AN ELF-AWARE PRE-SERVICE LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION MODEL: THEORY INTO PRACTICE

AN ELF-AWARE PRE-SERVICE LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION MODEL:

THEORY INTO PRACTICE

Esma DENİZ - Yonca ÖZKAN - Yasemin BAYYURT

This study aims to shed light on the need for a pre-service language teacher education which sensitizes teachers about the lingua franca status of English and its implications on language pedagogy. Based on a qualitative research design with a constructivist/interpretivist research paradigm, this study constitutes an example of a case study which investigates the implementation of an ELF-aware pre-service teacher education model. The significance of the study lies in its broad spectrum combining two phases which are theoretical training and practicum applications. The theoretical training phase conducted with 26 pre-service teachers aimed at raising participants’ awareness of ELF as a construct and ELF-aware language pedagogy through intensive engagement in ELF research and continuous critical reflection. The practicum application phase conducted with 10 pre-service teachers explores how the participants build bridges between theory and practice so as to generate ideas to implement ELFaware language pedagogy in the complexity of real teaching situations at practicum.