Representations of ELF in Language Teachers' Beliefs and ELT Coursebooks: Findings from Turkey and Portugal

Abstract

Today, there are millions of people speaking English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and they outnumber the people who speak English as a native language all around the world. More specifically, for each native speaker, there are three or four non-native speakers, and this ratio is continuously increasing (Crystal, 2008). On this ground, it is highly important to understand the concept of ELF, its global status, and its reflections on the pedagogy of English language teaching with a comparative approach in cross-cultural settings. The present paper aims to portray the current role of ELF: a) in shaping English language teachers' beliefs and practices, and b) in the usage of the cultural and linguistic components in English language teaching (ELT) coursebooks across Turkey and Portugal.

Full text

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67
REPRESENTATIONS OF ELF IN LANGUAGE TEACHERS’
BELIEFS AND ELT COURSEBOOKS: FINDINGS FROM TURKEY
AND PORTUGAL
Ecehan Candan
1
Elifcan Öztekin
2
Yavuz Kurt
3
Yasemin Bayyurt
4
Luis Guerra
5
Lili Cavalheiro
6
Ricardo Pereira
7
Abstract
Today, there are millions of people speaking English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and they
outnumber the people who speak English as a native language all around the world. More
specifically, for each native speaker, there are three or four non-native speakers, and this ratio
is continuously increasing (Crystal, 2008). On this ground, it is highly important to understand
the concept of ELF, its global status, and its reflections on the pedagogy of English language
teaching with a comparative approach in cross-cultural settings. The present paper aims to
portray the current role of ELF: a) in shaping English language teachers’ beliefs and practices,
and b) in the usage of the cultural and linguistic components in English language teaching
(ELT) coursebooks across Turkey and Portugal.
Key Words: ELF, language teacher education, language teaching, coursebooks
1. Introduction
Being the international medium of communication, trade and education, English as a lingua
franca (henceforth, ELF) is learned and taught more than any other language in the world.
Seidlhofer (2004) states that lingua franca, in its purest definition, refers to the language of
communication between people who have different native languages, and who use the lingua
franca as a second language. Although the term is mostly used to address the language spoken
by people from Expanding Circle, Seidlhofer also suggests that there might be ELF contexts in
which speakers from Inner and Outer circles (Kachru, 1997) get together and take part in
communicative events such as international conferences or meetings. The extensive use of
English in global settings has paved the way to the emergence of different varieties, which
1
Boğaziçi University, Turkey. ecehan.sonmez@boun.edu.tr
2
Boğaziçi University, Turkey. elifcan.oztekin@boun.edu.tr
3
Boğaziçi University, Turkey. yavuz.kurt@boun.edu.tr
4
Boğaziçi University, Turkey. bayyurty@boun.edu.tr
5
University of Évora, Portugal. lspg@uevora.pt
6
University of Lisbon, Portugal. lilicavalheiro@campus.ul.pt
7
Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Portugal. ricardo.pereira@ipleiria.pt

