Challenges in teaching ELF in the periphery: the Greek context

Abstract

The paper presents a notional account of the challenges facing the introduction of English as an international lingua franca (ELF) curriculum in the state schools of the expanding circle, taking Greece as a case in point. It broadly delineates an ELF curriculum as one focusing on the skills necessary for carrying out successful communication involving non-native speakers and then highlights a set of challenges linked to both teaching context and teachers' perceptions of professional identity. It focuses on challenges related to three facets of the professional identity of academically trained Greek state school EFL teachers, namely, their roles as users, specialists, and, ultimately, custodians of English for their learners and wider community. These facets are discussed with reference to a description of the country's current sociolinguistic and educational profile. The paper concludes with an overview of the strengths of an ELF curriculum for Greek state schools and discusses implications for ELF teacher education.

Turkish EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of English as a Lingua Franca

“…Another finding related to pronunciations different from Standard English (e.g., adding a vowel between two consonants, pronouncing long vowels short) was that most of the participants felt these different usages as unacceptable. This result is in line with the previous studies in the field stating the tendency of teachers for native-speaker pronunciation (Kuo,2006;Timmis, 2002;Sifakis, 2009).…”

“…Research into teachers' and learners' attitudes towards ELF has shown that even though EFL teachers are aware of the importance of the ELF paradigm, they are in favor of a native speaker-oriented perspective when teaching the language (Kuo, 2006;Sifakis, 2009;Timmis, 2002). For example, Timmis (2002), in his study, found that most of the participant students saw native speaker pronunciation as a 'benchmark of achievement'.…”

English or Englishes? Outer and Expanding Circle Teachers’ Awareness of and Attitudes towards their Own Variants of English in ESL/EFL Teaching Contexts

“…For example, in Japan (McKenzie, 2008;Suzuki, 2011), in Korea (Ahn, 2014;McDonald & McRae, 2010;Young & Walsh, 2010), in Denmark (Ladegaard & Sachdev, 2006); in Greece (Sifakis, 2009;Sifakis&Sougari, 2005), in Taiwan (Huang, 2016;Luo, 2016), in Hong Kong (Zhang, 2013), in China (Meilin& Xiaoqiong, 2006, in Norway (Rindal 2010), in Europe (Groom, 2012) and in Iran (Sharifian, 2009(Sharifian, , 2010. Overall, these studies have shown tendencies concerning degree of awareness of other varieties of English, preferences towards these varieties, as well as their social and cultural meanings.…”

Knowledge Base of Pronunciation Teaching: Staking Out the Territory

“…Similarly, how might teachers' institutional contexts interact with their beliefs and practices in teaching pronunciation in ESL or EFL contexts? Sifakis (2009), for example, made the point that existing sociolinguistic and educational conditions in expanding circle countries led many EFL teachers to prefer to teach a variety of English that conformed to standard inner-circle norms. A second set of questions frequently researched in L2TC focuses on the development of teachers' cognitions and/or pedagogical practices.…”