1. English as a Lingua Franca
From Research to Pedagogy
Kurt Kohn
University of Tübingen (Germany)
kurt.kohn@uni-tuebingen.de
53rd RELC International Conference, 12-14 March 2018, Singapore
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2. With regard to pedagogical vision, ELF and ELT don’t seem to be best friends
➢ (Many) ELF researchers emphasize that ELF speakers manage to communicate successfully by
making creative use of their linguistic resources without observing ELT norms of Standard
English.
➢ (Many) ELT practitioners are concerned that teaching ELF might require them to teach
incorrect English
English as a lingua franca (ELF)
versus
English language teaching (ELT)
Two trains in opposite directions on a single track
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Standard English is not the problem – the way it is taught, however, definitely is!

3. Conceptualizations
of ELF
Dimensions of
ELF competence
ELF pedagogy:
about non-native
speaker emancipation
Acquiring English
English as a
PEDAGOGICAL lingua
franca
Standard/native
speaker English as a
TL model for ELT
Insights from case
studies
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4. ELF as
a variety of English
ELF as
communication
→ A little thought experiment
→ Speakers use their own individual Englishes (from ‘native’ to ‘second’ to ‘foreign’)
→ And they do their level best to make ELF communication work
Conceptualizations of ELF
MY English!
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Teaching ELF-related
means of expression
Teaching communicative
competence for ELF interaction
“Lingua franca English” as
translingual local practice
Teaching how to negotiate diverse
linguacultural repertoires in
contact zone interactions
Teaching how to MONITOR the negotiation
of diverse linguacultural repertoires for
communicative & communal success
A social constructivist
perspective on ELF
[Jenkins 2015]
What
about?
“English as a
Multilingua
Franca”
[Kohn 2011]

5. → processes of individual and social construction
→ that enable us to create our own version of English
→ in our minds, hearts, and behavior
Individual creation mediated by social ELF interaction
Acquiring English
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MY English!
Making English
one’s own
MY target language model, MY native language, MY previous languages,
MY attitudes and motivation, MY goals and requirements, MY learning approach,
MY learning effort, and MY communicative interaction and identification with others
Individual
AND
social forces
Developing
MY English
concerns ...
★ MY linguistic means of expression (repertoires) and of how to use them to fulfil language &
communication & community-related requirements of performance
★ MY requirement profile regarding e.g. correctness & situational appropriateness, satisfactory
expression of one’s meaning intent, or being accepted in a speech fellowship
★ MY individual and social identity orientation as a non-native speaker of English
★ Confidence in MY non-native speaker creativity

6. Focus on raising AWARENESS lingua franca communication in English
● increasing learners’ sensitivity and tolerance for others and for oneself
Focus on ELF-related COMPREHENSION challenges, e.g.
● unfamiliar pronunciation and sentence structures
● unclear utterance meanings regarding lexis, proposition or illocution
● weak discourse structure and lack of coherence
Focus on ELF-related PRODUCTION challenges, e.g.
● express-ability [Albl-Mikasa 2013] and pragmatic fluency [House 2002]
● negotiating linguacultural resources
● adaptation of requirements to conditions of ELF communication (e.g. correctness)
Focus on ELF-related COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION challenges, e.g.
● accommodation and collaborative meaning negotiation
● cooperativity, empathy, and tolerance for ambiguity [Byram 1997]
Focus on LEARNERS of English as (non-native) SPEAKERS of English by, e.g.
➢ helping them to explore their non-native speaker creativity
➢ encouraging them to judge by their own feelings of speaker satisfaction
➢ leading them towards an emancipated non-native speaker identity
Teaching towards ELF competence
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ELF as
intercultural
communication
Grounded in ordinary
communicative competence

