Abstract
Upon the advocacy of the integration of English as a lingua franca, namely ELF, into English language teaching, some scholars (Hino & Oda, 2015) have focused on its possible implications for classroom settings. Implementing ELF-informed activities in an elementary level classroom within a norm-based educational setting, this study aimed to enable students to experience these activities, and explore their pre and post views regarding Standard English, the concepts of good English, and my English. In addition, it also investigated students’ preference for their educational setting after the implementation. The implementation took seven weeks and the activities were created by the researchers. Within a mixed method design, qualitative and quantitative data were collected via semi-structured interviews and two statement lists. The findings indicated that the majority of the students enjoyed the activities and their pre and post views regarding Standard English, good English and my English differ from each other. However, a substantial number of them preferred to be educated with Standard English in their language learning process. Findings also revealed that potential reasons behind this preference may be the domination of norm-based approach in their context, personal interests and prime objectives, and norm-based exams.
About the authors
Sibel Sert has been an instructor at Mersin University School of Foreign Languages since 2009. Apart from giving general English courses for university preparatory students, she has been a Phd candidate at Cukurova University in Adana, Turkey since 2014. Her academic interests include ELF and related topics, skills teaching, and language education policies.
Yonca Özkan is an associate professor in the Department of English Language Teaching at Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey. She teaches undergraduate and graduate course in teacher education and second/foreign language teaching methodology. Her research focuses on pre-service language teacher education and technology integration into language teacher education. She is currently conducting a research study on ELF and teacher education.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank course participants for their enthusiasm and participation in the whole process of the study. We also thank Çukurova University Research Coordination Center for supporting this study under the project number 9765.
Disclosure Statement: We have no conflict of interest to declare. And this research has not been submitted for publication nor has it been published in whole or in part elsewhere. We attest to the fact that all Authors listed on the title page have contributed significantly to the work, have read the manuscript, attest to the validity and legitimacy of the data and its interpretation, and agree to its submission to Multicultural Learning and Teaching.
Appendix
A Appendix
Statement list 1
| Statements | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. I think it is important to be able to speak SBr/Amr English. | √ | X |
| 2. I think good English is being able to speak SBr/Amr English. | √ | X |
| 3. I like the way I speak English. | √ | X |
| 4. I try to imitate SBr/Amr. accent when speaking English. | √ | X |
| 5. I feel uncomfortable because of my mother tongue effect. | √ | X |
B Appendix
Statement list 2
| Statements | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. I prefer Englishes other than Standard British/American English to be included in English lessons. | √ | X |
| 2. I think understanding different Englishes is important for my English language education. | √ | X |
| 3. I prefer Standard Br/Amr English to be central in English classes. | √ | X |
| 4. I prefer my English to be like a British or American. | √ | X |
| 5. I prefer World Cultures to be included in English classes along with British and American cultures. | √ | X |
| 6. I prefer British and American culture to be central in English classes. | √ | X |
| 7. I think it is important to have an awareness about World Culture for my English language education. | √ | X |
C Appendix
Semi-structured Interview questions:
What do you think about ELF-informed activities?
What advantages and disadvantages have you experienced?
Do you think they have an effect on your opinions as a language learner? Can you explain?
Do you think such activities should be a part of English language teaching?
D Appendix
Let’s Sing
Pre-listening:
What kind of music do you like?
Do you listen to foreign musicians or bands?
Who is your favourite musician/band from different countries or do you know any foreign musicians/bands? Who are they?
Do you know the musicians in the photos below (here we provided students with photos of famous native and non-native singers)? Discuss with your partner and then try to guess who they are and where they are from.
(after the discussion, we asked them to go online and find samples of these musicians’ music and share them with the class.)
While listening:
In this section, we brought two versions of a famous song. One version was the original and acoustic version of the song sung by a British band. The other version was an acoustic cover version sung by a non-native musician.
Now you are going to listen to a song by two different musicians/bands. First, listen and try to guess which one is native which one is non-native.
First, watch the native version and then the non-native. While listening, try to note down the words you can hear from the versions under the related column for each. Share your answers with the classroom.
Column 1 (Native) Column 2 (Non-native)
(Then we gave the hand-outs with the lyrics on, but there were gaps for some words and we asked the students to fill in the gaps while listening to the versions of the song as video. Note that, we gave this handout after completed the above section.)
Watch the videos first native and then non-native. Try to fill in the gaps.
Post-listening
Discuss the followings with your teacher and your classmates.
Do you like the song?
Which version is your favourite?
Which one do you think is more intelligible?
Native____ Non-native____
Can you guess which country they are from?
Native____ Non-native____
Homework: Go online and find a Turkish musician/band singing an English song. Listen to it and think about the following questions.
How is his/her English?
Is it intelligible? Can you understand him/her?
Which features are different from a native?
Bring your sample to the classroom and say your opinions related to the questions above.
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Notes
A version of this paper was presented at SeLTAME 2018, Second Language Teaching/Acquisition in the Context of Multilingual Education Conference, Tbilisi/Georgia.
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