Spanish and Swedish Pre-Service Teachers’ ELF User Attitudes Towards English and its Users

Abstract

ABSTRACT English as a lingua franca (ELF) is a well-known concept for English used as an international contact language among people from diverse linguacultural backgrounds. Using a questionnaire, we explored the attitudes of Spanish and Swedish pre-service primary school teachers towards English and its users after their collaboration on a virtual platform, during which they were ELF users. The findings showed that the ELF user attitudes of the two European student cohorts tended to be ambivalent, mixed, and self-contradictory. After discussing factors for participants’ attitudinal tendencies, we conclude that the ambivalence in their overall attitudes seems to mirror the ambivalence of the ‘double’ definitions of English in educational policy documents, which may affect the goals of teaching English in the classroom. We suggest that university teaching help pre-service teachers develop critical perspectives towards English and English users, as well as reflecting on why they teach English to their future pupils.