Fostering awareness of the pedagogical implications of World Englishes and ELF in teacher education in Italy
Journal Title: Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching - Year 2016, Vol 6, Issue 3
Abstract
Teacher education represents an essential step to raise awareness of the sociolinguistic changes brought about by the current pluralization of English and by its lingua franca role. Within the pre-service teacher education programs run at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Verona, Italy, part of the English language course focused on issues related to World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF), aiming at fostering awareness of and active reflection upon their pedagogical implications. After taking into consideration recent developments in WE- and ELF-aware teacher education, we will report on findings from a research study involving trainee teachers attending the aforementioned courses for English in academic years 2012-13 to 2014-15. The main aim of the study has been to investigate whether, how and to what extent trainee teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and reasoning about a WE and ELF-informed perspective in teaching practices may undergo a change after attending these courses. Drawing upon different sets of data (questionnaires, reflections in e-learning discussion forums, interviews and final reports), the trainees’ increased awareness of and readiness to include a WE- and ELF-informed didactic approach after attending the course will be discussed, together with implications for foreign language teacher education.
Authors and Affiliations
Paola Vettorel, Sara Corrizzato
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP256581
- DOI 10.14746/ssllt.2016.6.3.6
- Views 120
- Downloads 0
The role of attitudes in the development of Russian as a foreign language: A retrospective study
The article reports the findings of a retrospective study which looked at Hungarian learners’ attitudes towards Russian people, the Russian language and teachers of Russian. Mixed-methods sequential explanatory design (I...
MSL in the digital ages: Effects and effectiveness of computer-mediated intervention for FL learners with dyslexia
The longitudinal intervention study reported here is the first to investigate the efficiency of computer learning software specifically designed for dyslexic Swiss German learners of Standard German as a second language...
L2 irregular verb morphology: Exploring behavioral data from intermediate English learners of German as a foreign language using generalized mixed effects models
This paper examines possible psycholinguistic mechanisms governing stem vowel changes of irregular verbs in intermediate English learners of German as a foreign language (GFL). In Experiment 1, nonce-infinitives embedded...
Positive and negative emotions underlie motivation for L2 learning
The role of basic emotions in SLA has been underestimated in both research and pedagogy. The present article examines 10 positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, an...
The role of input and output tasks in grammar instruction: Theoretical, empirical and pedagogical considerations
In this paper, a review of the role of input, output and instruction in second language acquisition is provided. Several pedagogical interventions in grammar instruction (e.g., processing instruction, input enhancement,...