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Connecting English wor(l)ds and classroom practices.
... Findings could then be discussed in groups, followed by a reflection on the roles and functions English plays in their local context (for the linguistic landscape cf. Sayer 2010; Vettorel 2010a Vettorel , 2014); @BULLET identify and monitor, through specific guidelines and follow-up activities, the communicative strategies they have used in interacting with their partners on the web, whether in educational (e.g., eTwinning or Tandem) or in their private exchanges. Their comments may then become the object of group activities where learners report and compare the strategies used, through their functions as well as their effectiveness. ...
Research on ELT textbooks has repeatedly shown that materials have traditionally tended to focus on ‘established’ and standard representations of language, most often presenting British — and to a certain extent American — Standard varieties as the sole valid exemplifications of the English language, failing ‘to acknowledge the increased use of English among non-native speakers of English’ (Matsuda 2012a: 171). This approach has contributed to the promotion of a simplified monolithic view of the English language; furthermore, given the diversification brought about by the spread of English at a global level, it has been argued (e.g. McKay 2002, 2003; Matsuda 2003, 2012b; Seidlhofer 2004, 2011; Dewey and Leung 2010) that such an approach does not adequately prepare learners for the dynamic variety and plurality they will meet as English users.
This practical resource book showcases both the theory and practical application for teacher educators in diverse contexts bringing a global Englishes perspective into their teacher education courses, both at pre- and in-service levels. The recent Global Englishes paradigm serves as a promising response to the complexity of identity, interaction, use, and instruction surrounding the English language. It is increasingly important to enhance teachers’ knowledge base—their specialized knowledge, skills, competencies, and commitments—vis-à-vis the changing needs of English Language Teaching. The chapters in the book provide accessible theoretical orientation to different aspects of the Global Englishes paradigm, from instructional materials to language assessment, and are complemented by a range of practical applications that promote teacher development. The volume is recommended as a viable professional development resource for teacher educators who are looking for activities and resources in preparing teachers for diverse teaching contexts, realities, affordances, and constraints.
The cultural dimension of foreign and second language use and teaching has risen in prominence since the 1980s. More recently there has been much interest in and debate concerning the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF). However, there has been little empirical investigation into what communication through ELF might mean for an understanding of the relationships between languages and cultures. This article reports on a qualitative study investigating seven users of English in a higher education setting in Thailand engaged in intercultural communication. Analysis of these examples of intercultural communication, together with the participants' metadiscussions of culture, revealed cultural frames of reference perceived of and made use of in a hybrid, mixed, and liminal manner, drawing on and moving between global, national, local, and individual orientations. Although the limited number of instances reported means that further research is needed to confidently make generalisations, it is suggested that cultural forms, practices, and frames of reference through ELF may be viewed not as a priori defined categories, but as adaptive and emergent resources which are negotiated and context dependent. Therefore, ELF needs to move beyond the traditionally conceived target language—target culture relationship to incorporate an awareness of dynamic hybrid cultures and the skills to successfully negotiate them.
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.
Claire Kramsch is Professor of German and Affiliate Professor of Education at the University of California at Berkeley, California USA, where she teaches and directs Ph.D. dissertations in applied linguistics. She has published widely on the relationship of discourse and culture as well as on language, identity, and subjectivity in foreign language education. Her books include: Discourse analysis and second language teaching (1981), Interaction et discours dans la classe de langue (1984), Reden, mitreden, dazwischenreden. Managing conversations in German (1985), Context and culture in language teaching (1993), Redefining the boundaries of language study (1995), Language and culture (1998), Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives (2002). In 1998, she received the Goethe Medal from the Goethe Institute for her work on language and culture. She is the past president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and a past editor of Applied Linguistics.
Cultural awareness (CA) has emerged over the last few decades as a significant part of conceptualizing the cultural dimension
to language teaching. That is, L2 users need to understand L2 communication as a cultural process and to be aware of their
own culturally based communicative behaviour and that of others. However, while CA has provided a vital base of knowledge
in relation to the cultural aspects of language use and teaching, it is still rooted in a national conception of culture and
language. This is problematic given that English is now used as a global lingua franca. Intercultural awareness (ICA) is presented
here as an alternative ‘non-essentialist’ view of culture and language that better accounts for the fluid and dynamic relationship
between them. Key components of ICA are discussed along with their relevance to ELT practices and suggestions as to how they
can be translated into classroom pedagogy.
The presence of English in Europe is increasingly pervasive: experiences “from above” in educational contexts combine with contacts with English “from below” in the linguistic landscape at large. In educational contexts, international school partnerships create increasingly frequent opportunities for learners at different school levels to experience language use in ELF contexts. International exchanges can thus be seen as a point of intersection between bottom-up and top-down contact with English, where learners step into the role of ELF users deploying their linguistic resources to communicate in international ELF settings.
This paper explores how English is used in its role of a lingua franca in a set of written and spoken data gathered within two such international projects which took place in the Verona area, Italy, in school years 2009–2011. As part of the project primary school pupils aged 9–11 interacted with peers from European countries using English as the shared lingua franca of communication. Besides the children's awareness of the presence of English and of the role of ELF in outside-school contexts, these interactions are characterised by several elements which are found in ELF communicative settings: for example, lexical innovations, code switching employed to signal cultural identity, and deployment of pragmatic strategies in oral communication. In this way these young ELF users appear to stretch their linguistic resources of self-expression and communication. Therefore, findings can bear significant potential implications in terms of teaching practices.
