DIPLOMARBEIT / DIPLOMA THESIS Titel der Diplomarbeit / Title of the Diploma Thesis „Austrian pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards the role of ELF in the language classroom – exploring motivational potentials“ verfasst von / submitted by Anna Donata De Colle angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.) Wien, 2016 / Vienna, 2016 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 190 344 347 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt / Lehramt UF Englisch UF Französisch degree programme as it appears on the student record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor: Dr. Marie-Luise Pitzl Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr.
Marie-Luise Pitzl for her guidance and commitment. She has been a source of inspiration, support and motivation throughout the process of conducting this thesis. This thesis would not have been possible without my interview partners who shared their personal views with me. I am grateful for these interesting and insightful conversations and I wish them all the best for their future as teachers.
Further thanks go to my family and friends who were patient with me during the past months and I feel very grateful to have their endless support. Finally, I want to thank my fiancé, for supporting me with all his heart and being as patient as he could possibly be in times of stress. Table of contents 1 Introduction. 1 2 ELF in language teaching .1 Conceptualizing English as a lingua franca.2 English as a foreign language / English as a lingua franca .3 Aspects of ELF-sensitive teaching .1 Raising awareness for ELF .2 Challenging current views and practices .5 Culture in ELF-sensitive teaching .6 Testing and assessment.
21 3 Attitudes towards ELF in the educational sector .3 Pre-service teacher attitudes. 39 4 Student motivation in the language classroom.1 Types of motivation .2 Integrativeness and ELF.2 Motivational strategies in the classroom. 53 5 Interviewing pre-service teachers .1 Interest and method. 60 6 Pre-service teachers’ views on ELF’s impact on motivation .2 Pre-service teachers’ aspirations for own teaching .3 ELF-sensitive teaching .4 ELF and motivation.1 In-class participation .3 Usefulness and relevance of English .4 Learner self-perception .5 Learning outcome and objectives.
107 Abbreviations CLT Communicative language teaching EFL English as a foreign language EIL English as an international language ELF English as a lingua franca ELT English language teaching ENL English as a native language ENS English native speaker ENNS English non-native speaker GA General American IELTS International English Language Testing System L1 First language L2 Second language LFC Lingua Franca Core RP Received Pronunciation SLA Second language acquisition TOEIC Test of English for International Communication 1 Introduction The present study examines the interplay of language learning motivation and English as a lingua franca (ELF) in the English language classroom. ELF refers to linguistic encounters in which “speakers with different linguacultural backgrounds share English as their common means of communication and as a dynamic and co-constructed linguistic resource” (Cogo & Pitzl 2012: 284). In the past, ELF has often been misinterpreted as a somewhat ‘flawed’ or ‘improper’ form of the English language (Buckledee 2011: 300-301), however, gradually it settles its way into general acceptance. Over the past years it has emerged as a thriving area in linguistics (Cogo & Pitzl 2012: 284).
Seemingly, this development has only little influence on what is taught in school and how English is passed on to future generations. It appears that if ELF really is to become an influential factor in Austrian classrooms, teachers’ views need to be taken on board, a comment in line with Dewey’s (2012) stance. Although several researchers have investigated teachers’ attitudes towards ELF (e. Decke-Cornill 2002; Jenkins 2007; Lahnsteiner 2013; Takahashi 2011; Timmis 2002) uncovering largely critical views, only few studies concentrating on pre-service teachers have been conducted up to the present (Inal & Özdemir 2015; Kaur 2014; Sougari & Faltzi 2015).
None to my knowledge within the Austrian context. While it could be argued that the views of teachers in service and of those still enrolled in university are similar, I would claim this to be rather an assumption than an actual matter of fact. As already pointed out, ELF research is evolving at an enormous speed which might result in a broader coverage of issues linked to ELF in university courses. This, in turn, might lead to pre-service teachers being more willing to take the leap and practice ELF-sensitive teaching.
Unlike their in- 1 service colleagues who might have already taught for decades, future teachers might still be more willing to adapt to the new situation the expansion of ELF puts us in, seeing not only the possible limitations but also the potential advantages. Of course, it would be naïve to believe that ELF will exclusively evoke positive reactions amongst future teachers. In fact, it is owing to a lively discussion raised during an ELT methodology class that I have taken interest in the issue at hand. “ELF in the classroom” does not seem to be an overly debated issue and thus provoked rather diverging and, at the same time, strong reactions amongst fellow colleagues.
It is specifically these strong reactions that I am interested in examining in more detail, as I deeply believe that research into the attitudes and beliefs of future language teachers could reveal new insights relevant to the discussion of the standing of ELF in Austria, its educational landscape in general, and at the English Department of the University of Vienna, in particular. Secondly, also the field of L2 learning motivation constitutes a research area that has raised interest over the past two decades. As results of various studies reveal that L2 motivation has a tremendous impact on language learning in general, I would like to explore the potential interrelation of ELF and L2 motivation. Although up to present, no studies exploring the motivational potentials of the ELF- sensitive teaching approach have been conducted, a critical reading of the L2 learning motivation theory suggests that an ELF-sensitive teaching approach might include many principles that serve to keep learners’ motivational levels high.
