Suggestion on Teachers' Beliefs Research on Teaching English as a Lingua Franca

Abstract

Globalisation has led to English becoming a world lingua franca among people who do not share a common first language. This distinctive nature of the contemporary use of English led to arguments of that English belongs to not only Native Speakers (NSs) but also Non-native Speakers (NNSs) and NNSs are legitimate users of English with their own rights. Teaching only NS standard English could be harmful to the cultivation of learners' ability to communicate with future interlocutors from diverse linguacultural backgrounds. However, so far ELF pedagogy has been mostly discussed at only a conceptual level and pedagogical research is scarce. In order to suggest direction for future pedagogical research, this paper focuses on teacher cognition research in the field of ELF. We begin with reviews of two key concepts of ELF. After identifying the limitations of the existing research on ELF oriented teacher cognition, we suggest that 'critical language awareness' as a core concept in teacher training programme.