10. RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

TLDR

English has become deeply affected by its unprecedented spread and serves a unique world‑language function, while recent empirical research on its lingua‑franca use has gained momentum. The chapter argues that teaching English as a lingua franca should wait until prerequisites are met, and it outlines implications for pedagogy and research questions needed for a secure theoretical base. The authors conceptualize ELF speakers as distinct language users and emphasize the need to describe ELF features alongside ENL, situating this work within descriptive, sociolinguistic, and applied‑pedagogical research. The study highlights pedagogical implications and identifies research questions essential for establishing a secure theoretical and descriptive foundation for teaching English as a lingua franca.

Abstract

This chapter shows just how deeply affected English has already been through its unprecedented spread, and the unique function it has as the world language. It argues, however, that it would be premature to launch into a discussion of the teaching of this lingua franca before certain prerequisites have been met. The most important of these are a conceptualization of speakers of lingua franca English as language users in their own right, and the acknowledgment of the legitimacy of, and indeed the need for, a description of salient features of English as a lingua franca (ELF), alongside English as a native language (ENL). The presentation summarizes the empirical research into the lingua franca use of English, which has recently gathered considerable momentum. It sets this research in relation to other relevant work in descriptive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics for language pedagogy. Finally, it discusses the implications of this historically unique situation for potential developments in the pedagogy of English teaching and outlines some research questions that must be addressed if advances in the teaching of English as a lingua franca are to have a secure theoretical and descriptive base.