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79
Paola Vettorel
Young Learners’ Uses of ELF: Moving Beyond the Classroom Walls
AbstrAct:
This paper deals with data from a project carried out in three primary schools
in Italy, which appear characterized by several ELF-related processes such as
code-switching to signal cultural identity and pragmatic communicative strategies.
Findings from a follow-up study with primary school English teachers as to the
pedagogic implications of Englishes and ELF are also examined. Drawing from
both studies, it will be discussed how international school partnerships can foster
pedagogic approaches oriented at developing (intercultural) communication skills
and effectively communicating through English as a lingua franca.
Introduction
For younger generations, the foreign language classroom is increasing-
ly becoming one among the several settings where English is encountered.
Contact with this ‘global language’ takes place daily through the media
(TV, music, gaming), in the linguistic landscape, via tourism and inter-
national mobility, and even younger learners are likely to be familiar with
ELF contexts out of first-hand experience, for example while on holiday
or meeting tourists in their town. As in other European countries, par-
ticipation in projects related to Life Long Learning Programmes (LLLP)
has been growing at all levels of education also in Italy, with a significant
presence of primary schools particularly in eTwinning1. These interna-
tionally-oriented interactive spaces provide important opportunities for
learners to effectively step into the role of ELF users and familiarize with
ELF multilingual and multicultural contexts of language use.
Findings from a project carried out in three primary schools in Italy
(Vettorel, 2010, 2013a) suggest that young learners are highly motivated
to participate in such internationally-oriented contexts and to interact
with peers of other linguacultures about their cultural and personal worlds.
Both written and oral data from the project activities are characterized by
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several ELF-related communication processes, such as code-switching to
signal cultural identity, the creation of some non-standard lexical items,
as well as effective pragmatic communicative strategies. What is more, a
follow-up study with primary school English teachers (Vettorel, 2013b,
2015) shows that they are well aware of their students’ extended contact
with English and value international school partnerships as a cultural and
linguistic ‘window on the world’. Drawing on the data of both studies,
this paper discusses how international school partnerships can foster ped-
agogic approaches to develop intercultural communication skills and offer
opportunities for (young) learners to communicate through English in its
lingua franca role.
1. The ‘ELF & ICC’ Project
The ‘ELF & Intercultural Communicative Competence’ project was
developed over two school years (2009-2011) in three primary schools in
the Verona area; two of the classes involved in the initial phases of the proj-
ect also participated in internationally-oriented school activities, one with
an eTwinning project, and the other further developing the letter-exchange
with other European pupils undertaken the previous year, carrying out some
web-conference sessions with Swedish and Spanish classes, too.
The first phase of the project was aimed at fostering awareness of the
presence of English in the pupils’ linguistic environment, of its spread and
plurality, together with the lingua franca role it largely plays. Children
were guided to reflect upon their experiences of communication in lingua
franca contexts by mentioning several situations, from first-hand to family
experience (e.g. at the seaside, on holiday, meeting tourists in their town,
communicating with a sponsored child or with relatives living abroad), as
Figures 1 and 2 exemplify.
During the second part of the project, children were guided to dis-
cuss what they already knew about cultural representations related to
the English-speaking world: the hypothesis – largely confirmed – was
that, thanks to the increased opportunities offered by mobility and the
media, they would be well familiar with many iconic aspects of the ‘tar-
get culture’ that are so often included in textbooks – just to mention a
few, London and its monuments, the Royal Family, sports and traditions
(Vettorel, 2010, 2008). It was thus deemed that Internationally-oriented
school partnerships with peers living in other parts of Europe could con-
stitute interesting opportunities to develop on the one hand Intercultural
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
Fig. 1 – Experiences of ELF
Fig. 2 – Family experiences of ELF
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Communication (IC) skills, and on the other hand to use the language
they were learning in realistic (ELF) contexts with participants of different
linguacultures. Activities promoting communication were then developed
through English as a shared lingua franca, with the concurrent aim of
fostering ICC skills (Vettorel, 2010, 2013a).