7. Standard/Native Speaker English
as a target model in ELT
Learners are required to comply with the SE/NS
(teaching) norms – the closer they get, the better
A STRICT orientation
towards SE/NS
The ‘strict’ view sees language learning essentially as a
copying process and argues (implicitly) from a behaviorist position.
Learners use SE/NS English as a model of orientation for
creating their own version of English
An OPEN orientation
towards SE/NS
The ‘open’ view follows from an (implicit) understanding of language learning as
a social constructivist process of cognitive, emotional and behavioral creation
with sufficient leeway for NNS creativity, speaker satisfaction and NNS emancipation
As a construction (description) by a linguist
As a pedagogical construction by teachers and learners
Standard/Native
Speaker English
************
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8. Telecollaboration conditions in our case studies
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Online
intercultural
communication
Video communication
(Skype, BigBlueButton)
Virtual Worlds (OpenSim),
Chat and Forum
‘soft’ intercultural
topics
TC access
from home
lingua franca
constellation
pairs or small
groups of students
blended learning
flipped classroom
multimodal TC
arrangements
Pedagogical lingua franca exchanges in ELT
through intercultural telecollaboration

9. Cooperative, consensual and supportive conversational exchanges, e.g.
‘That's pretty much my opinion as well’, ‘I wish you luck’, ‘I think you are going to do great', ‘Wow, you draw! I envy you’
Empathy and encouragement, e.g.
‘Oh God, I can't talk about it in English because I don't know the words’ / ‘Doesn't matter […] I know like we are beginners (laughs) of
English, we haven't got such a level to speak about everything we want’
Appreciation of authentic interaction with real speakers, e.g.
‘I think it is good because it puts us in a real situation’
Satisfaction about thematic autonomy, e.g.
‘We got along really well [...] were less concentrated on the task [...] but more on us and talked about private things [...] I was highly
satisfied with our conversation.’
Focus on communicated meaning
Making oneself understood is considered more important than errors
Facilitating effect of the pedagogical lingua franca condition, e.g.
‘We both like have the same level’, ‘Since it was not their native language, it was okay. Making errors didn’t matter. She could
understand me.’ Less communication apprehension than with native speakers.
Increased confidence and self-assurance, e.g.
‘Self-assurance increases with each conversation and you become more confident.’
Collaborative languaging
From reliance on authoritative support and assurance to making best use of one’s own resources and creative ingenuity
Learning to accept and tolerate uncertainty, even a breakdown.
Learner agency and nonnative speaker emancipation
Insights from case studies (in secondary school FL classes)
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10. → Adequate technological infrastructures and support services
→ Room for individual learning flexibility outside regular class hours in school or at home
→ Continuous teacher education for intercultural telecollaboration and lingua franca pedagogy
→ Networking and collaboration in international teacher communities, e.g.
http://eTwinning.net (schools), https://unicollaboration.eu (universities)
→ Learner preparation to ensure the shift from private familiarity with new technologies and
social media to pedagogical deployment.
Sustainable pedagogical implementation
remains a challenge
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11. References
Albl-Mikasa, M. (2013). Express-ability in ELF communication. Journal of English as Lingua Franca, 2(1), 101–122.
Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice. Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. London & New York: Routledge.
House, J. (2002). Pragmatic competence in lingua franca English. In K. Knapp, & Ch. Meierkord (Eds.), Lingua franca communication (pp. 245-267).
Frankfurt (Main): Peter Lang.
Kohn, K. (2011). English as a lingua franca and the Standard English misunderstanding. In A. De Houwer & A. Wilton (eds.), English in Europe today.
Sociocultural and educational perspectives (pp. 72-94). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Kohn, K. (2015). A pedagogical space for ELF in the English classroom. In Y. Bayyurt and S. Akcan (eds.), Current perspectives on pedagogy for ELF
(pp. 51-67). Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Kohn, K. (2016). Teaching towards ELF competence in the English classroom. In N. Tsantila, J. Mandalios, & M. Ilkos (eds.), ELF: Pedagogical and
interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 25-32). Athens: American College of Greece.
Kohn, K. (2018a). MY English. A social constructivist perspective on ELF. Journal of English as Lingua Franca. https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2018-0001
Kohn, K. (2018b). Towards the reconciliation of ELF and EFL: Theoretical issues and pedagogical challenges. In N. Sifakis & N. Tsantila (eds.), ELF in
EFL Contexts. Bristol: Multilingual Matters (to appear).
Kohn, K. & Hoffstaedter, P. (2017). Learner agency and non-native speaker identity in pedagogical lingua franca conversations: Insights from
intercultural telecollaboration in foreign language education. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 30(5), 351-367.
Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. London & New York: Routledge.
Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Widdowson, H. (2013). Defining issues in English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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