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Blended learning which synthesizes face-to-face instruction with distance education opportunities in educationally meaningful ways aims to take advantage of the affordances of both genuine and virtual types of teaching and ubiquitously equip learners without the limitation of time and space. Blended learning has been integrated into several pre-service teacher education courses to soundly cultivate teacher candidates with the efficient use of online and class time. Yet, to date, there has been no research on the use of blended learning in English as a lingua franca (ELF)-aware pre-service teacher education. This study aims to introduce an intensive blended learning model devised to raise ELF-awareness of pre-service teachers via critical reflection and investigate its effectiveness through their views. The data were collected by a questionnaire with closed and open-ended items and semi-structured interviews and analyzed via quantitative and qualitative analysis. The findings showed the blended learning model was rated to be effective in raising ELF-awareness of the participants. The advantages of the model were also reported along with challenges and the ways to address them. Overall, the results indicate a high level of satisfaction about the model and it is suggested blended learning be used in pre-service teacher education contexts.

Today English has become the Lingua Franca or common language of many people, regardless of their being native or nonnative speaker of English all over the world. Therefore, it has become necessary to educate pre-/in-service teachers with an awareness towards the significance of the involvement of an "English as a lingua franca" (ELF) perspective in their language teaching practice in multilingual/multicultural contexts. In a rapidly changing world, many English language teachers and teacher trainers are cognizant of the impact of migration in their teaching contexts. However, it is still not very clear to what extent and in what context they are integrating ELF related issues in their language teaching practice. In this study, we make an attempt to unveil in-service teachers' beliefs about ELF in pedagogical practice in three different countries -- Poland, Portugal and Turkey. In order to do that we have adopted a questionnaire from an earlier study investigating the involvement of culture in ELT in expanding circle contexts. The findings of the study revealed that although teachers in these contexts are aware of the significance of the inclusion of an ELF-aware perspective in ELT, they are still hesitant about its applicability in their own teaching context. This study has implications for raising English language teachers' awareness in conceptualizing how an ELF-aware pedagogical approach can be implemented in a multilingual/multicultural context.

This paper reports on the pairing of Spanish-speaking in-service teachers and Turkish-speaking pre-service teachers in a telecollaborative intercultural project in which English was used as a lingua franca. The authors of this paper were the course leaders. Participants' discourses were examined to understand how they communicated their cultures and whether they thought they had gained any cultural understanding from their interchanges. These data came from three sources: (1) The exchanges on the online cultural rooms in the discussion board area; (2) The students' final reports; and (3) The course usage statistics. As a challenge to O'Dowd's (2003) claim that such interchanges can end up as meaningless and superficial exercises, we demonstrate that they encourage people from different cultural backgrounds to develop and further their understanding of other cultures via such exchanges.

The leading position of English as a global language has evidently been continuing for several decades. This pivotal role has inevitably been influencing the agenda of English language teaching and teacher education in most domains of the profession. Although English as a lingua franca (ELF) implications and practices on teaching and teacher education are increasingly researched, they still remain a fairly untrodden territory. For this very aim, this study endeavored to shed lights on the role of teacher education programs through exploration of pre-service language teachers' perceptions on ELF related issues through a questionnaire and interviews. The findings revealed that although a large number of participants accepted the realities of ELF, however, they stated that their perspectives and teaching practices were largely shaped by inner circle native norms of English. The study has significant implications for teacher education programs involving language instructors, students, curriculum designers and material developers.

This study presents the outcome of the implementation of a process-oriented model of an intercultural competence (IC) and English as a lingua franca (ELF)-awareness development syllabus to prepare government-sponsored Turkish international sojourners for global communication in English L1 countries. Based on social constructivist research methodology, both, qualitative and quantitative data were used in the study that came from three major sources. The qualitative data included field notes obtained from a class of 10 study-abroad English preparatory students and interviews conducted with the preparatory school administrators, and the quantitative data came from pre-tests and post-tests which demonstrated a considerable shift in the attitudes of the participants of the experimental group with a boost in their ELF awareness and intercultural sensitivity compared to their control group counterparts. The outcome of the study underlines the significance of IC and ELF awareness development during language preparatory programmes prior to sojourn.

While translanguaging has gained significant traction as a theory of language that holds implications for educational settings with students from various language backgrounds, its viability in content assessment remains an unresolved issue. Students in English-medium instruction (EMI) programs at a private university in Türkiye participated in content exams that did not impose any language constraints, and follow-up interviews were conducted to probe into the participants' language-related EMI experiences and the factors that affected their language use in their responses. Student reports showed that L1 was used by instructors to explain complex concepts or when students' comprehension was challenged. Students used both English and L1 materials for studying, and in group and individual work, a mix of English and L1 was common, driven by the aim of cognitive efficiency and overcoming language barriers. In the content exams, both monolingual and translingual practices were employed by the participants, and their language use was mainly associated with relative proficiency in L2, encoding-retrieval match, and compartmentalization of languages. The study demonstrates that students encounter challenges in L2 comprehension and production in lessons and exams and that offering language flexibility in content exams may serve as a temporary accommodation that allows fuller expression of content knowledge, particularly in time-constrained exams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era where English is the global lingua franca, academic writing has transformed significantly. This manuscript explores academic writing in English as a lingua franca (ELF) contexts, tracing the journey of English from colonization to lingua franca status and contextualizing it within evolving paradigms of English and language teaching worldwide. We delve into ELF research, where English plays a multifaceted role as a resource for multilingual communication. Our examination encompasses ELF’s definitions, diverse users, and English as a multilingual franca. Our focus shifts to academic writing practices within ELF contexts, scrutinizing unique challenges and opportunities arising from linguistic diversity, cultural nuances, and communication strategies. Through a review of existing studies on academic writing in ELF contexts, we offer practical insights for educators, researchers, and students navigating this realm. This manuscript guides readers through the intricate world of academic writing in the globalized domain of English as a lingua franca. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of English-medium instruction (EMI) and the increasing number of international students in Turkish universities call for a change in the language support programs that prepare students for EMI. English as a lingua franca (ELF) is a promising perspective to achieve a more linguistically and culturally inclusive pedagogy. This paper reports the views of 10 English language instructors who took a teacher training course on ELF and experimented with ELF-aware teaching with several lessons in the classroom. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the instructors to explore how they conceptualized the relationship between ELF and their teaching context, and how they evaluated their teaching experiences. Results reveal that when preparing students for EMI, instructors saw ELF as a useful frame of reference that promoted students' confidence, motivation, and critical thinking. Instructors' teaching preferences were shaped by the curriculum they were supposed to follow, the materials at their disposal, and the characteristics of their learners. Findings highlight the need to equip students for the variability in the English language, and become more confident with their linguistic skills as multilingual speakers, as well as engage in critical thinking about English and its use in their context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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An introduction to articles in this issue is presented including challenges of using an ELF-aware perspective in English language teaching, change in an appropriately designed and focused teacher education and role of information and communication technologies in triggering ELF-aware practices.

The paper describes a framework for the education of ESOL teachers that is inspired by principles grounded in research on English as a lingua franca (ELF) and world Englishes (WE). The essential feature of such a framework is that it involves interested teachers in a critical reorientation of their beliefs toward English language teaching, learning and communication. This transformative framework informs what we call the 'ELF-aware' teacher education component. We then present a framework for a transformative perspective for ELF-aware and WE-aware teachers and describe the phases of a teacher education project that attempted to put this framework into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]