Indeed, international partnerships are becoming part of educational
experiences at all school levels (Maddalena, 2011; European Commission,
2012), particularly through and thanks to the support of the EU LLLP in
its different actions, one of which is, since 2005, eTwinning. According to
recent data, eTwinning involves more that 170,000 teachers and 33 coun-
tries (Crawley, 2013: 86; cf. also European Commission/LLLP, 2013) with
about 122,637 enrolled schools and 63,140 teachers involved in projects as of
June 1st, 20142. Projects on eTwinning can be managed wholly online, from
identifying partners to setting up a project and carrying out communication
among teachers, as well as pupils, in the dedicated virtual space; the project
development phases and the final products can also be shared on the platform
dedicated spaces. The eTwinning website is indeed community-oriented: as
we read in the portal, it can be defined as «[t]he free and safe platform for
teachers to connect, develop collaborative projects and share ideas in Europe»
<http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm> (last access 08.02.2016). It
can thus be said to represent a particularly valuable tool to set up and manage
an international project (Vettorel, forthcoming). The platform can be accessed
in 26 languages, and English is most frequently employed as the in-common
language of projects, often alongside other languages known by the partici-
pants (Ansan-Indire, 2010; Crawley, Gerhard et al., 2010); given that English
is widely taught since primary school all over Europe, the lingua franca role it
plays in international school partnerships is hardly surprising.
And English was also the shared language of the European partici-
pants in the ‘ELF & ICC’ project; as mentioned, one school set up letter
exchanges, as well as web-conferences, with previous Comenius partners
and with other schools that were retrieved via the eTwinning platform;
letters were exchanged in relation to Christmas traditions and trees, and,
subsequently, through presentation letters with a Swedish class. The other
class, instead, engaged in an eTwinning Project about legends with three
schools from Poland, Latvia and Slovakia.
Records of all exchanges were kept by the teachers part of the Project
team, who jointly planned the activities within a collaborative Action
Research methodological framework (Vettorel, 2010). The dataset com-
prises about 23,500 words for written data (letters, e-mails), 540 for chat
conversations and 2,150 words for web-conferences3.
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
2. ELF-oriented communication
Given the internationally-oriented nature of the activities, set within a
communicative rather than a strictly school-task framework and involving
participants of different linguacultures, an ELF-oriented and qualitative
approach was undertaken for data analysis. The exchanges are characterised
by several traits that are common to ELF findings in other contexts, from lex-
ico-grammar to the use of code-switching to signal cultural identity (Vettorel,
2013a). The latter in particular will be taken into examination in the fol-
lowing sections, together with exemplifications of how these communicative
exchanges were not hindered by linguistic ‘deviances’ (e.g. dropping the 3rd
person –s morpheme in Simple Present verbs, or using a non-standard word
order in questions), but rather characterised by pragmatic communicative
strategies, particularly during the web-conferences.
2.1 Code-switching to express cultural elements
It has been shown that code-switching (CS henceforth) is natu-
rally employed in ELF interactions to various functions (Cogo, 2011;
Klimpfinger, 2007, 2009), among which signalling concepts and ideas
related the participants’ cultural worlds. This functional use of CS can be
detected in the data at several levels, both in the exchanges referring to
Christmas traditions – precisely in the ones dealing with trees typical of the
area where the Italian and Spanish children live – and in the presentation
letters to the Swedish partners by the Italian children.
Figure 3 below exemplifies the Christmas letters by Italian children: as
can be noticed, elements typically related to Italian traditional Christmas
food, such as panettone, zampone and pearà4 are expressed in Italian,
albeit with a translation, which is not provided for pasta and lasagne; it
can be inferred that, while the latter are internationally known, the need
for some explanatory notes was felt for the other lexical items in order to
make them comprehensible for children who, belonging to other cultures,
may not be familiar with these culturally-loaded concepts.
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In many cases, visual glossing is also provided for culturally-loaded
elements (Vettorel, 2013a); for instance, for local carols other elements
such as a ‘golden piglet’ or the Christmas food ‘carp’ are both expressed in
English and visually represented with a drawing in letters by Czech and
Polish children. This is likely to have been done to signal their relevance
and singularity to that culture, thus foregrounding their significance. Such
multilingual instances are particularly frequent in the data, and in the
Fig. 3 – Christmas letter (Italian)
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
great majority of cases they are accompanied either by a brief translation,
by an illustrative drawing, or by both.