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demonstrate unique characteristics, and deviations from the standard varieties such as
American English or British English. More and more people use ELF without sticking to what
the standard variety requires, and the users contribute to the internationalization and
destandardization of the language.
Globalization has provided people with more opportunities of mobility, and this situation
has blurred the boundaries between the varieties spoken in the countries of Inner, Outer and
Expanding Circles. In line with this phenomenon, Crystal (2008) states "the center of gravity
of the English language has moved from the native speaker to the nonnative speaker" (p .6).
He further argues that when compared to native speakers, nonnative speakers of English have
been found to constitute a larger population in the world, and they are really influential in
shaping the future characteristics of the English language. Similarly, Seidlhofer (2004) argues
that ELF should be used as a term, not because of the basic definition that nonnative speakers
use it, but because it signals the existence of the strong influence nonnative speakers have on
the evolution of the global language. Given that many languages and cultures co-exist and
continuously interact with each other in today’s globalized world, raising awareness about non-
standard varieties of English among learners of English becomes highly important (Crystal,
2003).
Crystal argues that learners of English should be exposed to different varieties of English in
order that they would not be shocked upon hearing someone speak non-standard English, and
perform efficiently and cooperatively when communicating in ELF settings. Today, ELF is a
linguistic reality, and adopting native norms and underestimating different varieties in language
teaching and material design prevents learners to face and accommodate this reality. Raising
awareness about ELF not only allows learners to take part in efficient communication, but also
facilitates mutual understanding and helps them embrace linguistic and cultural diversity.
One step which will contribute to raising ELF-awareness among learners of English is
providing language teachers with opportunities to investigate and learn about ELF, and allow
them to reflect on the potential role of ELF in their way of teaching. In other words, it is
necessary to have ELF-aware teachers in order to see ELF-aware learners in the classroom.
Although teachers are becoming more and more familiar with the concept of ELF these days,
it is still difficult to see to what extent they are aware of the possible implications of ELF for
their teaching practices in settings where English is taught as a foreign language (EFL). For
this reason, language teacher education is a central issue in investigating the evolution of ELF
as a concept in language teaching (Sifakis, 2014).
Sifakis (2009) states that English language teaching professionals from Expanding Circle
countries might feel reluctant about integrating an ELF-aware approach into their teaching
because in their contexts, people have strong beliefs about correct and appropriate things,
which are determined by Inner Circle countries. In Expanding Circle countries, teachers are
viewed as custodians of English by learners, parents and colleagues. The underlying reason is
that there are limited opportunities for the learners to become exposed to English out of the
classroom, and they should make most of the classroom instruction, which should be provided
by the teacher in a flawless manner.
Sifakis argues that there are two types of hindrances that prevent the transformation in the
beliefs and teaching practices of ELT teachers regarding the role of ELF: a) objective
hindrances including the curricular situations, school contexts, courseware and
institutional/educational culture; b) subjective hindrances including the teachers' perceptions
about ELF, and their own role inside and outside the ELT classroom (Sifakis, 2017). In order
to produce interventions for these hindrances, teachers should be trained so that they become
aware of the value of ELF communication. This proposal includes both in-service and pre-

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service language teacher education because the way English language teachers are trained has
a strong influence on their perspectives of English with regard to their own teaching contexts
and beyond (Sifakis & Bayyurt, 2015). For instance, pre-service English teachers take several
courses on British and American literature during the four-year undergraduate ELT
departments in Turkey. This situation might lead them to think that British or American people
are the owners of English, and speaking English with a British or American accent is a
prerequisite for being accepted as a highly qualified English teacher (Kemaloğlu-Er, 2017).
This normative perspective might be a demotivating factor for language teachers as they force
themselves to speak in one standard variety and consider Turkish accent something which
should be avoided by all teachers and students. On the other hand, Dewey (2012) and Blair
(2015) argue that teacher education programs should go beyond this normative approach,
which takes the native speaker norm as a basis. Instead, language teacher education should
focus on language learners as users of the language, and incorporate an ELF-aware approach
into their curricula in order to raise awareness among teachers about the cultural and linguistic
realities of ELF all over the world.
Another factor which plays a highly critical role in the shaping of English language teaching
is material development. According to Bayyurt and Sifakis (2015; 2017), an ELF-aware
perspective does not only entail being critical about existing ELT materials and methodologies,
but also questioning to what extent ELT materials adopt an ELF-aware pedagogy. Since
coursebooks play a central role for learners and teachers of English, integration of ELF-
awareness into coursebooks is highly important. However, teachers do not really have the
opportunity to think about ELF-related aspects because students have to take high-stakes
exams, and coursebooks are mostly written in one of the standard varieties (i.e. British or
American English). Although most of the people learning English come from Expanding Circle
countries, different varieties and examples of successful communication between non-native
speakers of English are mostly neglected in these books. In addition to the predominant use of
standard varieties, representations of cultural elements associated with British (BrE) or
American English (AmE) also seem to prevail in ELT coursebooks.
Given that the design and content of language teaching materials and programs are important
for developing learners’ intercultural communicative competence (Alptekin, 2002; Kural &
Bayyurt, 2016), a critical approach is needed in order to portray the changing conceptualization
of ELF in the ELT classroom in different linguistic and cultural settings. To address these
issues, the present paper has focused on two basic questions:
1. How is ELF represented in the beliefs of EFL teachers across Portugal and Turkey?
2. How is ELF represented in the linguistic and cultural components in ELT coursebooks
across Portugal and Turkey?
Both countries can be categorized as Expanding Circle countries, where people learn and
teach English as a foreign language. Therefore, these settings provide a good basis for a
comparative approach, which could outline the similarities and differences about how ELF is
represented in two EFL contexts. The following section presents the methodology and a
summary of the preliminary findings.
2. Method
To answer the first research question, a questionnaire from Bayyurt and Erçetin’s (2009)
study was adapted and administered to a group of Portuguese (n=39) and Turkish (n=77) in-
service English teachers on an electronic platform. The participating teachers were
professionals working with students at different levels of education (i.e. elementary, secondary,
and tertiary). In order to outline the the validity of the questionnaire items which address the
construct of ELF-awareness, a principal component factor analysis was conducted. The details

