The Impact of ELF Concepts on Pre-service English Teachers: Instructor and Student Perspectives

Abstract

English as a lingua franca (ELF) first emerged in the academic literature at the end of the 20th century. Since then, there has been an ever-increasing amount of research devoted to this topic. This line of research has identified new challenges that educators will likely face as their previous training and current practice might not match the changing landscape of English language use. ELF research has yielded new information related to how individuals communicate in an ELF context; therefore, most researchers have emphasized the need to fully explore the pedagogical impact of the findings from ELF research (Jenkins, 2006; Jenkins, Cogo & Dewey, 2011; Mauranen, 2012).

University Students’ Attitudes towards English as a Lingua Franca in a Multilingual Sustainable Society

“…Future research may explore gender differences in the context of Macao. Third, as is indicated in this study, courses introducing ELF concepts have an effect on people's perceptions, so future research on the effects of those courses on people's ELF perceptions in the context of Macao is warranted [16].…”

“…Based on previous studies in other societies, there are a variety of factors that may play a role in affecting people's ELF attitudes, such as (a) academic interest (e.g., major), which may cause different English learning goals or motivation for different individuals [16,17]; (b) academic background, which may cause different English education experience [18]; (c) intercultural communication experience [19]. Therefore, it is critically important to take those factors into consideration when investigating students' attitudes towards ELF.…”

“…Therefore, it would be good for English teachers to implement some courses introducing ELF concepts [36], or integrate relevant concepts into English teaching and learning. In addition, they can design seminars or online discussion, which includes different varieties of English [16,56]. In summary, these teaching methods may be effective in helping EFL learners to obtain the ability to adapt to the real intercultural communication.…”

“…In short, it is of great importance to investigate people's attitudes towards ELF in this multilingual society in the context of globalization and rapid economic development, and thus, to provide implications for English teaching practitioners and policy makers to improve Macao students' English communication skills. In addition, previous studies indicated that the factors influencing people's ELF attitudes included: academic interest (such as majors and individual English learning goals caused by majors) [16,17]; English education experience caused by academic background [18]; and intercultural communication experience [19]. Current Macao university students receive the same education in Macao, but they may come from different regions and have different academic interest and different intercultural communication experience.…”

Understanding Sustainable Development of English Vocabulary Acquisition: Evidence from Chinese EFL Learners

“…Another limitation was that this model was based on Taiwanese English majors and may not be readily applicable to mainland Chinese EFL learners. First, students from different academic backgrounds may have different learning motivation and different English proficiency [27,28], which may lead to differences in vocabulary acquisition. The participants in this previous study were English majors, whereas participants in the present study are English minors.…”