in regard to reading for pleasure. Data from a teacher survey showed that the teachers understood the roles of ER in providing wider exposure to the language and encouraging some degree of reading outside of class. In 2013, to deal with an expanded program, the authors devised new teacher and student questionnaires to more fully understand the ER component and to determine whether the goals of ER were being achieved. This paper reports on the student and teacher feedback from 2013 and analyzes the questionnaire results in order to identify any similarities and differences between student and teacher perceptions of ER. It further considers how the results inform future ER implementation in the language curriculum.

- by Travis Cote and +1
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- Extensive Reading, Curriculum and Instruction, ELF

In the current world of business, English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) is used in both spoken and written communication and underpinned by the paradigm of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). While a number of research studies have been conducted exploring the spoken discourse facets of BELF users, relatively little attention has been paid hitherto to explore BELF written discourse facets, particularly, in business e-mail communication. This article examines how the BELF community discursively practices written discourse in their business e-mails. Data have been drawn from a pool of 92 e-mail messages collected from the business personnel engaged in international communications from five ready-made garments business organizations located in Bangladesh. These e-mails were exchanged between nonnative English speakers working as business personnel in the ready-made garments sector in Bangladesh and their counterparts—including both native and nonnative English speakers employed in six different countries. Applying both qualitative and quantitative content analyses, findings reveal that stylistically the components of e-mail messages are usually personalized, flexible and informal, and similar to ELF spoken discourse rather than ELF academic discourse and/or standard business letter writing. A wide range of language features have been identified in e-mails that are unique in this specific technology-based genre of communication. The awareness of these different facets of e-mail discourse has multiple implications in education.

- by Raqib Chowdhury and +2
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- Discourse Analysis, English language, E Mail Interactions, Bangladesh
- by Mohammad Droubi
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- Religion, Islamic Studies, ELF

Managed by the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF), the English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Program at Tamagawa University is a campus-wide English program designed to enable students to effectively communicate with people all over the world using English as a lingua franca. In 2015, approximately 2,500 students were taught by 40 instructors with different language and cultural backgrounds. CELF is about giving due recognition to the diverse contexts and situations in which English is now used as a lingua franca. The ELF paradigm is versatile and reflexive and captures the reality in which English is used for the creation and negotiation of a plurality of fresh meanings. The collection of articles in this journal represents the research and work from a handful of those ELF teachers. It is the teachers, their personal beliefs and principles, who determine the success of any language program. If teachers are going to hone their teaching skills, deepen their knowledge and develop professionally, they must receive proper support. To that end, the editors of this current issue were involved in creating the Center for English as a Lingua Franca Journal. All teachers in the ELF Program were invited to submit an academic article or research paper for consideration of publication in this Journal. For teachers, publication in this Journal represents a chance to add to their professional resume, but more importantly this is a platform for ELF teachers to share ideas and add value to our new Center for English as a Lingua Franca.
In this issue, Thomas Saunders and Kensaku Ishimaki explore student perceptions of extensive watching of films with English subtitles. Corazon Kato reports on her experiences promoting ELF awareness in her university World Englishes class. Blagoja Dimoski introduces an ELF-aware approach to listening comprehension tasks. And lastly, two excellent ELF teachers introduce some practical activities for the ELF classroom. Arup Pandey introduces Podcasts and Michel Seko describes some communicative applications for student business cards. In closing, I would like to thank Tamagawa University for their continued financial support, the authors for their valuable contributions, the reviewers who dedicated their time and knowledge to the blind review process, and the editors for their direction and management.
March 2016
Masaki Oda, Ph.D. Director, CELF

The article responds to the emerging need for a general framework for ELF (English as a lingua franca) teacher education that would appropriately inform and sensitize ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) practitioners about ELF teaching matters. The teacher education model put forward is based on the transformative framework for adult education suggested by Mezirow and has five phases. The framework aims at bringing about the much-needed paradigm shift in postmodern ESOL pedagogy by transforming ESOL teachers' worldviews about English and English language pedagogy and empowering them in bringing about the necessary changes in their own teaching context.

