Connecting classroom English to real-world English: Taiwanese teachers and students’ perspectives on ELF-aware pedagogy

Abstract

There has been considerable research on the global spread of English and its impact on English language use. In particular, there is extensive interest in how the fluid nature of the lingua franca use of English is impacting on real world communication and the consequent pedagogical implications for English language teaching (ELT) and acquisition. However, to date there has been limited research on the ways in which ELT teachers can adapt their teaching strategies to ensure that learners are equipped to use English in the real world. This study involves conducting a critical education inquiry using a Critical Pedagogy informed approach to observe Taiwanese teachers and undergraduate students of English, with the aims being to, firstly, identify the principles being employed by teachers and, secondly, to discover students’ understanding regarding learning English as a lingua franca (ELF) for real-world communication.

To these ends, I posit the following research questions:
1. What learning/teaching theories and concepts inform Taiwanese teachers of English who teach for real-world communication?
2. What are students’ perceptions of learning English for the purposes of the real-world communication within the framework of Taiwanese English language education?

I collected data from respondents in three universities and subsequent analysis revealed that the majority of classroom practice was geared towards teaching English as a foreign language rather than as a lingua franca that could be used in real life settings to communicate with a range of English speakers. Specifically, observation of classroom practice and interviews revealed that imitation and repetition strategies are commonly used to reproduce native English-speaking (NES) related linguacultural inputs, whereas critical, interactive, alternative and integrating approaches that are associated with lingua communication, although evident in some cases, were less engaged with. Albeit all of these strategies can serve a purpose in classroom teaching and learning, my evidence suggests that a rebalancing is needed, whereby teachers are more critical and flexible about the resources and approaches they use so as to ensure that these are suitable and context appropriate. In need of theoretical and practical support, teachers still endeavoured to explore ideas and activities for teaching and learning that were feasible in their instructional contexts in order to transcend the NES linguacultural dominance and provide lingua franca insights into classroom practices. Nevertheless, in most cases, students passively accepted the status quo. This highlighted the importance of students taking active roles in developing their own powers to be able to critically evaluate linguacultural resources and achieve balanced views on their own language acquisition and proficiency. This calls for opportunities to be created for students to legitimate their use of resources and skills to learn and use English on their own terms.

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