The paper focuses on the topic of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and the idea of its replacement of English as a Foreign Language (EFF) in the curriculum. It was written in 2016 by Tünde Nagy from the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Department of Humanities. The author is a great professional in the field of languages, and there are many other of their articles available for students and researchers. Some of them are “On translanguaging and its role in foreign language teaching” and “The semantics of specializers in English.” Other articles are also devoted to the English language, its collocations, and some other aspects, including teaching it in foreign classes.
As mentioned above, the main focus of the study is to give an overview of the existing research on English as a lingua franca. A major part of the article is devoted to the reflection on the impact of their findings on the teaching of English as a foreign language. First of all, the concept of lingua franca may be defined as a contact language used by people with different mother tongues (Merriam-Webster, 2021). Additionally, ELF can also be defined as “interactions between two or more lingua cultures in English for whom English is not the mother tongue” (Nagy, 2016, p. 156). Therefore, there are two perspectives on ELF – it is both a language variety and a working tool.
The research on ELF has been carried out at three levels. They include the lingua-cultural background of interlocutors (Holmes & Dervin, 2017), language, and domain. For example, concerning the second level, researchers studied pragmatic and phonological features, lexico-grammatical characteristics, and morpho-syntactic properties (Nagy, 2016, p. 157). Based on the findings, the term lingua franca core was used by researchers for different elements. For instance, pronunciation characteristics (like consonant clusters and nuclear stress) and morpho-syntactic factors are absent in native speakers but are not problematic in ELF conversations (Nagy, 2016). Some specialists also notice morpho-syntactical features of ELF communication. Observation of ELF speakers allowed some researchers to see that they do not worry about grammatical correctness and make mainly the same mistakes.
Further, the author discusses the importance and lack of teaching communication strategies to students. Many of them do not know how to deal with challenging situations that may arise during communication. According to Nagy (2016), there are two main groups of strategic competencies, including avoidance and resource expansion methods. The former is focused on avoiding mentioning some objects or topics when a communicator lacks vocabulary. At the same time, the latter aims to find other words and ways to express the thought.
Researchers and teachers argue about the necessity of incorporating the findings related to ELF into the EFL curriculum. Overall, it is considered that a standard variety of English as a foreign language is not enough, and ELF results have to be used to redefine the program of teaching EFL. According to Nagy (2016), several models are suggested, and one of them is the complete replacement of EFL with ELF. However, teachers are against these innovations because none of the models are practical or useful for students (Borghetti & Beaven, 2017). Finally, ELF research results are extremely relevant for teaching English as a foreign language, but further studies are required to better understand these concepts.
Overall, this is a rather detailed article that provides readers with numerous insights regarding English as a foreign language and English as a lingua franca. The author divides the paper into several major parts, which makes navigation easier. Additionally, all definitions are provided, and the research available on the topic is summarized so that the readers understand the background. Though the author mentions several significant findings, they are not final, and further research is needed to fill in the gaps.
References
Borghetti, C., & Beaven, A. (2017). Lingua francas and learning mobility: Reflections on students’ attitudes and beliefs towards language learning and use. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 221-241.
Holmes, F., & Dervin, P. (2017). The Cultural and Intercultural Dimensions of English as a lingua franca. ELT Journal, 71(4), 534–536.
Merriam-Webster. (2021). Lingua franca. In Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary. Web.
Nagy, T. (2016). English as a lingua franca and its implications for teaching English as a foreign language. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 8(2), 155–166.