The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

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

Connecting classroom English to real-world English: Taiwanese teachers and students’ perspectives on ELF-aware pedagogy
Connecting classroom English to real-world English: Taiwanese teachers and students’ perspectives on ELF-aware pedagogy
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.
Yu, Hui Yen
468635f1-50d0-401c-a00a-c689fa415637
Yu, Hui Yen
468635f1-50d0-401c-a00a-c689fa415637
Jenkins, J.
7daf0457-86d0-4c08-af4b-79641d1f7fd0
Cogo, A.
d1e210de-1a89-4bf2-982e-eb3826fab5a4

Yu, Hui Yen (2015) Connecting classroom English to real-world English: Taiwanese teachers and students’ perspectives on ELF-aware pedagogy. University of Southampton, Faculty of Humanities, Doctoral Thesis, 237pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

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.

Text
Yu, Hui Yen Final Thesis.pdf - Other
Download (2MB)

More information

Published date: November 2015
Organisations: University of Southampton, Modern Languages

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 386456
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/386456
PURE UUID: 38d44875-9611-4a60-be73-6dfe5dcda3ee

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 17 Feb 2016 12:33
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 22:32

Export record

Contributors

Author: Hui Yen Yu
Thesis advisor: J. Jenkins
Thesis advisor: A. Cogo

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×