In my research project I would like to investigate to what extent pre-service teachers’ think an interrelation between ELF in the language classroom and motivation exists. To this end, I will explore their beliefs concerning the potential ways language learning motivation can be affected by teaching English ELF- 2 sensitively, considering the following research question: “In how far do Austrian pre-service English teachers think that ELF-sensitive teaching might have an impact on student motivation?” In order to get an in-depth perspective on pre-service English teachers’ views and opinions, I conducted eight semi-structured interviews. The study presented in this thesis strives to examine the assumptions about the potential impact that ELF could have on L2 learner motivation in the English language classroom. I will first provide some insights into the research that has been conducted in the fields that are relevant to my study.
Starting with a brief discussion of the most important information about ELF, the focus will be on the classroom as I will outline what research revealed regarding the most relevant aspects of ELF- sensitive teaching to my research. Afterwards, the field of attitudinal studies will be discussed and the findings of previous studies dealing with in- and pre-service teachers’ as well as learners’ opinions about ELF will be presented. Ultimately, I will conclude the theoretical part of my thesis with a discussion of the topic of student language learning motivation. As for the empirical part, I will first present the aim and research methodology of the present interview study.
Subsequently, the findings concluded from the interview data are summarized and discussed according to the emergent topics. Finally, the insights from the interview studies are linked to theory regarding ELF as well as motivation research, so as to describe what aspects of the issue have become more accessible and clearer thanks to this project and which questions call for further investigation. The conclusion will be dedicated to the question whether this project has served as a contribution to achieve a better understanding of the potentials of ELF-sensitive teaching regarding student 3 motivation and whether the present situation could be improved by a more thorough integration of ELF in the teacher training program as well as in English language teaching. 4 2 ELF in language teaching First of all, English as a Lingua Franca is a term that necessitates at least a brief introduction as well as definition as it is placed at the very heart of my project.
Therefore, the general concept of ELF will be outlined and subsequently contrasted with the currently widely spread construct of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), explaining in how far English has grown out of the ‘Modern (Foreign) Languages Paradigm’ (Jenkins 2006a: 140).1 Conceptualizing English as a lingua franca The English language now spoken by more non-native speakers than natives has gone through tremendous changes regarding its international status owing to globalization, the boom of the internet and other push factors. As a result of the vast spread of English all over the world, native speakers cannot remain ‘in control’ of their language and dictate what constitutes acceptable or real English. Rather, they need to understand that English has become property of everybody, hence “how [it] develops in the world is no business whatever of native speakers” (Widdowson 1994: 385). For it is spoken by a large number of people around the globe, ELF has gained the privilege to shaping its own standards.
English as a lingua franca has been defined slightly differently by a number of scholars (Firth 1996: 240; Jenkins 2009: 143-145), thus a choice needs to be made as to what ELF constitutes for my research project. According to Seidlhofer (2011: 7), ELF is “any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice and often the only option”. Although it might be true that many ELF encounters do not feature any native speakers of English, henceforth referred to as ENSs, we should not be too 5 quick in excluding what constitutes according to Kachru’s terminology (1992) the Inner Circle from the current linguistic development. ELF is not a lingua franca in the reduced, simplified sense but it varies from the standard norm produced by ENSs.
It features large proportions of linguistic variation and non-standard forms, especially in informal spoken discourse. Hence, there is no fixed or shared language practice – no ELF as a variety based on a set of straightforward rules (Seidlhofer 2009: 48). Reasons for this are manifold. It appears that ELF users who meet in “different constellations of speakers of diverse individual Englishes in every single interaction” (Meierkord 2004: 115), are rather reluctant regarding lexicogrammatical norms formulated by an ENS community (Seidlhofer 2001; 2009; 2011).
Additionally, also the fuzzy processing in ELF encounters (Mauranen 2012: 41) as well as the ‘shaky entrenchment’ (Mauranen 2006: 138) play a role in forming the unique nature of ELF. From this array of factors, the conclusion can already be drawn that ELF and ENL cannot be compared as the underlying concepts are differing in many aspects. ELF as such is a language contact situation, English being in contact with the greater part of the world’s languages. Hence, in turn, also ELF use is affected by the interlocutors’ first languages, much like in all language contact situations.
In ELF interaction, many instances of language variation and non-standard forms result from the fact that speakers borrow, code-switch or perform other crosslinguistic transfers (MacKenzie 2015: 4). In this way, ELF users adapt the language creatively in order to achieve their overall goal: intelligibility. It is nevertheless necessary to mention that ELF is still far from going uncriticized. Critical voices express doubts that ELF language use should be regarded as 6 different from learner English.