Month: July 2015
08 – English as a Lingua Franca in the ESL classroom – Martin Dewey
[This episode follows up on issues first covered in episode 4 with Jennifer Jenkins.]
English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is a perplexing thing. It’s not an approach. It’s not a methodology. It’s a perspective. So there’s nothing for teachers to really get solid a grip on. This can get frustrating for teachers and can leave us more confused than enlightened.
In this episode, Martin Dewey of King’s College London towels off this slippery subject with a classroom perspective. Rethink how much attention we give certain language aspects in our classes, moving away from the native speaker norm, focusing on how students adapt their speech for the specific situation.
M’Kay…
Due to the time difference, I was up at dawn for this Skype interview so I was a little sleepy and, yes, I do say “curriculums” at one point!
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Further reading:
V.O.I.C.E – Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English
Masters of TESOL 