Research shows that, while exposure to English as a lingua franca (ELF) discourse and to discussion of ELF-related interactional strategies – such as rephrasing, paraphrasing and translanguaging – can help raise English language teachers’ and learners’ ELF awareness, this is often not enough nor is the value of such exposure adequately monitored. In this paper, following the principles of ELF awareness (Sifakis, Nicos. 2019. ELF awareness in English language teaching: Processes and practices. Applied Linguistics 40(2). 288–306), I suggest that raising teachers’ and learners’ awareness of and attitudes towards their own experience as users of English inside and outside of the classroom needs to be prioritised, especially in Expanding Circle teaching and learning contexts. Together with this awareness, teachers and learners need to be made fully conscious of their deeper perceptions about key ELF concerns, such as the role of the native speaker in ELF interactions, the nature of intercultural communication, etc. Such awareness can be raised through metalinguistic and metacognitive activities and questions added to existing activities/materials. To this end, I propose a framework and a series of specific step-by-step scenarios and tools for raising teachers’ and learners’ ELF awareness along these lines and present four examples of integrating such metacognitive and metalinguistic activities with those of a specific textbook.

Στο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζεται η έρευνα που έγινε στο πλαίσιο της συγκέντρωσης δεδομένων σχετικά με την επιμόρφωση των Συντονιστών Εκπαιδευτικού Έργου (ΣΕΕ) Νηπιαγωγών και Εκπαιδευτικών Αγγλικής Γλώσσας κατά την εφαρμογή του Προγράμματος «Εισαγωγή της Αγγλικής γλώσσας στο Νηπιαγωγείο» (ΕΑΝ). Για τη συγκεκριμένη επιμόρφωση υπεύθυνη ήταν η ομάδα του Εθνικού και Καποδιστριακού Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών (ΕΚΠΑ). Πιο συγκεκριμένα, εστιάζουμε στην παρουσίασητων απόψεων και των στάσεων των ΣΕΕ όπως αυτές προέκυψαν μέσα από τη διενέργεια δύο ομάδων εστίασης (focus groups). Το κεφάλαιο κλείνει με τη συζήτηση των δεδομένων αυτών, με ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στα συμπεράσματα που προκύπτουν σε σχέση με την αξιολόγηση της επιμόρφωσής των ΣΕΕ στο πλαίσιο του ΕΑΝ, αλλά και στον ευρύτερο αντίκτυπο της συγκεκριμένης επιμόρφωσης για τον σχεδιασμό αντίστοιχων προγραμμάτων επιμόρφωσης στο μέλλον.

The paper presents the background, design, implementation and impact of the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme of the EU-funded ENRICH Project, which ran from 2018 to 2021. The programme, which has been freely available online since January 2022 (http://enrichproject.eu), aims at implementing the principles and processes of ELF awareness in empowering English language teachers to integrate the role of English as a Lingua Franca in their multilingual classrooms. We begin by justifying the development of the ENRICH Project with reference to the policies of the European Union supporting multilingualism and go on to discuss the principles of ELF awareness that informed the ENRICH CPD programme. We also present the priorities, target groups, key objectives and innovative practices of the ENRICH CPD programme. The paper is rounded up with a sample of participants’ responses to certain CPD activities and with an appreciation of the impact of the programme on participant teachers and their learners.

The paper presents four premises and two principles guiding the ENRICH Project, an EU-funded (Erasmus+) project that ran from 2018 to 2021 and developed an innovative online continuous professional development programme aimed at educating teachers of English as a foreign language in raising their own and their learners’ ELF awareness. I further discuss my own observations from the extensive training programme with regard to implications of ELF aware teacher education and pedagogy and present the essential ingredients of what I call the “ELF state of mind”.

Research in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), that is the medium of communication between people who come from different linguacultural backgrounds, has created a rich body of work in various areas. This article focuses on a more recent development of this research for teachers and teacher educators in the perspective of critical language education (CLE). We explore how ELF research, both the linguistic/discourse-oriented one and the pedagogic-oriented one, can benefit from its links to CLE, with its understanding of teaching for social change. We then refer to aspects of critical transformative theory that become relevant in designing and implementing ELF-aware teacher education programmes, focusing especially on three recursive (non-linear) components, i.e. the phase of exposure, the phase of critical awareness and the phase of development of actions that teachers can implement in their teaching. We finish by exploring the critical role of assessment in language education and conclude by inviting teachers and educators to become involved in ELF research for CLE.

This article presents results from a needs analysis survey conducted in the first year of a European-funded project entitled ‘Teachers’ Assessment Literacy Enhancement (TALE)’. The survey questionnaire used asked 1788 learners of English in Cyprus, Germany, Greece and Hungary about their experiences of assessment; which of these they considered conducive to learning and the role feedback played as an instrument of formative assessment. Further questionnaire data from their 658 teachers were included in the data analysis. The results showed that practices differed across contexts. Overall, both learners and teachers reported a wide range of skills and areas to be assessed in the EFL classroom with writing, followed by speaking, being assessed the most. Based on the perceptions reported by the learners, the assessment types used revealed rather traditional approaches with frequent use of e.g. discrete-point tests with closed answers, extended writing and translation. The learners appeared to regard these types of assessment to be supportive of their learning. Feedback given was mostly restricted to marks and brief comments. The perceptions on feedback practices varied among teachers and their learners. Results of the needs analysis were taken as the basis of the online course design for enhancing teachers’ language assessment literacy.