Similar strategies can be found in the exchanges concerning the
typical trees in the Spanish and Italian regions where the pupils live,
as illustrated in Fig. 4 for Spanish children and Fig. 5 for Italian ones.
As can be noticed, the main strategy employed by the Spanish pupils is
glossing the code-switched elements with drawings, while Italian letters
are often characterized both by translations and drawings (Fig. 5). Fig. 4
shows particularly clearly that elements peculiar to the area (platanos), as
well as more general ones (flor, hoja de laurel) are frequently referred to
in Spanish. In the case of cork, both the more general tree name (quejia,
‘Quercus faginea’) and the cork tree (aconorque, ‘Quercus suber’, Fig.
4), which is typical of the area, are referred to in Spanish, while the final
product (cork) is provided in English and very frequently visually glossed.
In the above exemplifications, code-switching in the participants’ L1
signals elements that are likely to have been perceived as typical of their
cultural environment and linguacultural ‘world’; at times, however, other
languages are involved, too, especially in season’s greetings, where the
addressees’ L1 is used, together with English and other languages (e.g.
Fig. 4 – Trees (Spanish) Fig. 5 – Trees (Italian)
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French, Romanian, Greek). While on the one hand using the addressee’s
L1 can be seen as a sign of solidarity and rapport, the use of other LNs,
even if in quite formulaic chunks, could be ascribed to a wish to acknowl-
edge and mark the internationally-oriented and multilingual nature of
these European exchanges.
Other instantiations connected both to the children’s national identity
and to their worlds in terms of personal interests can be noticed in Fig.
6 and Fig. 7, part of the letter exchange activity with Swedish partners.
These examples illustrate the children’s strong wish to share with their
partners elements of their world they deem significant and salient. They
comprise food, both in its localized (as was seen for Christmas) and more
global dimension (pizza, hamburger, chips, sweet marshmallows), hobbies
(football, basketball), as well as aspects related to their national identity.
The latter is represented in these examples by the Italian flag; in several
other cases the messages contain also a reference to the President of Italy
(e.g. The President of Italy is Giorgio Napolitano), or visual representa-
tions of Italy as a boot, as it is often referred to in Italian (‘stivale’) due to
its shape. Code-switching seems once more to be employed to signal the
participants’ affiliation to their cultural worlds; at the same time, visual
and/or linguistic cues are provided to support intelligibility – in line with
ELF findings in other contexts (cf. e.g. Klimpfinger, 2007, 2009; Cogo,
2011). These code-switched elements can be seen as instantiations of how
multilingualism (rather than monolongualism) is an integral part of com-
municative practices in ELF settings, where bilinguals draw upon all their
linguistic repertoires as legitimate L2 users (Cook, 2002, 2007) to express
their intended meanings accordingly. In this perspective, rather than
(negative) transfer, the interrelation between L1 and L2 can be seen as
«bidirectional», drawing «on all kinds of resources (skills, knowledge and
strategies) available to learners» (Nikolov, Mihaljevic Djigunovic, 2011:
100), within a multicompetence rather than a deficit, ‘non-nativeness’
framework (e.g. Pavlenko, Norton, 2007: 676; cf. also Jenkins, 2006) and
the communicative aim to partake personal and linguacultural affiliations.
Indeed, these exchanges represented important opportunities to learn
about cultural aspects of their peers living in other European countries.