- by Nicos C. Sifakis
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- Transformative Learning, Teacher Education, English as a Lingua Franca, ELF

Even though it is recognized as the macro-language skill most strongly correlated with the rapid development of foreign language skills, listening is reported to be the most under-researched and the most neglected by foreign language teachers. Motivated by our will to improve as L2 listening teachers, we embarked on an action research project aiming to develop a series of listening training approaches based on contemporary listening research. Focusing on a combination of metacognitive, top-down and bottom-up strategies, twelve English as a lingua franca-informed listening training activities were implemented at a private Japanese university. This paper provides a review of the listening training program for 147 Japanese students. It considers pre and post-program listening assessment, student perceptions of their self-efficacy as L2 listeners, teachers" observations and student reactions to the explicit training program. While the program was received favorably by students, as indicated by their positive stance towards listening and communicating in English at the end of the treatment, no improvement in listening test scores was observed.

At the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF), students interact with teachers and tutors who have different first languages and cultural backgrounds. The CELF goals are to raise student awareness of the use of language in such ELF contexts and to develop an ELF-oriented curriculum. ELF research has put forth a range of pedagogical implications. Suggestions by ELF researchers include exposing students to a “wide range of English” (Björkman, 2013, p. 191), and “promoting interactions among students themselves in the classroom” (Matsumoto, 2011, p. 110). Students should be encouraged with opportunities to engage in meaningful tasks which promote the use of such strategies as repetition, paraphrasing, clarification checks and “collaborative completion of utterances in their interactions as they negotiate meaning and co-construct understanding in English” (Kaur, 2014, p. 159). A research project incorporating these ELF insights has been developed and project-based learning (PBL) was chosen as the pedagogical approach as it provides for communication and group collaboration similar to real-world situations. Student interaction with tutors and in focus group discussions (FGD) from two classes were recorded and transcribed for analysis of their use of strategies in order to maintain efficacy in communication. Results from pre- and post-project questionnaires on student beliefs regarding their use of strategies are also discussed.

In this report, the authors will describe the different faculty training and development initiatives aimed at promoting effective instruction in our ELF classes. This will be followed by a detailed report on the center's research... more

This study investigated native Amharic speaking Ethiopian EFL learners' detection and recognition of English segmental phonemes, which are foreign to their first language Amharic, and yet that are used distinctively and functionally in the target language input. The study targeted English vowels and consonants tentatively predicted as contrastive based on problem areas of English pronunciation for Amharic speaking learners. These are short vowels /ae, ʌ, ə, ɒ/; long vowels /i:, a:, ɔ:, u:, ɜ:/; diphthongs /eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ, əʊ, ɪa, eə, ʊə/; and consonants /, ð/. Sixty undergraduate students who speak Amharic as native language participated in this study by completing forced auditory tasks after listening to audio stimuli that presented target sounds in minimal pairs. The result showed that overall, English segmental phonemes that are foreign to the native language Amharic still exert severe perceptual difficulty for the learners even after more than twelve years of learning English. The findings also considered communication constraints that could stem from the learners' difficulty to distinguish foreign English phonemes, and to make meaning out of them in spoken English. This was evident in the learners' considerable failure to recognize the most familiar words in English when presented with English segmental phonemes. Findings of this study support particular attention and focus in EFL teaching on English pronunciation aspects which are foreign to the learners' native language, the importance of balancing perceptual as well as productive skills, and the need for developing L1-based, and empirically informed pronunciation syllabus for Ethiopian learners rather than using generic and intuitively produced pronunciation training materials.

A Morphosyntactic Study of EFL Students’ Written Compositions: A Corpus Based Analysis Sofiane... more

- by Arab World English Journal (AWEJ)
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- Academic Writing, Writing, Morphosyntax, Algeria

This institutional project focused on the integration of quality standards in teacher education in a public university that trains English teachers from a region of the Middle East with approximately $10,000 purchasing power parity (PPP). The institutional change under study consisted of integrating standards through electronic portfolios. Teacher training provides an opportunity for students to enhance their status, as English is an international language. However, language and culture are interconnected, which situates English as a tool for influence, persuasion, and a subtle form of colonization to concepts proper to Western societies. Indeed, language is more than communication: It represents experience and social attitudes and links knowledge with demands for group worth. This article focuses on the dynamics of change. Participatory Action Science (PAS) was used as a design for the study. Participants documented their activity and were interviewed during the collaborative changes. The focus is on the clash between male and female positioning during the innovation process. The article is a reflection on how globalization shakes traditional obedience networks based on gender, how it impacts cultural change, and how it typifies seats of resistance.

