Hector Alvarez
I’m currently reading a book called Teaching English as a Lingua Franca: The journey from EFL to ELF by Marek Kiczkowiak and Robert J. Lowe, which provides practical activities to develop effective ELF classes. However, first of all, what is ELF? ELF stands for English as a Lingua Franca, first defined by Alan Firth (1996) as “a ‘contact language’ between persons who share neither a common native tongue nor a common (national) culture, and for whom English is the chosen foreign language of communication” (p. 240). However, the focus of ELF in recent years has become more encompassing, including now both native and non-native speakers of English.
ELF is not a variety of English, but a phenomenon that emerges from the interaction between different English users that accommodate and adapt their speech to their interlocutors. For example, a British speaker who usually use the expression “to take the mickey out of you” would, instead, opt to say “criticize you”, as the former, although common within the British English speech context, is not common among other varieties of English. Hence, in an international context, among users of different English varieties, it’s safest to choose the type of language that steers clear from what would be considered slang from a particular English variety.
Continue reading “ELF: how to best implement it?”