"To ELF or not to ELF?" (English as a Lingua Franca): that's the question for Applied Linguistics in a globalized world

Abstract

The realization that there are today more nonnative speakers than native speakers of English in the world with institutionalized and nativized varieties as well as their own specific communicative, cultural and pragmatic competencies has led to the rethinking of present-day practices in teaching, teacher preparation, and the writing of textbooks. Jenkins' publications (2000, 2003) dealing with the phonology of English and material for teaching English as an international language along with her book English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) (2007) call for the disengagement of the language from Anglo-American native speaker norms. This line of research presents serious questions for Applied Linguistics (AL) and English Language Teaching (ELT) that will, if implemented, entail major changes in that endeavor. The winds of change may indeed be beneficial for some and a threat to others. I argue in this paper for an open mindset with respect to the issues and to the new state of affairs in this globalized world today.

Translanguaging and ‘Culigion’ features of Saudi English

“…Quirk moves to view this advice as being ‘bad’ and exclaim why students should settle for ‘lower’ standards’ (p. 22). Other ENL advocators criticized the nature of ELF, as it does not have a tangible form to be examined and tested, yet it is still considered emerging (O'Regan, 2014; Schmitz, 2012). Schmitz (2012) provides a balanced illustration of both sides of the argument.…”

“…Other ENL advocators criticized the nature of ELF, as it does not have a tangible form to be examined and tested, yet it is still considered emerging (O'Regan, 2014; Schmitz, 2012). Schmitz (2012) provides a balanced illustration of both sides of the argument. He highlighted weaknesses sounded by those against ELF agreeing with some and refuting others.…”

The Value of Feedback in Translanguaging: Students’ Insights From an English Language Course at Londrina State University

“…At that time, students were consciously alternating between their well-known linguistic repertoires (Welsh and English) to assist themselves with their academic work, using both their mother tongue and the target language to become balanced bilinguals. Since then, there has been a growing body of research on the extension of the benefits of translanguaging in language teaching, and/or plurilingual instruction (BLOCK, 2007;SCHMITZ, 2012;GARCIA, 2009;GARCIA, FLORES, 2014;WEI, 2018;. As defined by Garcia (2009, p. 140), "translanguaging is the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative 2 The terms additional languages and foreign languages (FL) are used interchangeably in the study.…”

Introduction - language planning: where have we been? where might we be going?

“…This is having flow on effects in primary education in Asia where there is increasing pressure to begin English earlier, or to offer programs in English (BALDAUF; KAPLAN;KAMWANGAMALU, 2012). As in Malaysia and in other parts of Asia, the issue of norms, what variety of English to teach is raised by Schmitz (2012) more generally and by Vodopija-Krstanoviae and Brala-Vukanoviae (2012) in the context of tertiary education in Croatia. In many parts of the world, most users of English will be speaking with other non-native speakers, and this raises the question of whether using some form of ELF (English as a lingua franca) wouldn't be more appropriate -especially for a multiple native-speaking normed language like English -where the question arises, "Which norm should we follow"?…”