- by Francois V Tochon
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- Languages, Gender Studies, Language Education, Migration

In 2014, the Centre for English as
Lingua Franca (CELF) was established
to house Tamagawa University’s new
English program and tutor service. In
2015 the English teaching program
expanded to serve students campuswide,
with approximately 2,500 students
being taught by over 40 instructors
from around the globe. Aware of the
deep-rooted, native English speaker
bias and norms common not only in
Japan, a conscious decision was made by
Tamagawa University to seek qualified,
professional English language teachers
from outside the inner circle (Kachru,
1985) countries. Since the early piloting
of the ELF program in 2012, CELF faculty
have been working hard to promote
initiatives in raising ELF awareness,
improving teaching practices and
research in language education. The
collection of articles in this journal
represents the research and work from
a handful of those ELF teachers,
each of whom come from a different
English speaking background (L1 and L2).
It is the teachers, their personal beliefs
and principles, who determine the
success of any language program. To
that end members of the CELF leadership
group have been working hard to
provide opportunities for the teaching
faculty (full-time and part-time) to
hone their teaching skills, deepen
their knowledge about ELF and develop
professionally. Since 2014, the editors
have staged two teacher’s research
forums, an ELF symposium as well as a
number of other events in collaboration
with JALT and JACET. These events have
created a context to promote good
scholarship, and more importantly,
they provided a place for teachers to
share teaching ideas and professional
research. In conjunction with these
events, CELF faculty edited and published
two journal issues in collaboration with
the Journal of Saitama City Educators
(JSCE) in 2014. In April, 2015 we
published the inaugural issue of The
Center for ELF Journal. This, our third
collaborative issue with JSCE represents
another chance for our teachers to add
to their professional resume, but more
importantly, this journal issue is an
opportunity for ELF teachers to share
practical teaching ideas for the ELF
classroom and add value to our Center.
In this issue, michelangelo Magasic
reviews the application Movieclips.com
whilst highlighting the way in which
online streaming video has overcome
many of the challenges traditionally
associated with film use in the classroom.
Jody Yuri Yujobo looks at formative
assessments in project based learning
and shares some practical methods
in measuring 21st century skills and
global competency. Sharon Ishizaki
introduces NeuroELT and demonstrates
how NeuroELT can inform a language
teacher’s practice in the classroom.
Arup Pandey offers a solution to
students experiencing cognitive
overload during vocabulary instruction
in the ELF classroom. And lastly, Kaori
Aono reviews three English learner
dictionaries.
Once again, we have learned a lot in
putting this third issue together. We
hope that some of these creative ideas
will embolden you to try something new
in your classroom this year.
http://www.saitamacityeducators.org/journal-of-saitama-city-educators/

- by Kurt Kohn
- •
- English language teaching, ELT, ELF, English as a lingua franca (ELF)

The overarching philosophy of The Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) is that the quality of our teaching will determine the success of our new English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) program. As a result of the hiring policy of the center, whereby teachers need not be native English speakers, a very diverse group of 45 teachers has been assembled. This diversity represents a valuable resource for faculty development as all teachers bring different cultural, educational, and language learning backgrounds (e.g., Ukraine, India, Korea, The Philippines, New Zealand, Ireland, and Turkey). In this report, we describe the variety of faculty training and development activities completed during the 2015 academic year and also share the center’s research achievements.

Extending earlier research on the concept of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) (e.g., MacIntyre et al., 1998), this paper tests the WTC concept on a secondary school in Singapore where English is used as a lingua franca. In doing so, a layer of complexity is added to the WTC concept. By focusing on classroom interactions involving one immigrant student from China and examining how her WTC changes over the course of a school year, this paper argues that the sociolinguistic notion of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) can enhance earlier conceptualizations of WTC. Such a theoretical and methodological renovation of WTC is vitally important in order to take into account the lived and learning experiences of immigrant students in an increasingly globalized education landscape.

