Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) vs Teaching English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Marek Kiczkowiak from TEFL Equity Advocates discusses the differences between teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). EFL focuses on native speaker conformity, while ELF emphasizes global communication and intelligibility. The video highlights the need to move away from native speakerism and adapt English language teaching to reflect the reality of English as a global language predominantly used by non-native speakers.
Takeaways
- 😀 Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) focuses on conformity with native speaker models, emphasizing standard pronunciation and language use.
- 😄 In EFL, having a foreign accent is often seen as negative, and students are discouraged from using their first language (code-switching).
- 😃 Standard native speaker culture is often prioritized in EFL, with non-native speakers rarely being used as language models.
- 😁 EFL tends to promote native speakerism, the idea that native speakers are linguistically and pedagogically superior.
- 😆 Teaching English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) prioritizes intelligibility in international contexts rather than conformity to native speaker standards.
- 😂 ELF emphasizes clear communication across diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, focusing on interaction with non-native speakers.
- 😊 In ELF, intercultural communicative skills are vital, helping students navigate various cultural contexts rather than just native speaker cultures.
- 😉 ELF encourages using non-native speakers as language models, which can motivate students by showing them real-world examples of effective communication.
- 🙃 Raising awareness of native speakerism and the global spread of English is a key component of ELF teaching.
- 😌 ELF acknowledges that most English speakers are non-native, making the language a tool for global communication, not just a reflection of native speaker norms.
Q & A
What is the primary focus of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching?
-The primary focus of EFL teaching is conformity with a standard native speaker model, where students are encouraged to imitate the language of perceived 'native speakers' who speak standard English.
How does the perception of 'native speaker' influence EFL teaching?
-In EFL teaching, the 'native speaker' is perceived as the ideal model for language proficiency, which influences teaching materials, pronunciation goals, and cultural content, often neglecting the diversity within the English-speaking world.
What is the typical attitude towards foreign accents in EFL teaching?
-In EFL teaching, having a foreign accent is often seen as something negative, with a historical emphasis on eradicating such accents to achieve 'standard' native speaker pronunciation.
Why is code switching or translanguaging often viewed negatively in EFL contexts?
-Code switching or translanguaging is viewed negatively in EFL contexts because it deviates from the standard native speaker language model, which is seen as the ideal form of communication.
How does the EFL approach differ in terms of cultural emphasis compared to ELF teaching?
-EFL teaching emphasizes the culture of those perceived as native speakers, whereas ELF teaching focuses on intercultural communicative skills, preparing students to navigate a variety of cultures where English is used.
What is the significance of using non-native speakers as language models in ELF teaching?
-Using non-native speakers as language models in ELF teaching is significant as it reflects the reality of English as a global language, where most speakers are non-native, and it can motivate students by showing them that high proficiency can be achieved without native-like pronunciation.
How does ELF teaching approach the issue of intelligibility compared to EFL?
-ELF teaching focuses on intelligibility and the ability to communicate effectively in international contexts, rather than conformity with native speaker models, which is the focus in EFL teaching.
What is the role of native speakerism in EFL and ELF teaching?
-Native speakerism plays a central role in EFL teaching, often perpetuating the idea of native speaker superiority. In contrast, ELF teaching aims to challenge and reduce the impact of native speakerism by emphasizing the global spread of English and the diversity of its users.
Why is it important to raise students' awareness of English as a Lingua Franca in ELF teaching?
-Raising students' awareness of English as a Lingua Franca in ELF teaching is important to help them understand the global nature of English, the majority of its users being non-native speakers, and to prepare them for effective communication in diverse international contexts.
How does the TEFL Equity Advocates Academy aim to help English teachers?
-The TEFL Equity Advocates Academy aims to help English teachers tackle native speakerism and teach English for global communication by offering courses and training that focus on ELF principles and practices.
What are the key differences between EFL and ELF teaching methodologies?
-The key differences between EFL and ELF teaching methodologies include the focus on native speaker conformity versus intelligibility, the use of native versus non-native speaker models, the emphasis on target culture versus intercultural communicative skills, and the approach to code switching and language diversity.
Outlines
🌐 Introduction to EFL vs. ELF Teaching
The speaker, Marek Kiczkowiak, introduces the video's focus on comparing EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) teaching approaches. He discusses the common assumptions in EFL teaching, such as conformity to native speaker models, the idealization of standard native speaker pronunciation, and the negative perception of foreign accents. The speaker also touches on the limited representation of non-native speakers in course materials and the historical emphasis on native speaker culture in EFL teaching. He contrasts this with his advocacy for ELF teaching, which he promotes through his platform, TEFL Equity Advocates, aiming to challenge native speakerism and focus on global communication.
