چکیده:
The present research was an attempt to shed more enlightening light on the current wave of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which is gradually sweeping the traditional ideologies in the field of ELT. To that end, this study examined the Iranian teacher trainees’ attitude towards ELF. What makes the present research markedly different from the other language attitude studies is in the context of research, namely Iran, an underrepresented country in the literature concerning ELF. To collect the data, the researchers employed mixed methods design, using questionnaires and follow-up semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that many a participant maintained contradictory and ambivalent attitudes towards ELF-related issues. Whilst they appeared to be favorably inclined to agree with the statements pertaining to ELF, they did not display uniform attitudes about ELF-related issues in an in-depth analysis of the results. In fact, the results revealed an underlying tendency towards NS norms among the participants. Results of the study may have implications for teacher trainers and ELF researchers.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Thus, during the arduous journey from its infancy to its present status, the field of ELF has been scrutinized by its proponents and opponents, leading to point and counterpoint exchanges between them (for the recent examples see, Dewey, 2013 versus Sewell, 2013; Ren, 2014 versus Yoo, 2014; Baker, Jenkins, & Baird, 2014 versus O’Regan, 2014).
As the studies above reveal, almost all researchers accord great importance to developing reflective teaching training programs where in teachers’ and teacher trainees’ awareness of sociolinguistic realities of today’s global English can be raised.
g. , Khatib & Monfared, 2017; Marefat & Pakzadian, 2017; Monfared & Safarzadeh, 2014; Safari & Razmjoo, 2016).
The only study that takes findings of ELF research into the practice of teaching in the context of Iran is the study conducted by Rahimi and Ruzrokh (2016) who explored the effect of Lingua Franca core-based pronunciation teaching on Iranian learners’ intelligibility and their attitudes about English pronunciation.
As a result, 18 statements were designed and divided into four categories to examine the participants’ attitude towards 1) their own English accent (statements 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 ), 2) identity and L1 accent (statements 7, 8, and 9), 3)the authority of non-native speakers to own the English language (statements 6, 13, 14, and 15), and 4) the legitimacy of English used by NNSs (statements 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 18).
(T7) As regards their attitude towards whether it is necessary to learn English according to the NS model, the qualitative part of the present study also corroborated that traditional view of ELT was ingrained in most of the participants, which is counter to ELF-related issues.