- by Peter De Costa
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- ELF
- by Jona Putri
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- Information Systems, Communication, Electronic publishing, Economic Growth

M-reader is a free Internet site which helps educational institutions to manage extensive reading (ER). It enables teachers to verify that students have read and understood graded reader books. This is achieved by students taking online quizzes designed to test their understanding of a book’s plot and characters, rather than how well they remember the book. Teachers and students can easily track the number of books and the number of words read. M-reader, established with the help of research funds from Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan and the Japanese Ministry of Education, was first made available online in March 2013 and is now used by educational institutions in 26 countries. In numerous contexts, teachers would like to conduct additive ER (extensive reading done outside of class time). Additive ER can only be widely used if effective measures are taken to ensure student accountability without overloading teachers or taking too much class time. M-reader meets these conditions. It also allows modification of several parameters to suit the needs of students. This paper outlines some principles of extensive reading, introduces the functions of M-reader, and reports students’ perceptions of M-reader during a pilot program for M- reader in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) classes at a private university in Tokyo. The authors hope that this paper can be used as a reference for English language teachers who are considering using M-reader to manage their extensive reading program.

- by Brett ブレット Milliner ミリナー
- •
- MOODLE, Extensive Reading, ESP, EFL. CALL, CALL

This teaching article introduces an extensive listening homework component designed around the website, ELLLO <elllo.org>, a listening training repository featuring non-native English speakers. Students were asked to self-select listening texts from the ELLLO website and complete a short listening log entry for homework. In-class listening activities also featured ELLLO texts. Along with promoting this website for developing ELF students' listening skills, the authors hope this article will prompt teachers to consider introducing non-native speaker listening texts in their ELF classrooms to promote listening fluency and more effectively illustrate English use in international settings.

- by Brett ブレット Milliner ミリナー
- •
- Psychology, English, Extensive Reading, Teaching EFL
- by Manoj Kumar Paras
- •
- Engineering, Ionosphere, Lightning, Physical sciences
- by Etienne Sokal
- •
- Pediatrics, Obesity, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Life Style

Communication breakdowns have deservedly been attracting the interest of researchers, as they constitute important factors influencing the process of linguistic interaction and language acquisition. Not only do they affect the process of communication per se, but also have other, often serious, consequences. Particular interest should be accorded to the process of achieving—and failing to achieve—understanding when English is spoken as a vehicular language.
We present the results of the first comprehensive analysis of the complete conversations subcomponent of the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), focusing on the i) possible causes of communication breakdowns, and ii) strategies employed by speakers in order to both prevent and overcome such failures. We categorise and show the distribution of the sources of 122 detected breakdowns as well as the compensatory strategies employed by interlocutors to successfully avert and solve communication problems.
All of the material was examined in search of characteristic features and communication breakdowns. These were then analysed in detail with regard to what caused the failures and how they were resolved, or at least how the speakers attempted to resolve them. Finally, the remaining data were again scrutinised in search of preventative strategies.
The chapter concludes with pedagogical recommendations.

- by Michał B. Paradowski and +1
- •
- Discourse Analysis, Communication, Intercultural Communication, Sociolinguistics

The purpose of the article " Elf's – fantastic creatures in the Nordic mythology " is an attempt to answer a question: who were creatures called Alfar in the old-Nordic language? Despite the term Elf (Alfar) appears quite often in the Nordic mythology the answer is so difficult, as there is no any description of those creatures. The first and the second part of the article presents the terminology and overview of Nordic cosmology. The third part describes role of Elfs in the Nordic mythology taking into consideration ambiguity of " Alfar's " idea. The fourth part of the article is a an attempt to answer a question if a Nordic term " Alfar " is equal to Anglo-Saxon " Aelf " and what is the common characteristic of creatures described by this term.