🔍 Characteristics of EFL Teaching
This paragraph delves deeper into the characteristics of EFL teaching, emphasizing the historical focus on native speaker models and the marginalization of non-native speakers. It highlights the rarity of non-native speakers being used as language models and the lack of discussion on the global spread of English and its implications for language teaching. The speaker argues that the EFL approach perpetuates native speakerism, which positions native speakers as superior both linguistically and pedagogically. The paragraph sets the stage for a comparison with ELF teaching, which the speaker will discuss in the next section.
🌟 Transitioning to ELF Teaching
The speaker contrasts EFL with ELF teaching, emphasizing the shift from native speaker conformity to intelligibility in international contexts. ELF teaching focuses on clear communication rather than adherence to native speaker pronunciation. It advocates for the use of a diverse range of non-native speaker models in language materials to reflect the reality of English as a global language. The speaker also stresses the importance of genuine interactions between non-native speakers in the classroom and the development of intercultural communicative skills. The paragraph concludes with the speaker's encouragement to use non-native speakers as language models and to raise students' awareness of the global nature of English and the issue of native speakerism.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡EFL (English as a Foreign Language)
💡ESL (English as a Second Language)
💡ELF (English as a Lingua Franca)
💡Native Speakerism
💡Intelligibility
💡Translanguaging
💡Intercultural Communicative Skills
💡Non-native Speaker Models
💡Global Spread of English
💡TEFL Equity Advocates Academy
Highlights
Introduction to the acronyms EFL (English as a Foreign Language), ESL (English as a Second Language), and ELF (English as a Lingua Franca).
Focus on ELF teaching and how it differs from traditional EFL teaching.
EFL focuses on conformity with a native speaker model, encouraging students to imitate 'privileged' standard English.
Native speaker pronunciation is seen as the only appropriate goal in EFL teaching, while having a foreign accent is viewed negatively.
In many EFL materials, non-native speaker voices are underrepresented, with a preference for standard native speaker accents.
Code-switching and translanguaging are often discouraged in EFL contexts.
EFL emphasizes native speaker culture, privileging native speakers as superior language models.
ELF teaching focuses on intelligibility and effective communication in international contexts, rather than native speaker conformity.
ELF encourages the use of a wide variety of non-native speaker voices in language models, reflecting real-world communication needs.
Emphasis in ELF teaching is placed on intercultural communicative skills rather than native speaker culture.
ELF recognizes the global spread of English, noting that non-native speakers outnumber native speakers, making it essential for students to adapt to diverse interactions.
In ELF, non-native speakers are used as valid language models for pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.
Teaching ELF raises awareness of native speakerism and its impacts on language education.
ELF promotes helping students communicate effectively in global, multilingual contexts where non-native speakers are the majority.
The overall goal of ELF is to ensure students are prepared for real-world communication with a diverse range of English speakers, focusing on clarity rather than native speaker standards.
Transcripts
A lot of you are probably familiar with the acronym
EFL, or English as a foreign language. Some of you probably
have heard as well about the acronym ESL, English
as a second language, but more recently and especially on this channel I've been
talking about ELF acronym, English as a Lingua Franca.
And more specifically, I've been talking a lot about teaching
ELF. So in this video I want to look at teaching English as a Foreign
Language, EFL, and teaching English as a Lingua Franca,
ELF, and compare them to see how they would differ.
So if you're new here, my name is Marek Kiczkowiak, and I run TEFL Equity Advocates
and Academy, where I help English teachers tackle
native speakerism and teach English for global
communication. If you're enjoying this video, then
consider giving it a like and also maybe hit that subscribe and
that little bell button so you don't miss any
of my future videos. So what is the difference between
teaching EFL, English as a Foreign Language, and teaching
ELF, English as a Lingua Franca. Let's perhaps start with the first term,
teaching EFL, and look at some of the most typical
assumptions that I think a lot of us have when it comes to teaching
English, and more specifically teaching English
as a Foreign Language. So what are some of the characteristics
of teaching English as a Foreign Language? First of all, the focus is on
conformity with a standard native speaker
model. In other words, your students are encouraged
to imitate the language that 'native speakers',
and I say 'native speakers' in inverted commas because it's not
all 'native speakers' that we encourage our students to imitate
but those that we perceive to be 'native speakers', those who speak
standard English of course, but in here for shorthand II'll just say
native speaker; but whenever I say that I remember that II mean a specific
group of native speakers who speaks the privileged
standard native speaker English. A second characteristic would be the
fact that standard pronunciation, standard native
speaker pronunciation is seen as the only appropriate goal for
our students. And number three: this leads to the idea
that having a foreign accent is something
bad. As a result, historically, in many of the published materials there
has been a rather narrow range of native speaker
voices. And again those native speakers that appeared
in course books were predominantly standard
native speaker voices from different countries
perceived as native speaking countries. And obviously those perceived as
non-native speakers appear much less. There are also
mostly, as researchers such as Matsuda point out,
interactions either between two native speakers or between a non-native speaker
and a native speaker. Another thing that we might see as a
characteristic of an English as a Foreign Language
approach is the fact that switching languages,
translanguaging, code switching, to use more linguistic terms, is seen as
something negative. Now think about it: I'm sure you've been
in situations either in your classroom or maybe in an exam where a student all
of a sudden switched between languages from English
maybe to the first language or maybe to another language that they know; and
they used an expression from that language, a word, maybe they translated
an idiom from another language that they know to English.
