Abstract
English learning and teaching have taken many forms in the last years. It is studied as a foreign language and a second language, and with specific purposes in technical fields of knowledge. However, in a broader context, English has become the lingua franca of communication and business. This new paradigm has impacted how teachers and learners see the acquisition of English. While some people prefer native or native-like English learning models, others are getting away from it. That is, some prefer intelligible communication rather than native-likeness. Therefore, this quantitative non-experimental study examined international MA TESOL students' perspectives about their awareness of English as a lingua franca and investigated their aspirations and preferences as English learners. The sample was composed of 20 non-native English teachers. Data were collected through an online survey that examined teachers' preferred models of English, beliefs about the most conducive environments for learning English, aspirations for correctness, intelligibility, and fluency. The findings provided empirical evidence that non-native English teachers are aware of the different English varieties and that they recognize these varieties as valid forms of English. This study found that participants put a higher emphasis on intelligibility than on grammatical accuracy if they thought that certain utterances would not impede communication. However, the results revealed a dual orientation in participants' aspirations, where their strong preferences paradoxically contradicted their awareness of the diversity of English varieties and their emphasis on intelligibility for native-like models of pronunciation and lexical knowledge. The implications of this study suggest that TESOL teacher education programs should provide spaces for analysis of the role of ELF in international learning milieus.
Highlights
English has become the world's lingua franca
As for statement fourteen (S14), 57.9% of respondents agreed that people of different parts of the world would speak their English variety, 31.6% of them somewhat agreed, and only 10.5% disagreed with this statement
This section provides a discussion of the main trends found in the participants' perceptions of and attitudes towards experiences in ELF about the theoretical and empirical literature. They will be discussed in terms of: 1) Teachers' preferences for a model of English for themselves and their students, 2) Teachers' beliefs about the most conducive environments for English acquisition, 3) Teachers' views on the importance of accuracy versus intelligibility, and 4) Teachers' judgments of accuracy, acceptability, and intelligibility
Summary
English is the chosen language for a wide variety of settings where a neutral language is required It is used in international transportation, business, the media, the Internet, entertainment, science, and academia. We have observed that mater's programs in TESOL in the United States tend to promote more native and native-like varieties of English and teaching models. As the existing literature indicates, English as a lingua franca or English as an international language is a reality This fact has made some English learners and teachers try not to achieve native or native-like language competencies, but to achieve English proficiency skills that allow them to communicate with other English speakers worldwide regardless if their ways of speaking English is considered non-standard by some interlocutors
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