- by Wojciech Jerzy Górczyk
- •
- ELF, Mitologia Nordica, Nordic Mythology, Elf's

Smartphones, and their potential applications for mobile assisted language learning (MALL), signal a shift in classroom paradigms. Given the ubiquity of smartphones and the increasing availability of digitized text, the reading experience for second language learners is one domain susceptible to change and new opportunities. Research into extensive reading (ER) through the medium of mobile devices is only an emerging area of study in the English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) classroom. This paper will report on the initial stages of an ongoing pilot test of X- Reading® (<www.xreading.com>), a new learning management system (LMS) devoted specifically to extensive reading at a private university in Tokyo, Japan. Participants in this study have access to a virtual library of graded readers and are being explicitly asked to read on their mobile devices. This paper reports on pre-pilot questionnaire data and it compares students’ word-per-minute and reading comprehension tests scores for reading on their personal mobile devices and a paperback book. Readers can learn about the implementation of X- Reading® in a university ELF program, reflect on student attitudes towards reading digitally and consider the challenges in implementing a digital extensive reading component whereby students are asked to read on their personal electronic devices.

- by Mick Randall
- •
- Sociolinguistics, Arabic, Lingua Franca, Education Policy

We have been invited to contribute a brief comment on Éva Illés' (ÉI) paper titled " Issues in ELF-aware teacher education. " First of all, we feel we should express our gratitude to ÉI for focusing on our proposal for what we have termed ELF-aware teacher education (ELFATE) and for raising a series of stimulating issues that are of particular importance and relevance, not only for teacher education but for pedagogy as well. As ÉI acknowledges, and as we have repeatedly claimed, ELF research has developed so significantly in the past few years that it is high time teacher educators started thinking about how the issues it has raised could be communicated to teachers of English as a second or foreign language (in our own research we choose to focus on the EFL paradigm, which is a context we know much better). In her paper, ÉI raises a number of concerns regarding the integration of transformative learning theory (TLT) in our ELFATE proposal that we would like to respond to, in an attempt to contribute to the discussion. In the limited space available, we have decided to briefly touch upon two concerns raised in ÉI's paper: 1. What justifies the transformative framework for an ELF-aware pedagogy and teacher education? 2. How does our proposal cater for the shortcomings of transformative learning theory? We would like to underline that, for us, ELF research offers an unprecedented opportunity for teacher reflection and development, and it is with these as ultimate aims that we design our ELF-aware courses. In fact, we would go as far as to say that we view ELFATE as a window to what has been termed the " post-EFL " paradigm...

- by Nicos C. Sifakis and +1
- •
- Transformative Learning, Teacher Education, English as a Lingua Franca, Teaching EFL

English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) refers to the use of English as a contact language between people who have different first languages, including native English speakers (Jenkins, 2014). “ELF is simultaneously the consequence and the principal language medium of globalizing processes” (Jenkins, Cogo, & Dewey, 2011, p. 303). In connection with Tamagawa University’s goals to enhance education from global perspectives, the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) at Tamagawa University piloted in 2012 and officially commenced in 2014. The CELF has continually promoted initiatives in raising ELF awareness, improving teaching practices, and researching language education. The objectives of this article are to (1) share CELF’s understanding of ELF; (2) report on student classroom-related activities and teacher professional development initiatives; (3) analyze student and teacher survey results; (4) present TOEIC results; and, (5) discuss future developments in the program.

The paper concentrates on the concerns that EFL teachers working in state schools of expanding-circle countries have in their personal “journey” towards coming to understand and appreciate the implications that the global English situation is raising for their classrooms. It is presumed that these concerns can create hindrances and obstacles that these teachers cannot disregard. In this paper we distinguish between and expand upon two types of such hindrances, objective and subjective ones. It is argued that teachers should become aware of these potential hindrances and actively work towards understanding what is involved in integrating global English in their day-to-day teaching practices. More specifically, we report the findings of a survey of 388 primary and secondary state-school EFL teachers in Greece on how they perceive themselves both as practitioners and as active users of and experts in different domains of the target language. Based on the results of the survey, we aim to isolate those characteristics that in-service teacher training programmes should focus on in order to raise teachers’ awareness of the importance of integrating an understanding of global or lingua franca English as a means of empowering both themselves and their learners.

- by Nicos C. Sifakis
- •
- Teacher Education, Critical Pedagogy, English as a Lingua Franca, Global English