The studies above focus on the attitudes of in-service teachers’ attitudes towards varieties of
English. The following set of studies – Dalton-Puffer , Kaltenboeck, & Smit (1997), Seidlhofer
& Widdowson (2003), Grau (2005), and Dewey (2012)– focus specifically on pre-service
teachers. With the exception of Dewey, these studies were all conducted in environments in which German was the dominant language.
Prior to more widespread introduction of ELF into the field of applied linguistics, Dalton- Puffer et al. (1997) conducted a VGT study in Austria considering listener attitudes towards Received Pronunciation (RP), Standard American (SA), and Austrian English. The study’s findings are nonetheless relevant to ELF. Results indicated participants who had spent more time in “English-speaking countries revealed more individualized, situation-specific attitudes” (p. 126) than those without such exposure and were more likely to accept deviations from a mainstream variety. The authors suggest the importance of personal contact with the target language group, emphasizing social identity and expressions of group membership. This
proposition is particularly interesting when considered in relation to the idea of ELF community of practice, which constitutes a language group but not a language variety. How, for example, might increased contact with non-inner circle pronunciation norms improve non-native pre- service teachers’ views of their place among global English language users?
As seen in the previous section concerning in-service teachers, a lack of awareness of ELF is frequently a hindrance towards acceptance of the model. Similar results have been found for pre-service teachers. Seidlhofer & Widdowson (2003) analyzed pre-service teacher essay
responses to a scholarly article2 about ELF communication that challenges the idea of using
native norms in English language teaching. A number of student responses are supportive of House’s claims and in particular ELF, for example, expressing “relief” (p. 119) at realizing that native speaker goals need not be accepted as de facto standards. Another student-teacher claims that the activity raised personal awareness of the value of English for interactions with non- native speakers around the world. Yet many responses also seem critical of House’s study and interpretation of results. Some respondents, for instance, found the conversation upon which House’s study was based to be a “superficial situation” (p. 124) or “very artificial” (p. 125). Others questioned the acultural aspects of ELF, with different students claiming that “[s]peakers cannot just leave their culture behind and communicate on an ELF level” or that “culture is a feature of our own personality […] it should be included in teaching as well” (p. 122). In any case, Seidlhofer & Widdowson conclude that the activity “had the educationally desirable effect of provoking critical reflection” (p. 126), which, one would hope, continues throughout the careers of the future pedagogues in the study.
With a similar goal of awareness-raising, Grau (2005) considered German pre-service teacher attitudes towards ELF. In this study, participants completed a questionnaire at the beginning of an ELT course and took part in follow-up discussions at the end of the semester. Grau believes that student-teacher participants’ eagerness to offer opinions demonstrated their considerable interest in the subject. Although the “overall majority of students agree on the priority of
2 House (2000) Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca. In: K. Knapp & C. Meierkord
intelligibility as a pronunciation aim in the classroom” (p. 270), some student comments appreciated the diversity of standards while others indicated a concern for “the problems that might be inherent in an absence of clear standards and norms” (p. 271). Grau interprets these results as supporting a strong need for reflective pedagogical approaches in order to encourage student-teacher reflection of their deep-rooted linguistic convictions. Present teacher training programs, according to Grau, need not be completely revised, but rather include critical reflection of ELF as an additional focus.
Dewey (2012) comes to a similar conclusion with regard to teacher training programs and pre-service teachers, stating that there is plenty of room for adapting towards a more ELF- oriented perspective. Dewey uses a questionnaire and interview design to uncover what pre- service teachers in England know about ELF and how they respond to it. The questionnaire had three parts in which (1) participants were asked about English as a global language, World Englishes, and English as a lingua franca, (2) participants rated different varieties by names on importance for present teaching context, level of familiarity, and prestige, and, (3) participants evaluated written utterances extracted from an ELF corpus. Participants demonstrated awareness of the terms for different varieties of codified English and of ELF, but for ELF there was little consensus on the applicability for individual teaching contexts, with participants expressing concern about how a non-codified English might cause problems for classroom practice. On the judgment task, some teachers were more norm-oriented while others were more accepting of divergences, even though they all consistently considered the utterances intelligible. The author suggests that participants were expressing their
identity as an experienced language teacher and member of a professionalized community with highly established codes of behaviour … by orienting to language models and norms, which clearly have a central position in
institutionally-sanctioned versions of ELT expertise. In short, when asked to talk about ELF research, or for that matter, any research which has potential impact on current thinking, teachers will inevitably tend to invoke those aspects of their professional knowledge that are most familiar (p. 162).
Dewey concludes by expressing optimism about the incorporation of ELF and ELF ideologies into pedagogy. Comparing the present situation to Kumaravadivelu’s (1994)
description of a post-methods condition in ELT, the author suggests that ELF can bring about a postnormative condition “in which practitioners can be empowered to ‘construct classroom- oriented theories of language and communication’, and which enables practitioners to ‘generate location-specific, classroom-oriented innovative language models’” (p. 166).