Research has indicated that L2 learners frequently encounter challenges when using automatic speech recognition (ASR) in ELT. Therefore, this study explored how critical inquiries into the current ASR technology that is oriented towards native speech might elicit Global Englishes (GE) awareness among Korean pre-service teachers. Qualitative data…

This study investigated the participation and sense of belonging in the local English teaching community amongst expatriate native English-speaking teachers (NESTs). Participation theory was adopted as a theoretical framework. Several types of data were collected, including individual interviews with 10 NESTs, online open responses with 289 NESTs,…

This article reports on the implementation of an out-of-class communication component of a university ELT course in Hong Kong to raise students' awareness of the pluralistic nature of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Drawing on students' written reflections as part of the coursework, the study investigated how out-of-class ELF communication…

Writing status-congruent emails is a skill that requires high pragmatic competence and awareness of the politeness conventions and email etiquette that need to be followed. Planning and composing such emails pose a greater challenge for EFL learners who use English in "lingua franca" communication (ELF), as they not only often struggle…

This article reports on a study contrasting 41 native speakers (NSs) and 38 non-native speakers (NNSs) of English from two short initial teacher training courses, the Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults and the Trinity College London CertTESOL. After a brief history and literature review, I present findings on teachers'…

This article draws on qualitative classroom observation and interview data from a case study of one native-English speaker teacher (NEST) teaching in a Hong Kong kindergarten. Features of the NEST's teaching are identified, namely their professional limitations, their part-time involvement in teaching, and their limited collaboration with the…

While it is common for teachers to focus on learners' errors in the EFL classroom, little attention is given to the "errors" that native English speakers make in their mother tongue. This paper reports on a study to assess the reaction of Japanese university students to an activity that primarily required identifying…

The appearance of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in schools in Britain and other parts of the world has been accompanied by research that attempts to analyse their effects on teaching and learning processes. The majority of studies to date have been carried out in schools in England in mainstream numeracy and literacy classes. The present paper…

The paper presents a notional account of the challenges facing the introduction of English as an international lingua franca (ELF) curriculum in the state schools of the expanding circle, taking Greece as a case in point. It broadly delineates an ELF curriculum as one focusing on the skills necessary for carrying out successful communication…

Intriguingly, at a time when the ELT market is inundated with state-of-the-art coursebooks teaching modern-day English, a 30-year-old series enjoys continuing popularity in some secondary schools in Hungary. Why would teachers, several of whom are school-based teacher-mentors in the vanguard of the profession, purposefully choose materials which…

This paper describes "mentor development", a means of collaborative professional development through peer observation that was initiated by the author with 18 peers, all native English speaker EFL teachers at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan. It shows how such a programme allows teachers to learn from one another…

English language teachers' opinions on the pedagogic relevance of spoken grammar are beginning to be reported, yet the voices of teachers in East Asia are rarely heard. In this article, the views of teachers from China and Singapore expressed in an online discussion are compared. The discussion, which was part of a taught postgraduate course,…

Discusses the inseparability of culture and language, presents three new metaphors relating to culture and language, and explores cultural content in specific language items through a survey of word associations. The survey was designed for native Chinese speakers in Chinese as well as for native English speakers in English. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the communicative approach to the teaching of English as a second language (ESL) and the difficulties it presents especially to the nonnative speaker of English. Points out several contradictory tendencies inherent in the principles of the communicative approach and analyzes some practical problems encountered by nonnative speakers of…

Describes a survey designed to elicit student's views of what language teaching should be about and tests a number of previously expressed hypotheses: the importance or otherwise of bilingual, bicultural teachers; native-speaker models of English; and cultural content of English lessons in contexts where English is a foreign rather than a second…