What is English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)?

Therefore, there is a movement for teaching English as a lingua franca (ELF), whose supporters believe that the way we teach and assess English should reflect the needs and goals of this expanding growth of non-native speakers who use English to communicate with other non-native speakers. How do non-native speakers use English with each other? This is currently a big area of research. Barbara Seidlhofer is heading the first large-scale effort to collect exclusively lingua franca English. The project is called the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), which is collecting data of mostly face-to-face communication of fairly fluent speakers of English from a wide range of L1 backgrounds in Vienna. Proponents of ELF would like people to reconsider the way English is taught. Although these ideas seem rather radical, Graddol believes that it is likely that some of its ideas will influence mainstream teaching and assessment practices in the future (2006).

What is Euro-English?

Studies are being done now, but from what has already been observed, there are some observations to offer about the lexicogrammar of this emerging Euro-English. Although these characteristics are different from standard English, they usually don’t cause problems in understandings:

· Countable/uncountable nouns, e.g. an advice, advices, an information, informations

· Dropping -s from third person present tense verbs

· Using the relative pronouns who for things (e.g. a book who) and which for people (e.g. a friend which)

· Omitting definite and indefinite articles where they are obligatory in native speaker use

(these points from Murray, 2003:4)

Some features that can cause communication breakdown are:

· ‘unilateral idiomaticity’ (Seidlhofer 2001), i.e. when one speaker uses an idiom from English which the listener doesn’t know, for example, ‘Would you like us to give you a hand?’ as opposed to ‘Can we help you?’

· when one speaker uses words that the other person does not know, which might include correct words in English or English loan words or false friends. An example is handy, which means a cell phone in German. They think it means the same thing in English, but it has a different meaning in English.

Seidlhofer concluded that using communication strategies and the willingness of interlocutors to both try to accommodate is more important for effective communication than “‘correctness’ or idiomaticity in native English terms” (Seidlhofer 2001).

The biggest challenge to the establishment of Euro-English is the tradition that the goal is to be close to native proficiency in either British or American English, an ideology that Modiano claims is waning, but nevertheless still impacts current practices in education as this thinking devalues other varieties of English (Modiano 2003).

 

Justifying Euro-English

Next, I’m going to provide some arguments against Euro-English, and counterpoints to refute them. Because Modiano points out the main arguments against Euro-English and offers strong rebuttals, I have summarized them:

Argument 1: “There are no native speakers of Euro-English, therefore it cannot be identified as a variety” (2003).

Rebuttal: This is no longer a valid argument because English is used as a lingua franca among lots of NNS. They often use English more with other NNS than with NS. Using ELF with other NNS is more liberating because they can be themselves using English instead of trying to imitate a NS.

Argument 2: Euro-English exists as many forms and therefore trying to define it will fail.

Rebuttal: Varieties of English from native speakers, such as accents and dialects in England and Ireland are accepted as part of ones culture and identity, so it is not fair to not apply this also for users of Euro-English. RP is the standard English accent taught in England, although barely anyone really speaks like that.

Argument 3: The variety will be impossible to teach without a prescriptive standard (Modiano 2003).

Rebuttal: Modiano claims that the goal of Euro-English instruction is “to learn how English can be used by mainland Europeans in cross-cultural interaction” (Modiano 2003). He goes on to explain that the instructor, who is focused on how English is used in mainland Europe, doesn’t insist on imitating the idealized native speaker, but instead motivates students to develop communication skills (2003). Those students who do aspire to emulate a native speaker are free to do so, but this would be by choice that they make, not that they are forced into, which is different than in the past.

Students’ needs

So when teaching, we should consider the needs of the students. What are the students’ motivations for studying English? Who are the students going to be communicating with in English?

How will their English abilities be measured? Answers to such questions should lead us to better analyze and understand the needs of our students and therefore help shape how we teach English keeping in mind their end purpose and goals.

So what should we do? In the last couple of decades, many teachers have espoused communicative language teaching (CLT) because it helps students use language to communicate. However, there is a dilemma because many students have to pass demanding entrance exams which test grammar, reading, and writing as opposed to communicative competence. That dilemma of the vast difference between policy and reality in the classroom is another complex issue.

Questions regarding standards are applicable to discussion of ELF. The kind of English that people are using in Switzerland is quite different from the English in India, for example. Marko Modiano, an American who has lived in Europe for nearly 25 years and currently a professor in Sweden, claims that whenever English is used locally as a language to communicate among people of different L1s, “…distinct varieties of English have emerged, and there are strong arguments for promoting such Englishes as educational models (Modiano, 2001).”

And indeed, the investigations of Braj Kachru, well-known for his research in this area, support this claim (Kachru, 1986). Marko goes on to argue that due to the role of Euro-English in the E.U., surely legitimization, codification, and standardization processes will occur (2001). He explains a few of the terms that are part of Euro-English, such as Schengen, the euro, the Euro zone or Euro area, Member States. These terms are just but a few examples that are understood by speakers of English in Europe, as these concepts are important in their context; however, English speakers from other parts of the world may not understand them.

 

Pedagogical Materials:

The vast majority of English spoken in the world is between non-native speakers. However, in English Language Teaching (ELT) materials, most interaction is usually between native speakers or between a native speaker and a non-native speaker. It is extremely rare to find dialogues between non-native speakers in ELT materials. Proponents of ELF would like to change that. On one hand, it is hard for me to imagine having such materials. On the other hand, in my classes I provide activities where students work in pairs, groups, and do presentations. In this way, they often have practice using English with other non-native speakers. In considering goals and materials for the course, it is useful to take students’ current and future needs in mind, if possible. Allowing them to make some choices about their learning and a teacher’s effort to accommodate for students’ needs and interests can increase motivation and in turn performance.

Regarding transfer from their L1, teachers should discuss with language learners about mutual comprehensibility (Modiano 2003). In Euro-English classrooms, it is important to focus on communicative interaction with different NS, NNS to NNS in mainland Europe, as well as English in international places (Modiano 2003). McKay recommends using content from the source culture, which has many advantages, such as encouraging language learners to understand their own culture better, which they can in turn share with people from other cultures using English as a lingua franca in the future (McKay 2003). Grading should be based on communicative effectiveness and not on imitation of native speakers (Modiano 2003).

We should encourage students to have more influence on their learning and endorse opportunities for them to use the language to communicate with other NNS. Initially the instructor should provide instructions and clear examples to start off and maybe some web sites and help them get started. In order to do this, it is helpful to find out what they are interested in and bring in materials. This scaffolding should help prepare them for the task you assign.

One of my colleagues in Switzerland was a Cambridge teacher trainer for CELTA and taught at the same university as I did, from Ireland. I really liked his basic teaching philosophy: ultimately we should try to provide students with tools and to help them become more independent learners. There is very limited time in class but there are seemingly unlimited resources available to them at their fingertips through the internet, for example.

Here is an example of a practical teaching idea. Dr. Higgins told me she heard that an English professor in Japan assigned students to choose a current event and read about it in the media in English on-line in a variety of different countries. An example would be to choose a story in the headlines, such as North Korea’s nuclear bomb test, and examine different points of view, for example an American newspaper, a newspaper from England, a newspaper from India, a newspaper from Japan, and a newspaper from South Korea (if information in English can be found in the latter two).