Integrating ELF awareness into pre-service teacher education: Insights from theory and practical experience

Abstract

This qualitative case study presents an in-depth analysis of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)-related reflections and teaching practices of ten pre-service teachers in an ELFaware teacher education course. The course consists of theory- and practice-based phases and aims to raise awareness of the ELF concept and the pedagogy of ELF through intensive theoretical training, continuous critical reflection, reflective interactions and active teaching practices. The study is significant since it is the first of its kind to design and investigate a sample process of ELF-aware pre-service teacher education. The data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, observations, audio and video recordings of lessons, responses to reflection questions based on the readings of the course and documents. According to the findings, participants’ ELF conceptualizations underwent substantial changes during the training: ELF was first defined as a global concept. At the end of the theoretical phase, it was defined as nonnative speakers’ use of English for communication characterized by intelligibility, their ownership of English and communicative advantages such as an increase in selfconfidence. At the end of the practice-based phase, ELF was perceived as a perspective that accepts the non-native use and users of English with their own variability. The participants integrated ELF into English lessons in explicit and implicit ways and reported both advantages and hindrances to ELF-aware pedagogy. Overall, they were found to be content with the program and all of them stated they were planning to incorporate ELF into their future teaching practices.