Non-native Teachers’ Attitudes towards English as a Lingua Franca

As the number of speakers from a wide variety of contexts has increased exponentially in recent years, English has come to be used as a lingua franca (ELF), a common language used to communicate by speakers who do
not share a common first language. This has led to ELF developing a number of characteristics which distinguish it from ENL (English as a Native Language), and a lively debate has developed regarding the relative merits of ELF versus ENL. The goal of the current research was to begin to explore the practices and perceptions of non-native speakers of English from expanding circle contexts to provide information which might be used to inform policies and practices regarding the teaching and learning of English. Data came from a questionnaire administered to 45 nonnative English speaking teachers from five expanding circle countries, of whom 10 were later interviewed. The results suggested a strong preference for ENL norms. Implications of this finding are discussed, and suggestions made for
ongoing research.