MY English: a social constructivist perspective on ELF

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, I address issues, concepts and empirical insights that have profoundly shaped my view of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and of the pedagogical lessons to be learned for English Language Teaching (ELT). Starting from discrepancies in my ELF identity as a speaker of English with ELT roots in a German secondary school, I argue for the social constructivist concept of MY English as a basis for understanding ELF competence development and the tensions surrounding the relationship between ELT and ELF. Continually shaped by speakers’ participation in ELF communication, relevant dimensions of their MY English profiles include linguistic-communicative-communal repertoires and requirements of performance, individual and social identity orientations, and confidence in their ELF creativity. Against this backdrop, I discuss topics I consider relevant for a much-needed pedagogical reconciliation of ELT with ELF. Special attention is given to teachers’ ELF apprehension and the distinction between a “strict” (quasi-behaviouristic) and an “open” (social constructivist) target language orientation, speaker satisfaction as a criterion of success in ELF communication, and teaching towards ELF competence from awareness raising to comprehension, production and interaction to non-native speaker emancipation. Successful ELF implementation in both ELT practice and ELT teacher education requires extensive and authentic involvement of students and teachers in ELF communication. Intercultural telecollaboration provides innovative means for creating a space for ELF communication in the ELT classroom. Pedagogical case studies about video and text chat conversations strongly support the assumption that using their common target language as a lingua franca significantly enableslearnersof English to develop an emancipated non-native speaker identity and thus to becomespeakersof English in their own right. And what is more, the pedagogical lingua franca approach can be successfully transferred to other foreign target languages as well. I conclude my article with a brief contextualization of the MY English concept in relation to translingual practice and ELF languaging.