As will be seen below, the linguistic ‘deviances’ (when present) did not
prevent effective communication among the children, who enthusiastically
participated and were highly involved in the activities, both cognitively and
emotionally. Rather than book-based knowledge, they could learn from
their European partners elements of similarity and difference. This provid-
ed also the opportunity to reflect both on their own culture (especially as to
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Fig. 6 – Letters to Sweden (Italian)
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the elements of similarity), and to foster attitudes of curiosity and respect
towards ‘otherness’, relativising knowledge and attitudes (cf. Byram,
1997, 2008). Data from the Teacher’s Diary in relation to the ‘Christmas
around Europe’ activities show that both similarities and differences were
well highlighted in the final reflection activity: preparations for Christmas
Fig. 7 – Letters to Sweden (Italian)
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
(e.g. Christmas trees), religious traditions, singing carols and exchanging
presents are largely shared elements. Food, on the other hand, is much
more localised, as well as rituals for Christmas dinner / lunch and good
luck wishes on New Years’ Eve. The project activities represented thus an
opportunity for the development of intercultural awareness and sensitivity, as
well as reflection on the learners’ C1, not least in the description of traits of
their culture(s) to their partners. The contribution given by the children of
non-Italian origin was also fundamental in approaching otherness, fostering
a broader and more inclusive perspective in classroom practices (as it had
happened for Outer Circle Englishes in the activities related to awareness of
World Englishes, cf. Vettorel, 2010). The fact that English was the lingua
franca of these exchanges made communication possible; however, it did not
work as a homogenising language, but it rather allowed cultural similarities
and differences to emerge and to be shared in their own specificities.
2.2 Negotiating personal worlds – pragmatic features in oral data
The same wish to exchange ideas about personal worlds can be detect-
ed in the oral data from the web-conference between Italian and Spanish
children. The desire to communicate with their partners is well perceiv-
able: all pupils consistently asked to take the floor and actively cooperated,
supporting communication by providing translation of words into Italian,
advice on lexical items or in-common references, or suggesting appropriate
strategies, such as repetition or requests for clarification.
The topics the children dealt with are mainly related to their interests
(school subjects and activities, music, sports); some more communicative-
ly challenging subjects were tackled too, such as the funfair coming up
in the Spanish children’s town, and the class trips respectively to Madrid
and Venice. The sound quality in the web-conference was frequently
disturbed, and, despite the video helping in supporting interaction by
making it closer to face-to-face conversation, utterances were not always
fully intelligible, making the task even more demanding.
As the following extract exemplifies, pragmatic communicative fea-
tures appear to be well present even in such a small-sized corpus. Same-
speaker repetition, which in ELF talk secures recipient’s understanding in
case of misinterpretation (e.g. Kaur, 2009), emerges as a main strategy all
throughout the oral data, as shown in the following extract5:
Extract 1
103 T it: what’s your who’s your favourite singer?
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104 T sp: <un> xxx</un>
105 S1 sp: what’s that? <un> xx </un>
106 T it: your favourite singer?
107 T sp: <un> xx </un>
[…]
129 S1 it: who
130 T it: music repeat MUSIC MUSIC do you like (.)?
131 STS sp: <un> xx </un>
132 Sx it: <whispering> do you like </whispering>
133 S1 it: what is your favourite singer?
134 S1 sp: repeat please
135 T it: <loud>SINGER SINGER (.) WHAT GROUP?</loud>
136 S1 sp: ah
137 T it: he (.) eh eh eh @
138 T/STS sp: <un> xx </un> <6><un> xx </un></6>
139 S1 it: <in exasperation> <6>what is your favourite singer?</6>
140 STS it: @@@
141 T it: do you like rihanna do you like er
142 S1 it: <7>Do you like rihanna? katy perry</7>
143 T/STS sp: <7><un> xx </un></7> <un> xx </un>
144 S1 sp: jennifer lo (.)jennifer lopez
145 T it: <whispering> jennifer lopez </whispering>
146 T it: ok<8> ok<8> @ jennifer lopez ok M.S. @
147 S1 it: <8>ok<8>
In the previous turns the children had tried to deal with the topic
of their favourite singer, with direct requests for repetition going on for
several turns, as exemplified in line 134, where the imperative repeat is
mitigated by please and linguistically ‘geared’ to the children’s level of
proficiency in English. The original question is then repeated once more
in line 135 by the Italian teacher through a specification strategy, and then
in an exasperated tone by the child holding the floor (line 139). This is
followed by a burst of laughter by the other children that can be interpret-
ed as support to the strategy adopted by their mate. The teacher provides
an exemplification (line 141), which is promptly taken up by the child
holding the floor, who adds the name of another singer (142). An answer
is then given by the Spanish child (144), and confirmation of meaning
finally takes place at line 145 for which the Italian teacher and student
then signals comprehension (line 146, 147).
