An English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Perspective in Asian English Language Teaching
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Salam Mairi
Salam Mairi is a lecturer of English (Teaching and Education) at Universitas Negeri Padang (the State University of Padang) in Indonesia. He recently earned an M.Sc TESOL degree from the University of Edinburgh. His research has focused on English as an international language, attitudes towards English, intercultural communication, and identity. In addition to teaching, he has been involved in several program developments including the curriculum and assessment at the English Department and the Language Center of Universitas Negeri Padang.
Abstract
The global spread of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has implications for practice in English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms. This paper presents a study on attitudes toward ELF which is crucial to its incorporation because attitudes influence the learning output in ELT. It uses a mixed method approach through a questionnaire survey on attitudes toward ELF, which contains a modified Verbal Guise Technique (VGT), complemented with semi-structured interviews. Seventy university students and 4 lecturers from three English departments in Japan (Waseda University and Sophia University) and Indonesia (Universitas Negeri Jakarta) were involved in filling out the questionnaire and semi structured interview sessions. The results highlight positive attitudes towards ELF and its incorporation into ELT (Japan: 3.71, and Indonesia: 3.51). In addition, factors which influence these attitudes (aspects related to language learning experience) were proven significant. The interview sessions also suggest ways to incorporate an ELF perspective into the ELT classrooms. Further, it addresses the issue of the gap between theory and practice in research on Global Englishes in Language Teaching (GELT) where a “conceptual gap” is often found. The study is of value to those interested in ELT curriculum evaluation and design to meet the needs of both ELT and ELF community in countries like Japan and Indonesia.
*This paper is sponsored by Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education, The Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia
(Copyedited by Steve Samules & Ding Yanren)
About the author
Salam Mairi is a lecturer of English (Teaching and Education) at Universitas Negeri Padang (the State University of Padang) in Indonesia. He recently earned an M.Sc TESOL degree from the University of Edinburgh. His research has focused on English as an international language, attitudes towards English, intercultural communication, and identity. In addition to teaching, he has been involved in several program developments including the curriculum and assessment at the English Department and the Language Center of Universitas Negeri Padang.
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Appendix 1 Main Questionnaire
Questionnaire
Part A. Background information
Please answer these personal questions below by ticking the box and writing further information when requested:
Gender: □ Male □ Female
At what age did you start learning English?
□ 0-3 □ 4-7 □ 8-11 □ 12-15
Are you a native speaker of English?
□ Yes □ No
Describe your language learning experience, (please tick as many as you like)
□ School
□ Holiday abroad
□ Study abroad
□ DVDs/Music
□ English club
□ University
□ Private English course
□ Other:.................................
Have you travelled to a foreign country? □ Yes □ No
Where?...................................(if you have gone to more than one country, choose one country where you used English the most)
How long did you stay there?
□ I have never been
□ Under 4 weeks
□ 5-12 weeks
□ 3-6 months
□ 7 months to one year
□ More than one year
What was the purpose of your trip to the foreign country?
□ Studying
□ Holiday
□ Internship/working
□ Volunteering
□ Other:........................................
Did you use English while you are in the foreign country?
□ Yes □ No
If yes, please explain to whom/for what purpose.
..............................................................
..............................................................
..............................................................
..............................................................
What are your main reasons for studying English? (tick as many as you like)
□ I am interested in English
□ I like English movies, TV shows, music, etc.
□ I want to communicate with more people from all over the world
□ I want to communicate with English native speakers
□ I want to travel abroad
□ I want to study abroad
□ I want to increase my career prospect
□ I want to work abroad
□ I want to be an English teacher
□ Other:....................................
How do you want to see yourself as an English user?
□ I want to use English like a native speaker
□ I want to use English as it is used by most people in my country
□ I want to use English that can communicate my messages
□ Other:....................................
Part B. English Use
Please answer the questions below by circling a number between 1 to 5, 1 being ‘never’ to 5 being ‘always’
| Never | Always | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How often do you speak English at home? | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| How often do you speak English at school/university? | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| How often do you speak English at work? | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| How often do you speak English socially? | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Part C. Attitudes toward ELF
Please answer the questions below by circling a number between 1 to 5, 1 being ‘totally disagree’ to 5 being ‘totally agree’
| Totally Disagree | Totally Agree | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I learn English to communicate with native speakers of English only | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| I learn English to communicate with non-native speakers of English only | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| I learn English to communicate with native and non-native speakers of English | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| I think the most important thing of communicating in English is to use the native model of English | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| I think focusing on successful communication is more important than focusing on using native English model | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| I think using English different from the native English model is not a good practice | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| I would be happy to learn other models of English and their usage | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| I would like the knowledge of other models of English and their usage to be taught in English classes | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Part D. Verbal Guise Technique
Please listen to the interaction and circle the number that indicates your impression of the interaction/communication/conversation among the speakers
| 23. Acceptable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Unacceptable |
| 24. Confident | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Unconfident |
| 25. Comprehensible | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Incomprehensible |
| 26. Intelligible | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Unintelligible |
| 27. Successful | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Unsuccessful |
| 28. Good communication flow Bad model of | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Bad communication flow |
| 29. Good model of English classes | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | English classes |
Please answer the questions below by circling a number between 1 to 5, 1 being ‘totally disagree’ to 5 being ‘totally agree’
| Totally Disagree | Totally Agree | ||||
| 30. The speakers use appropriate vocabulary | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 31. The speakers have good English proficiency | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 32. The speakers’ accent was easy to listen to | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 33. I would like the speakers to be my English teachers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
© 2016 FLTRP, Walter de Gruyter, Cultural and Education Section British Embassy
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- English as a lingua Franca
- Intelligibility and Segmental Phoneme Repair Strategies in English-as-a-Lingua-Franca Interactions among Chinese and Japanese Speakers of English
- English as a lingua Franca
- An English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Perspective in Asian English Language Teaching
- Discourse Analysis
- Chinese EFL Learners’ Public Speaking Skills: An Investigation of Impromptu Speeches at the “FLTRP Cup” English Speaking Contest in the Light of Communication Models
- Second Language Acquisition
- Word Class Influence upon L1 and L2 English Word Association
- Second Language Acquisition
- A Study on Chinese Students’ Acquisition of English Articles and Interlanguage Syntactic Impairment
- Language and Cognition
- Embodied Cognition Processing and Representation of Power Words by Second Language Learners with Different Proficiency levels
- Language and Cognition
- The 8th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ELT) in China
- Language and Cognition
- Chinese Abstracts
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- English as a lingua Franca
- Intelligibility and Segmental Phoneme Repair Strategies in English-as-a-Lingua-Franca Interactions among Chinese and Japanese Speakers of English
- English as a lingua Franca
- An English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Perspective in Asian English Language Teaching
- Discourse Analysis
- Chinese EFL Learners’ Public Speaking Skills: An Investigation of Impromptu Speeches at the “FLTRP Cup” English Speaking Contest in the Light of Communication Models
- Second Language Acquisition
- Word Class Influence upon L1 and L2 English Word Association
- Second Language Acquisition
- A Study on Chinese Students’ Acquisition of English Articles and Interlanguage Syntactic Impairment
- Language and Cognition
- Embodied Cognition Processing and Representation of Power Words by Second Language Learners with Different Proficiency levels
- Language and Cognition
- The 8th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ELT) in China
- Language and Cognition
- Chinese Abstracts
