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Volume 4
August 2009
Article 2

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Title
From EFL to ELF: Spotting the Blind Spots

Author
Mohsen Shirazizadeh and Mohammad Momenian.

Bio
Mohsen Shirazizadeh is a graduate student of TEFL at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. He has extensive experience of teaching English to multinational students. His current fields of interest include English as an international language and social dimensions of language education and evaluation.
Mohammad Momenian is a graduate student of TEFL at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. His fields of interest include language teacher education and critical approaches to applied linguistics.

Abstract

The increasing spread of English as an international language (EIL), a seemingly provocative and intriguing issue, has raised many controversial questions over the practical realities of teaching in EFL contexts. It is believed that insisting on the English of the Inner Circle countries, as the axiomatic norm of teaching is not only an untenable and rather undemocratic policy, but it is an ideologically and politically laden approach as well. In effect, as many scholars claim, it is this monolithic native-speaker oriented policy which has fanned the flame of marginalization of the English speakers in many EFL milieus.  Such discussions have encouraged a move from English as a foreign language (EFL) to English as a lingua franca (ELF). The present paper, therefore, argues that in our attempt to set more realistic and democratic goals for English learners in Outer and Expanding Circle countries, we might lose sight of many probable challenges. ELF is, then, criticized with regard to five facets of native speaker, culture, critical pedagogy, assessment and public attitude. These critical points are put forth in order to help ELF reach a sounder and more defensible position among theoreticians as well as practitioners.

Keywords: English as an International Language, critical pedagogy, English as a Lingua Franca