Among the several possible strategies to clarify meaning (exemplification,
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
definition, description, comparison, contrast, cf. e.g. Kaur, 2009: Chapter 6),
exemplification is the most frequent in the data, and it is often prompt-
ed by the teachers with hyponyms or hypernyms, as in line 135 above.
Given the still developing competence in English of the children, support
by the respective teachers was granted all along the 13’33’’ length of the
web-conference. Nevertheless, as these examples show, the teachers acted
as a model for the use of cooperative strategies to support communication,
providing examples of successful (ELF) strategies. Despite the difficulties,
related also to the aforementioned sound quality problems, meaning was
in most cases carried across successfully.
2.3 Communicating via chat
Other instantiations of personal successful communication revolving
around the children’s interests can be seen in the eTwinning project email
exchanges and chat conversation exemplified in Extract 2 below, that is
part of the chat communication via eTwinning:
Extract 2
V. (Italy) hello A. how are you?
A. (Slovakia) Okay
V. I’ dont understand: are you good or bad
A. I am good. What time table did ju have today
A. what subject is your favorite
V. this morning italian and maths, now inglish. I like
italian, maths and inglish
A. are you here
A. my favorite subject is matsh
A. Maths
V. i like me
A. I go play basketball. and you
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V. I no
A. do you have sister or brother
V. yes, one sister
A. I like pink what colour do you like
V. My Favourite colour is orange
A. I like horses and doks
V. I like dogs, cats and canary
A. xhave old are you
A. have
V. My favourite sport is swimming and volley ball
V. sorry we have to go
V. Bye
V. Ok
In Extract 2 V. (Italian) and A. (Slovakian) ask each other several
questions mainly related to school, their favourite school subjects and
colours. In this – as in other cases (cf. Vettorel, 2013a; forthcoming) – the
linguistic elements that would be considered as ‘deviant’ in ENL (e.g. ‘no’
rather than ‘I don’t’, lack of pluralization in nouns, verbs in the singular
form, cf. e.g. Seidlhofer, 2011), do not appear to hinder interaction, nor
to create miscommunication. Participants use and stretch the linguistic
resources at their disposal to interact with each other, communicating
about themselves and their world. Considering their age and level of
proficiency (the exit level for primary school in Italy is set to A1 CEFR
level), they appear to effectively carry across their intended meaning, and
their communicative acts are oriented at getting to know each other, with
genuinely communicatively oriented aims (Seidlhofer, 2011).
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
International exchanges, even at a primary school level, can thus con-
stitute salient opportunities for learners to experience real and meaningful
contexts of language use. The young participants in this study showed high
levels of motivation and engagement all throughout the project activities,
actively experimenting with the language to communicate and to learn about
their mates’ personal, local/national and cultural environment, exploiting
the language they learnt – and were learning – to express themselves. These
experiences provided them with the opportunity to step into the role of ELF
users in settings that ‘opened up’ the classroom walls, projecting language
use into real contexts, allowing them to stretch their bi- and plurilingual
resources to effectively interact with peers of different linguacultures.
3. International partnerships: using the language – primary teachers’ perceptions
The follow-up phase of the research study was aimed at investigating
primary teachers’ perceptions of international exchanges as opportunities
to foster the development of language and intercultural skills. Informants
were experienced teachers, who agreed to participate in a questionnaire
survey6; individual interviews were then carried out with 5 of the Italian
teachers who had completed the questionnaire, and a focus group was held
during a Comenius team meeting in one of the schools that had taken part
in the ‘ELF & ICC’ Project, with mixed-nationality participants7. The aim
of the interviews and of the focus group was to allow a deeper exploration
of the topics included in the questionnaire8; this paper will deal with a
qualitative analysis of findings related to international school partnerships.
Findings from the questionnaire survey show that, according to most
respondents, international exchanges represent important occasions to
acquaint pupils with intercultural communicative contexts, where ELF
represents a shared code. The first column in Chart 1 summarizes gen-
eral findings and the first column in Chart 2 the ones related to Primary
school. As can be noticed, although exchanges are rated higher on the
Lickert scale in Chart 2 (1 = very important, 6= not important), on the
whole results are similarly located on the positive end of the scale.
