Abstract:

‘English as a lingua franca (ELF)’ has inevitably many implications in the agenda of English language teaching and teacher education. One of the implications of ELF paradigm is the need to review English language teacher education programs to prompt pre-service teachers to critically consider and ultimately transform their assumptions about ELF instead of being merely exposed to principles on language teaching. The current case study aims to explore the value of ELF integration into ELT pre-service teacher education programs. It evaluated the effect of an elective course involving ELF related issues and critiques of ELF approach in which the pre-service teachers raised their awareness on the ELF-related issues. Interviews, reflection and response papers were the instruments to further explain the experience of pre-service language teachers. The findings revealed that there is an urgent need to integrate ELF into teacher education programs and the participants in this study were observed to possess a positive stance towards ELF concept. The study has some crucial implications for curriculum designers, material developers, language instructors and learners in higher education context.

Keywords:

English Language Teaching, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), Pre-service Language Teacher Education, Qualitative Case Study.