An Investigation of Pre-Service English Teachers’ Awareness of English as a Lingua Franca and World Englishes

Year 2021, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 57 - 69, 30.06.2021

Samed Yasin Öztürk

Abstract

English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and World Englishes (WE) have appeared as a reaction to
the deep-rooted mentality that American and British English are the only ‘proper and
acceptable’ type of English in terms of teaching and learning. With the world’s recent
position as a ‘global village’, English language has become the lingua franca and this
situation has started heated debates on the ownership of English. The field of English
language teaching has been affected by these changes and many researchers have offered
drastic changes from curriculum to in-class materials in English language teaching. This
study aimed to investigate pre-service teachers’ awareness of ELF and WE concepts and
their intention of integrating these concepts in their future teaching practices. A
questionnaire was administered to 152 second, third-, and fourth-year pre-service teachers
to explore their views. Results of this study differed from most of the previous studies. It
was investigated that participating pre-service teachers were not only aware of the concept
of ELF and WE, but also, they were conscious of the necessity of integrating the principles of
ELF to teaching language in their classrooms.

Keywords

English as a Lingua Franca, World Englishes, Pre-service teachers, English Language Teaching

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