Teachers were also asked to express their opinion as to the relevance of
international exchanges to improve listening, speaking, communication and
intercultural skills; as columns 2-4 in both charts illustrate, results appear
similar in this respect too, although with some differences in distribution on
the 1-3 positive end of the scale. The same positive opinions can be found
for most skills, in this case with slightly higher values on the negative end
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Chart 2 – How important are international exchanges in language teaching and learning in primary
schools to promote… (N=23)
of the scale. On the whole, however, international exchanges are positively
valued, particularly as far as the development of communication and IC
skills is concerned.
Chart 1 – How important are international exchanges in language teaching and learning to promote…
(N=23)
During the interviews and the Focus Group, teachers emphasised that
in these internationally-oriented activities young learners show a high level
of involvement and motivation, and are very curious to learn about their
peers’ life through these first-hand experiences, rather than from their
teachers or their textbook only. In the words of a teacher, «they exchanged
ideas on different aspects of their daily routine, rules in their school, they
came to observe different elements, both writing and receiving the letters
from their peers, so they learnt new things about other children living in
a different environment. This was very positive, together with the fact that
they were really waiting for their partners’ letters to arrive…» (T7, inter-
view). Indeed, the pupils’ high affective and cognitive involvement, which
allows them to take advantage of this ‘window on the outside world’ is
a frequent trait in the ‘ELF & ICC’ project activities (Vettorel, 2010,
2013a), as well as in similarly oriented experiences (e.g. Crawley, Gerhard
et al., 2010; Crawley, Gilleran et al., 2010). Although international
exchanges can in principle be said to be part of educational activities, they
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
reach beyond the classroom walls, and can hence be seen as «the very first
step to change and to intercultural communication; even if it is a window
on another school, it is anyway a window» (T4, interview). This view is
shared by many respondents, and clearly emerged as a positive asset both
in the interviews and during the Focus Group discussion.
Motivation, enrichment, empowerment, open-mindedness and the
development of communication strategies were the key-words chosen by
my informants to define participation in international school partnerships,
not least with reference to how the language that is being learnt is put to
use in realistic communicative contexts. As one teacher pointed out, these
are «very different from dialogues that can be carried out in the classroom,
it was a way to communicate about something real» (T7, interview).
During the interviews, four teachers highlighted that young children need
to be guided in communication activities in such contexts – particularly
in writing – given that in primary school the focus is mainly on the devel-
opment of oral skills; as one teacher words it, «they wanted to describe
things for which they did not have the language skills yet, so the letters
had to be limited to some topics, and of course guided» (T7, interview).
Nevertheless, no matter how challenging these experiences may be, particu-
larly for young learners, using the language in such realistic communicative
settings «allows you to go beyond your comfort zone, to take risks, to try
out your skills, to improve them too in communication» (T4, interview).
Furthermore, internationally-oriented school exchanges can also con-
tribute to familiarize learners with different varieties of English and ELF
in realistic contexts of use. As one teacher pointed out with reference to
her experience:
the main thing is that they tried their understanding and listening
skills. You know, when they are at school they are exposed to a very
small variety of language – they listen to me, to the tape, and I try to
make them listen to some video, also on the internet, as I have a smart-
board in class – which is very helpful. But everything is small, pro-
tected, not – so to say – authentic. Through these experiences, on the
one hand they learnt that there are different settings of language use
in terms of listening and understanding – which was a very important
thing for them to understand. Secondly, they tried to use the language
in real contexts; they are used to learn functions and memorize que-
stions, answers, vocabulary – bits of language in chunks, but they don’t
use it really, so they had to find out strategies to use what they knew
to communicate in a real context. These were the two most important
things they learnt from this experience (T3, interview).
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To sum up, these findings seem to suggest that the primary school EFL
teachers in my sample see international school exchanges as an important
and significant way to stretch occasions for language use, to create con-
tact with people belonging to other cultures and to provide pupils with
«more opportunities» (T3, Focus Group). Most respondents also reckon
that these experiences can improve listening, speaking and above all com-
munication and IC skills. This suggests that opportunities to use English
in lingua franca contexts – such as in internationally-oriented school
exchanges – are indeed positively valued.
