ELF and teacher education: attitudes and beliefs

Abstract

AbstractThe growing relevance of research in English as a lingua franca (ELF) for ELT has led to a need to rethink the way we approach English in the language classroom and to reassess how we configure knowledge about language in teacher education. This article reports on a joint project initiated in 2017 at King’s College London (UK) and the University of Malaga (Spain), exploring the value of perceptions towards language and ELF among language teachers. Our goal was to promote reflective attitudes towards linguistic diversity, language change and the potential impact of ELF on developments in ELT. We present here the results of an online survey that participants took after only two sessions into their training. Our findings link ELT practitioners’ teaching priorities to an ELF orientation because there was a higher number of participants who aligned with statements about pedagogic approaches where successful communication is emphasized above accuracy (42/72), and statements that favour fostering experimentation with linguistic forms (53/72) and promoting students’ L1 sociocultural identity (54/72).