Ideologies and attitudes of Spanish pre-service teachers on ELF

Abstract

Abstract The emergence of English as a tool for global communication among multilingual speakers poses relevant challenges to traditional ways of learning and teaching the language. To this end, teacher education becomes of crucial importance not only to raise students’ awareness of the global status of the language, but also to align their practices in a way that respond to the changes brought about by English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research, from an Anglocentric and monolingual-based perspective to a pluricentric representation of English in multilingual environments. In this paper, we intend to unearth the ideology and attitudes towards English as a global lingua franca held by 569 pre-service teachers through a survey addressed to students in English-related university BA and MA degrees across Spain. The survey seeks to explore the impact on pre-service teachers’ views and attitudes towards the language of the following factors: (i) study-abroad experience; (ii) attendance to courses promoting ELF-awareness; (iii) current year of study. The findings suggest that a positive effect is found at the level of ideology; however, participants are less prone to adhere to principles of ELF-aware teaching when practically evaluating non-standard forms.