What would our typical reaction to that be?
And I'm included in this because I'm guilty of this
myself as well. It would probably be very negative, right? On an exam we might
grade them down because we see them as not using standard native speaker
language, we see they as translating from the first language, code switching, and
we see that as something negative. In EFL teaching
there is also emphasis, or at least historically there has been a lot of
emphasis, on what is perceived as native speaker culture. I still
time and time again come up against native speakers who will argue that they
are privileged and entitled to the privilege that they enjoy
in English language teaching because of the knowledge
of the target native speaker culture. Now another thing that happens in
teaching EFL is that non-native speakers will be very,
very rarely used as language models.
If you for example want to model pronunciation or a particular grammar
feature or some vocabulary, who is going to be a model for that? Well,
99% of the time it's going to be a standard
native speaker voice. And of course there is very
little discussion of the global spread of English and its implications for
teaching and learning English. And there is very little discussion as well
of native speakerism and its impact on English language teaching. So to sum up,
the EFL approach to teaching English in many, many of its assumptions
and core beliefs and practices is very native speakerist. And
I would argue that it serves to further perpetuate
native speakerism, or this idea that those perceived as
native speakers are superior, not only linguistically but also pedagogically.
So let's now look at the other option which is teaching ELF, teaching
English as a Lingua Franca. And let's zoom in on some of its
characteristics and how it might differ from teaching EFL,
English as a Foreign Language. So there are some fundamental
differences between teaching EFL and teaching ELF; some of them
are for example focusing on intelligibility
and the ability to communicate the message
appropriately in international contexts rather than
focusing on conformity with standard native speaker models. Instead of having
standard native speaker pronunciation as the only
goal that our students should aspire to, we focus on intelligibility in
international contexts; in other words, on clear
pronunciation in international contexts and being easy
to understand to a wide variety of people. Also you would want to use a very
wide variety of non-native speakers, or those
perceived as non-native speakers, in your recordings. So you would basically want to
examine and do a needs analysis with your students to find out
who they are going to be using English with.
And just bearing the numbers in mind, that
there are probably four or five times as many non-native speakers as there are
native speakers, the chances are that your students are much more likely to
interact with other non-native speakers than they are
with those perceived as native speakers. And you really need to reflect that
in your materials. What you also want to do when you teach
ELF is to have a lot of genuine interactions between people from
different countries in which those perceived as native
speakers are in a minority. And again, this simply reflects the
reality of the English language: those who speak
it as the first language constitute perhaps 20 percent
of all people who use English. Another really important difference with
teaching EFL is that when we teach ELF or English
as a Lingua Franca, rather than emphasize the target culture
of those perceived as native speakers, we want to emphasize
intercultural communicative skills; in other words,
we want to help students be able to navigate their way in between a myriad of
different peoples, cultures, and first languages,
all of whom use English to communicate.
One last aspect that I think is vital as well when
teaching ELF rather than when teaching English as a Foreign Language
is to use non-native speakers as models of the language. This can involve
models of pronunciation, and I've done
another video about how you can use non-native speakers
as valid models of pronunciation, and the link is right below this video,
but they can also model grammar and vocabulary.
So use those recordings of non-native speakers to showcase
to students that these people can also be
great models of the language for them. And I think as well this can be
really motivating because it simply shows them as well that they as second
language users of English can also reach that
proficiency level. And finally, really, really
important as well when teaching ELF, is to try and raise students
awareness of English as a Lingua Franca, of the
global spread of the English language and of native
speakerism. So to sum up, there are some big
differences between teaching EFL, English and Foreign
Language, and teaching ELF, English as a Lingua Franca.
If I could summarize them in sort of one sentence, the main difference is that
the native speaker, or those perceived as native speakers, is no longer
at the center the language, is no longer seen as the only default
standard that all students should aspire to
imitate, but on the other hand what's emphasized is the global
nature of the English language and the fact that most people who use it
are non-native speakers. As a result, the language that we want to help our
students use should be language that is easy to
understand in international contexts. If you enjoyed
this video, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and that little bell
button as well so you don't miss any of my future
videos. And if you really want to dive in deeper to
teaching English as a Lingua Franca and learn
how you can help students communicate more effectively in international
contexts, then consider joining TEFL Equity Academy, where I have
several courses, teacher training courses, that will show you
exactly how to teach English as a Lingua Franca and tackle
native speakerism.
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