Exploring ELF awareness in teacher cognition: A case study in Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the construct of ELF awareness on teachers’ cognitions in the field of English language teaching in order to better understand and explain (1) how teachers conceptualize ELF awareness, (2) what issues teachers associate with ELF awareness, and (3) how teachers implement ELF awareness in the teaching context. Four English language teachers participated in the study. The teachers were interviewed three times and classroom observations were carried out. The data came from interviews, classroom observations, and lesson artifacts. Thematic, content, and document analyses were used in order to identify recurring themes and categories in the data. The data were analysed according to the relation of themes that emerged from the data to the adopted teacher cognition framework. The findings concluded that ELF awareness was conceptualized in terms of three main themes: (a) ELF as a global function of English, (b) ELF as a means for establishing confidence, and (c) ELF as a gate for revealing national identities, and in terms of three sub-categories: (a) ELF serves as a means for communication, (b) ELF establishes willingness to communicate, (c) ELF increases awareness of respect to other varieties and cultures. Also, six ELF-related issues were identified: (a) Accent, (b) Nativeness, (c) Prestige, (d) Intelligibility, (e) Sense of Inferiority, (f) Ownership of English. Besides, it was found that the participants developed and showed varied cognitions and implementations towards ELF awareness in ELT.