The omnipresence of English in Europe has led to numerous discussions about its widespread functions and special status compared to all other European languages. Yet, many of these discussions conceive of Europe as a group of nation states where English is either a first or a foreign language. This chapter seeks to question this well-established distinction by investigating what is in fact the most common use of English in Europe, namely English as a lingua franca (ELF). The chapter suggests a different way of conceptualizing the language in European contexts and provides an updated overview of empirical research into its lingua franca use. Examples of a particular approach to ELF research are provided in the form of two case studies focussing on different aspects of ELF interactions. These studies demonstrate how users of ELF exploit the possibilities intrinsic in the language to achieve their own communicative purposes. Finally, the chapter highlights some future directions for linguistic research and addresses the challenges that the emergence of ELF poses for various areas of applied linguistics.
This article discusses the idea of linguistic landscape and describes a small-scale research project undertaken in a local
EFL community in Mexico using public signs to analyse the social meanings of English. The author presents a framework that
distinguishes between intercultural and intracultural uses, as well as iconic and innovative uses of English on signs. He
also identifies six social meanings represented on the signs and uses photographs to illustrate each meaning. He argues that
the project is useful both for thinking about the innovative ways people use the language in local contexts and as a template
for a classroom-based project that teachers can implement that engages EFL students in investigating and talking about social
language use. The conclusion presents an approach for using the linguistic landscape as a pedagogical resource in the EFL
classroom which casts the students as language investigators and offers ideas for extension activities that connect the language
classroom to the streets of the learners’ community.
This chapter shows just how deeply affected English has already been through its unprecedented spread, and the unique function it has as the world language. It argues, however, that it would be premature to launch into a discussion of the teaching of this lingua franca before certain prerequisites have been met. The most important of these are a conceptualization of speakers of lingua franca English as language users in their own right, and the acknowledgment of the legitimacy of, and indeed the need for, a description of salient features of English as a lingua franca (ELF), alongside English as a native language (ENL). The presentation summarizes the empirical research into the lingua franca use of English, which has recently gathered considerable momentum. It sets this research in relation to other relevant work in descriptive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics for language pedagogy. Finally, it discusses the implications of this historically unique situation for potential developments in the pedagogy of English teaching and outlines some research questions that must be addressed if advances in the teaching of English as a lingua franca are to have a secure theoretical and descriptive base.
This chapter is concerned with the role English plays as a lingua franca in Europe used by Europeans as a means of communication
among themselves and with others. This extension of the use of English and its de facto status as an auxiliary language for
global communicative purposes rather than as a traditional foreign language is widely acknowledged and discussed. However,
current ways of thinking about English and its learning and use have yet to take this radical change in the role of the language
fully into account. If the European ideals of individual plurilingualism and societal multilingualism are to be realized,
it is crucial to understand how English as a lingua franca (ELF) functions in complementary rather than competitive relation
to other languages. Such an understanding will depend on the fulfillment of two interrelated conditions: a) a proper conceptualization
of ELF as common property, essentially distinct from and independent of English as a native language; and b) an empirically-based description of the
linguistic properties of actual ELF usage. Such conceptualization and description will be prerequisites for adequately responding
to the changing demands and directions that European language policy and language education face at the beginning of the 21st
century.
Lingua franca interaction in English — those exclusively involving nonnative speakers — are common, everyday occurrences worldwide, yet have not been studied by conversation analysts. By examining the naturally-occurring, work-related talk of management personnel communicating in ‘lingua franca’ English, this paper explores a range of issues surrounding the applicability of conversation analytic methodology to lingua franca talk-data. While conversation analysis (CA) does provide a basic methodology through which we are able to describe in detailed ways how such interactions are sequentially and thus socially constructed, consideration of the data type itself allows us to cast new light on some of CA's methods and working assumptions. At the same time, the paper documents some of the various methods through which participants do international and discursive work to imbue talk with an orderly and ‘normal’ appearance, in the face of extraordinary, deviant, and sometimes ‘abnormal’ linguistic behaviour.
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From a National to a Transnational Paradigm, Multilingual Matters
- Karen Risager
- Culture Pedagogy
RISAGER, KAREN, , Language and Culture Pedagogy. From a National to
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EIL/ELF and Representation of Culture in Textbooks: only Food, Fairs, Folklore and Facts?
- Paola Vettorel
VETTOREL, PAOLA, a, "EIL/ELF and Representation of Culture in
Textbooks: only Food, Fairs, Folklore and Facts?", in C. Gagliardi
and A. Maley (eds.), EIL, ELF, Global English: Teaching and Learning
Issues, Peter Lang, Bern, pp.-.
English(es), ELF, Xmas and Trees: Intercultural Communicative Competence and English as a Lingua Franca in the Primary Classroom
- Paola Vettorel
VETTOREL, PAOLA, b, "English(es), ELF, Xmas and Trees: Intercultural
Communicative Competence and English as a Lingua Franca in the
Primary Classroom", Perspectives XXXVII (), pp. -.
Primary School Teachers' Perceptions: Englishes, ELF, Classroom Practices and International Partnerships
- Paola Vettorel
VETTOREL, PAOLA, b, "Primary School Teachers' Perceptions:
Englishes, ELF, Classroom Practices and International Partnerships",
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