An investigation of pre-service EFL teachers’ attitudes towards speakers from three circles of English

Year 2019, , 123 - 139, 25.03.2019

Sevdeğer Çeçen Hande Serdar Tülüce

https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.547664

Abstract

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Title of the paper (Capitalize only the first letter of the title and proper nouns)
This study investigated World Englishes from the perspectives of non-native pre-service teachers in Turkey. More specifically, the study explored how EFL pre-service teachers evaluated speakers from different countries of origin, representing the different circle in Kachru’s (1985) model, either positively or negatively. To elicit their perceptions of the speakers’ English accents, we asked them to listen to audio-recordings of six different speakers representing Kachru’s Three Circles of English, reading the same passage, and then to discuss which variety they were familiar with and which one they would prefer. Pre-service teachers’ orientations towards speakers from different varieties emerged under the following themes: (i) native speakerism, (ii) intelligibility, (iii) reference to own experience, (iv) potential ownership and (v) potential professional awareness. The findings suggest that, although they were starting to develop professional awareness regarding different varieties of English, to broaden their experience of varieties, and even to develop a potential ownership, they still revealed a tendency to conform to the native-speaker norms and to rate speaker intelligibility according to these norms. We argue that revisiting language teacher education programmes to address the current sociolinguistic reality of English is a must.
Information about Author(s)*
Author 1
Author (Last name, First name)	Çeçen, Sevdeğer
Affiliated institution (University)	İstanbul Bilgi University
Country	Turkey
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	English Language Teacher Education
Corresponding author (Yes/No) Write only one corresponding author.	Yes
Author 2
Author (Last name, First name)	Serdar Tülüce, Hande
Affiliated institution (University)	İstanbul Bilgi University
Country	Turkey
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	English Language Teacher Education
Corresponding author (Yes/No)	No
Author 3
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Author 4
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Keywords

World Englishes, teacher education, pre-service teacher attitudes

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