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about the analysis will not be presented in the current paper. Basically, it revealed that the
teachers’ responses could be classified in three main categories: “cultural awareness”,
“positioning native varieties/speakers” and “awareness of communication goals”.
For the second question, ELT coursebooks along with their audio materials from local (LP)
and international publishers (IP) were analyzed separately for Turkey and Portugal. For each
book, native and nonnative English varieties were identified in terms of spelling, grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation. In addition, cultural elements such as people, places and facts
were also identified based on the references to the local cultures of each country; or to the
cultures of Inner, Outer and Expanding Circle countries. When there was no specific reference
to any culture, the instances were taken as international topics. Each occurrence for these
categories was identified and counted by the researchers. As the data analysis is in progress
and the study has not been completed yet, some preliminary findings are given in the following
section.
3. Preliminary Findings
The questionnaire examining English language teacher’s ELF-awareness revealed that the
teachers rated cultural awareness mostly as moderately important or important. The items
within the cultural awareness factor examined how teachers would rate it between unimportant
and very important that similarities and differences between the target language and local
culture should be taught in language classes, whether cultures from non-native English
communities should also be taught and these differences and similarities between native and
non-native as well as the learners’ local culture should be reflected in the teaching of English
(Bayyurt, 2006). Teachers mostly rated these as important within the scale range. For instance,
they seemed to appreciate the importance of both the cultures of native speakers (agree +
strongly agree = 50.2%) and the cultures of the non-native English speaking world (agree +
strongly agree = 63.5%). Most of the teachers indicated that language learners needed to be
aware of differences and similarities between cultures.
The second factor, namely positioning native varieties/speakers, revealed a less clear
tendency among the participating teachers. The factor included items examining whether
teachers would agree or disagree that the ultimate goal should be reaching native-like
proficiency in learning English, or that English language teaching materials should be produced
by native speakers of English, or that native varieties of English should be the norm in language
teaching contexts. Teachers provided rather dispersed responses to these items on the agreeing
and disagreeing continuum. For example, a higher percentage of teachers indicated opposition
to the fact that the teaching materials should feature only native speaker texts (disagree +
strongly disagree = 48.4%), while a considerable number of them supported the idea (agree +
strongly agree = 34.6%). They appeared to be either undecided or divided between attaching
importance to native-like proficiency and accent or not. The high percentage of undecided
teachers on this component of the survey (average = 24.7%) showed that teachers were not sure
how to position native speaker varieties and native speakers in their profession.
The third factor, awareness of communication goals, examined teachers’ reactions about
how successful communication could be achieved, the role of intelligibile accent, accurate
grammar, and knowledge of non-native varieties of English. The teachers mostly agreed that
learners should be exposed to non-native varieties of English, and that they should also learn
to communicate with non-native speakers of English as well. They also agreed on the
importance of intelligible accent. However, the importance of grammatical accuracy seemed
to divide the teachers as the percentage of those who agreed or strongly agreed that it was
important (35.9% the two responses combined) was very close to those who disagreed or
strongly disagreed (33.4% the two responses combined).