Similarly to my informants, European teachers who have taken part
in eTwinning projects highlight increased motivation and improvement
of personal interrelationships among students (Crawley et al., 2009: 27).
Their active participation and interest in using foreign languages (FL
henceforth) as a means of communication with their partners, as well as
the development of intercultural communication skills (cf. interviews in
Colaiuda, 2010; Crawley, Gerhard et al., 2010; Tosoratti, 2010; Wastiau
et al., 2011) are also underscored. Indeed, out-of-school opportunities
of contact with the FL (e.g. the media, the linguistic landscape, holi-
days, meeting tourists) can support motivation (ELLiE Second Interim
Report, 2009; Enever, 2011a, 2011b), not least in intercultural terms
(Czisér, Kormos, 2009). As the ELLiE longitudinal research has high-
lighted (Enever, 2011b), a positive impact on language learning activities
can also be correlated to an internationally-oriented outlook by schools,
either as engaged in partnerships with other classes or as open to foreign
visitors and activities involving the foreign language. As Enever (2011a:
148) points out, «the networking opportunities provided by the European
Comenius framework have been of great benefit, particularly where also
supported by national/regional ministry initiatives». A positive impact on
the children’s FL skills, as well as on knowledge and attitudes, are also
largely stressed in a recent study on the benefits of eTwinning (European
Commission/LLLP, 2013). International school partnerships constitute
thus opportunities to use the FL in meaningful contexts with peers of dif-
ferent linguacultures, favourably expanding their language learning expe-
rience (Enever, 2011a; Lopriore, Krikhaar, 2011; Lopriore, Mihaljević
Djigunović, 2011), with positive effects not only on motivation but also
on successful learning (e.g. Lopriore, 2012). These international coop-
eration projects can foster connections between language learning and
language use, and prepare today’s learners to the (future) communicative
settings they will most likely be involved in, where English is largely
employed as an international and intercultural means of cooperation,
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
most often with other non-native speakers. Significantly, as we have seen,
participants in the ‘ELF & ICC’ project showed familiarity with contexts
where English works as a lingua franca, as well as great openness and inter-
est in cross-cultural communication with their European peers, whether
native and/or non-native. A parallel could be drawn in this respect with
findings in Nikolov (1999), where Hungarian and Croatian learners did
not relate English with its NS community and, in a similar study (Nikolov,
1996), where about 46% of 13-14 year-old respondents emphasized «the
role of English as the means of international communication» (Nikolov,
1999: 48) – thus testifying to a growing awareness of its de-nationalized
vehicular function in cross-cultural contexts.
Occasions for intercultural contacts can thus naturally complement
formal FL instruction, familiarizing learners with communication in
increasingly multicultural and multilingual communicative settings,
with a positive impact both on motivation and on language competence
(Enever, 2011a; Csizér, Kormos, 2009).
4. Conclusions
As we have attempted to show, internationally-oriented school part-
nerships can have a positive valence on several grounds. Besides fostering
the development of Intercultural Communication skills, they can pro-
mote and support learners’ self-confidence in using the FL within real
communicative settings, allowing them to share their worlds with peers of
different linguacultures through ELF as a common code.
Most importantly, understanding out of first-hand experiences that
the language can be used in such contexts to communicate with ‘real’ peo-
ple can also positively affect motivation, helping learners to perceive the
FL not merely as a school subject but as a life skill (Nikolov, Mihaljevic
Djigunovic, 2006: 241). Furthermore, international school partnerships
can familiarize students with ELF communicative contexts, fostering
awareness of the importance of communication strategies in order to make
understanding and effective interaction possible, particularly when inter-
locutors belong to different linguacultures; in these contexts, learners are
provided with opportunities for «languaging» (Seidlhofer, 2011), that is,
to «stretch their communicative capability and use their multilingual and
multicultural competence to communicate» (Lopriore, 2013a; 2015).
Findings from this research study suggest that code-switching has
been employed to express culturally-related concepts connected to the
98
P. Vettorel
participants’ identity – whether cultural, national or part of their personal
worlds. As we have seen, code-switches are in the majority of cases accom-
panied by strategies suited to international and intercultural communica-
tive settings, such as translations, visual glossing or explanatory strategies,
showing awareness of the specificities of communication taking place with
partners of different linguacultures. In oral data particularly, pragmatic
strategies have been deployed to reach effective communication, which is
the main, genuine aim of these participants, as perceptible all throughout
the internationally-oriented phases of the project.
