ELF Perspectives in Pre-faculty Language Classes in Turkish Higher Education Context

Proceedings of The 4th World Conference on Research in Education

Year: 2021

DOI:

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ELF Perspectives in Pre-faculty Language Classes in Turkish Higher Education Context

Yavuz Kurt,Yasemin Bayyurt

ABSTRACT: 

English medium instruction is getting more widespread in higher education institutions around the globe and English is increasingly serving as a lingua franca among students and staff in international campuses. The situation in Turkish universities, both private and state, is no exception to this with growing numbers of international students each year; nevertheless, the mainstream English language teaching (ELT) practices in the preparatory language schools of universities have mostly remained centered on native-speaker varieties. This study aims to investigate potential ways of integrating an English as a lingua franca (ELF) understanding to the ELT practices in pre-faculty language programs. To this end, an online education module on ELF and its pedagogical implications was designed and offered to a group of enthusiastic language instructors teaching pre-faculty students in preparatory schools. The instructors, then, were invited to integrate ELF perspective in their classes as they see appropriate. The results from classroom observations of these lessons indicate that the instructors preferred integrating ELF into their teaching in a variety of ways. It was revealed that, depending on their teaching context, there were multiple options for language instructors who wanted to pursue an ELF-aware approach in their teaching practices. The findings have implications for language instructors and curriculum designers working in universities.

keywords: ELT; English as a lingua franca; English medium instruction; Global Englishes; teacher education.