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As for the varieties used in the LP book in the Portuguese context, it was found that with
BrE being the most commonly used variety throughout the book, both AmE and BrE were used
interchangeably in vocabulary and grammar. In the audio materials, however, there was a
tendency towards the use of AmE to a greater extent. The diversity of other varieties was not
successfully represented in the book-there was only one instance of a Japanese person speaking
English. In the Turkish context, a similar pattern was observed in the LP book in that the book
made use of BrE most of the time, and included AmE as the second option, leaving not much
space for non-native varieties. Throughout the book, there was only one instance of English
spoken with a Japanese accent.
Regarding the cultural representations, patterns showed that the LP book in the Portuguese
context mostly used elements from British culture when referring to people and places. Still,
one noteworthy finding was that the book also made many references to people from
Expanding Circle countries. As for facts, the book had a tendency towards including
international phenomena rather than emphasizing one specific culture. However, facts related
to American and British cultures together were as common as the international facts given in
the book. Interestingly, local references which are supposed to give examples from the
Portuguese culture were nearly absent (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Cultural references in local publisher’s book in Portugal
The LP book in the Turkish context mostly preferred American culture when referring to
people. This was followed by the references for people from the UK, Expanding Circle
countries, and Outer Circle countries. As for places, unlike its Portuguese counterpart, the
Turkish LP book mostly introduced places from Expanding Circle countries. When facts were
analysed, it was found that the book made common use of both international facts and facts
related to the cultures of Expanding Circle countries. In general, there was a richer
representation of different cultures, and more inclusion of the local culture in each of the
categories in the Turkish LP book (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2. Cultural references in local publisher’s book in Turkey
For the time being, the analysis of the varieties and cultural elements given in the IP books
is in continuation. However, a quick overview of the books shows that BrE/AmE and the
cultures associated with these varieties seem to dominate in the IP books both for the Turkish
and the Portuguese contexts. The following section presents a general discussion about the
preliminary findings and possible implications of the study for language teachers and material
designers.
4. Discussion and Conclusion
The findings from the teacher questionnaire and the material evaluation from Portuguese
and Turkish contexts in the two studies presented here can be considered as pieces of a larger
picture that needs to be investigated further. The teacher questionnaire indicates in a very
general sense that English language teachers from two expanding circle countries reflect a
growing awareness about the role of English as a lingua franca especially in creating cultural
awareness in learners and communicative goals considering many varieties that could be
encountered in the global world we live in today. The teachers’ appreciation of the diversity
and ELF-aware elements on cultural awareness and communication goals might signal a
significant shift in in-service teachers’ approach as targeted in Bayyurt and Sifakis (2015).
However, this growing ELF-aware approach was not as clearly reflected on the positioning of
native varieties/speakers, as the teachers were dispersed within the agreement continuum,
implying an undecided position about the role of non-native English-speaking teachers and
native English-speaking teachers. Although they present a more observable tendency to accept
the importance of ELF-aware teaching regarding cultural awareness and communicative roles,
they remained undecided about the position of native varieties/speakers. This could be
interpreted as one indication that the teachers could accept more readily the ELF-aware
elements in aspects they can change and adopt actively in their own teaching (integrating non-
native cultures or the local culture in their teaching or adopting the communicative goals to
emphasize intelligible accent or to expose learners to non-native varieties of English). On the
other hand, positioning native speakers/varieties or underlyingly themselves might be a more
complicated process that needs more investigation and closer attention starting from pre-
service teacher training.
Material evaluation of local and international publishers from Turkey and Portugal also
revealed some small but important differences in the dynamics of material development.
Although the international publisher course books predominantly reflected British or American
varieties in cultural references and language use, there was slightly more space for local
elements in cultural references in the local publisher’s course book in the Turkish context. The
tendencies towards a more ELF-aware approach in material development might follow the
changes more slowly compared to teachers’ positions. The teacher questionnaire in the present
study revealed a positive change in cultural awareness and communicative goals to be
emphasized in English language learning, which also included the use of materials reflecting a
more diverse range of varieties than the inner circle countries. The change in language teacher’s
perspectives can be reflected in material development through their changing demands with
ELF-aware interactions between these two significant areas of English language education.
English has gained its global status throughout a long history rising upon some social,
political, and economic foundations. This fact has shaped the positioning of native and non-
native varieties in language teaching, which, for many years, has followed the norms of the
Inner Circle. With ELF emerging as a research field with implications for language teaching
pedagogy, the field of ELT is now witnessing a paradigm shift, moving away from the native
speaker norms and embracing linguistic and cultural diversity introduced by each and every

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non-native speaker of English. As in the case of English becoming a lingua franca, this
phenomenon also needs some time to establish a presence in the society. Therefore, it would
be inappropriate to expect that ELF-aware pedagogy will be readily welcomed by teachers,
learners or material designers with unquestioning support. However, it is possible to keep track
of this phenomenon as it gradually shapes the theory and practice of language teaching. The
present study is an important attempt to shed light on how ELF has made its way into teachers’
minds and ELT materials in the Expanding Circle. Further studies are needed to see more
detailed representations of ELF in different cultural and linguistic settings.
Acknowledgements
This study is an output of ILTERG, which is a Strategic Partnership project (no. KA203-035295) for higher
education funded by Turkish National Agency and co-funded by the European Commission under Erasmus+ Key
Action 2: Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices.

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