Teachers, both in general and in my findings, have very positive atti-
tudes towards international school partnerships, which are seen as oppor-
tunities to develop intercultural, communicative and language skills.
They generally believe that these activities can constitute ‘windows on
the world’, complementary to ‘school learning’ in terms of language use
as well as intercultural contact and awareness. This openness is certainly a
valuable point for a possible change in perspective towards the inclusion of
internationally-oriented (ELF) communication in language teaching and
learning practices, together with familiarizing teachers with ELF and ELF-
related pedagogical implications. Supporting teachers’ self-confidence in
the promotion of language use «without (the) fear of conforming to a
standard» (Lopriore, 2013) may also foster a shift in perspective in their
teaching practices, taking into account the importance of communication
(strategies) rather than a primarily norm-oriented approach, particularly
in the diverse settings where English works as a lingua franca.
Taking part in experiences like the ‘ELF & ICC’ project, or similar
types of internationally-oriented activities, could also foster attitudes of
curiosity and openness to diversity through interpersonal contact, rather
than through a textbook – learning to talk about one’s own experiences
and cultural worlds, and to appreciate those of peers living in different
contexts in a foreign language; an Anglophone perspective, which is still
given prominence in teaching materials, would thus become one among
several viewpoints. As importantly, such a perspective could also work as
a significant backdrop in our increasingly multilingual and multicultural
classes, actively acknowledging the experiences of learners who come from
different realities and cultures in a reflective and inclusive way. Experiences
like the ones we have illustrated in this paper could, in my opinion, also
provide opportunities to ‘localize’ the language classroom syllabus, taking
into account the learners’ interests and personal worlds, possibly support-
ing localized and learner-centred methodological approaches too, both
from a cultural and linguistic point of view. Furthermore, in the students’
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Young Learners’ uses of eLf: Moving BeYond the CLassrooM WaLLs
perceptions English would not be confined to a school subject – like many
others – or a generic skill (Graddol, 2006; Enever, Moon, 2009), sepa-
rated from real encounters ‘from below’, but experienced as an attainable
(in linguistic terms), true communicative tool to connect with the world.
1 The eTwinning project was created in 2005 under the European Union’s e-Learning
scheme, and is now integral part of Erasmus+. It aims at promoting European cooper-
ation among schools, teachers and students; as we read on the dedicated website, “[t]he
eTwinning action promotes school collaboration in Europe through the use of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing support, tools and services for
schools” <http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/discover/what_is_etwinning.htm> (last access
06.02.2015).
2 Source: <http://www.etwinning.net/it/pub/news/press_corner/statistics.cfm> (last access
05.06.2014), statistics continuously updated; in June 2013 enrolled schools were 106,000.
3 The corpus includes data for which consent was granted.
4 Pearà is a typically Veneto sauce, particularly in the Verona area; it is prepared with grated
bread, meat broth and other ingredients, and served with boiled meat.
5 The L1 of the speakers has been reported in the extracts in each speaker’s turn (e.g. S1
it), for both students and teachers (T it, T sp). When a speaker not holding the floor
intervenes, it has been indicated as Sx, and when all speakers are talking together as SS.
Transcription conventions are based on VOICE Transcription Conventions [2.1] <http://
www.univie.ac.at/voice/page/transcription_general_information> (last access 15.04.2013);
bold has been added for relevant examples.
6 N=23, all Italian apart from the six teachers who had taken part in the project activities
described above, 1 Spanish, 2 Danish, 1 Latvian, 1 Polish, 1 Czech.
7 2 Italian, 2 Danish, 2 Spanish and 2 NS teachers from Northern Ireland.
8 The areas investigated included: personal and professional relations with English, opin-
ions about their pupils’ present and future contact with English, openness to the inclusion
of different varieties of English in classroom practices, added value of international school
partnerships, understanding of ELF and opinions on the acceptability of ELF features in
pupils’ productions; cf. Vettorel, 2013b.
100
P. Vettorel
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