In this paper I discuss the possibilities, opportunities, challenges and (even) perils in applying the ELF-aware perspective in teacher education. I focus on presenting two obstacles in enabling this application, the first related to teachers’ attitudes, which tend to be fundamentally negative, and the second referring to an uncertainty about establishing, applying and evaluating appropriate ELF pedagogy. The obstacles are discussed with reference to examples from my personal experience as teacher educator, and argue (a) that these obstacles are also present in more “traditional” teaching and teacher education practices and (b) that they can be overcome if they are perceived as opportunities for integrating real-life interactions involving non-native English language users in the EFL classroom and prompting EFL teacher reflection and growth.

In ELT contexts, the concept of ELF awareness has been proposed as a means of developing the skills, strategies, and overall outlook that learners require to competently participate in ELF interactions. Depending on the teaching context, this can be a demanding process. We discuss the ELF-aware instructional interventions carried out by two practitioners working in high-stakes exam preparation contexts in Greece. These contexts are predominantly Standard English oriented. The interventions described an attempt to put into practice the principles of ELF-aware pedagogy, namely awareness of language and language use, awareness of instructional practice, and awareness of learning. The innovative aspect of these interventions is that they do not run contrary to the curriculum of these high-stakes exam preparation classes. On the contrary, they complement the courseware used in these contexts with authentic audiovisual materials and original metalinguistic activities that boost learners’ self-confidence as ELF speakers and as candidates of these exams.

This chapter provides a state-of-the-art discussion of the ways in which transformative learning could be fostered in teacher education. It focuses on programmes which aim at raising English language teachers’ awareness of the implications of the current role of English as a lingua franca (ELF), namely as an international contact language. After presenting the challenges which the ELF phenomenon poses nowadays, the transformative model for ELF-aware teacher education put forward by Sifakis is discussed, with reference to its relevance for Mezirow’s transformation theory. The transformative experiences of Kordia during her participation in an ELF-aware teacher education programme are afterwards presented, illustrating the phases of transformation she went through in her attempt to integrate ELF in her teaching practices.

Στο κεφάλαιο αυτό παρουσιάζουμε τους συσχετισμούς ανάμεσα στη Θεωρία Μετασχηματισμού του Mezirow και την εποικοδομητική θεωρία του Robert Kegan. Με βάση την κριτική συζήτηση των επιχειρημάτων που ανέπτυξαν οι δύο θεωρητικοί σχετικά με τις διεργασίες μετασχηματισμού των ενηλίκων, υποστηρίζουμε ότι οι απόψεις τους για τη φύση της μετασχηματίζουσας μάθησης συμπίπτουν σε μεγάλο βαθμό και ότι οι θεωρίες τους, μολονότι διατυπώθηκαν μέσα σε διακριτά επιστημονικά πλαίσια, θα μπορούσαν πραγματικά να αλληλο-εμπλουτιστούν. Με την ολοκλήρωση αυτού του κεφαλαίου ο αναγνώστης θα έχει αποκτήσει μια πλήρη εικόνα όχι μόνο των βασικών αρχών που διέπουν τις θεωρίες του Mezirow και του Kegan, αλλά και, ιδιαιτέρως, του τρόπου με τον οποίο μπορούν να συνδυαστούν και δοκιμαστούν στην πράξη, ώστε να επιτευχθεί μεγαλύτερη αυτοδυναμία των εκπαιδευομένων. Για τον σκοπό αυτόν παρουσιάζουμε το περίγραμμα μιας πρότασης για την εκπαίδευση των εκπαιδευτικών αγγλικής γλώσσας, το οποίο αναφέρεται τους τρόπους ενσωμάτωσης της μετασχηματίζουσας μάθησης στις μεθοδολογικές πρακτικές της διδασκαλίας της Αγγλικής ως διεθνούς γλώσσας επικοινωνίας (lingua franca).

The article proposes a framework for integrating English as a lingua franca (ELF) research in English language teaching (ELT), predominantly pedagogy, but also teacher education, materials development and evaluation, policy design and planning, assessment and testing. The main concept here is ELF awareness, which orientates a set of principles that refer to the knowledge, attitudes, and skillset of ELT stakeholders and ELT products with regard to issues and concerns raised in the ELF (and, by extension, the English as an international language and the World Englishes) research literature, and the extent to which they have relevance for local ELT contexts. The article makes the case that ELF awareness does not characterize a unique instructional approach to teaching and learning, but integrates the learner- and learning-centred ‘ESP approach’ put forward by English for specific purposes scholars in the 1980s and widely accepted subsequently in ELT. Furthermore, ELF awareness is viewed as a continuum that depicts the gradual transformation of stakeholders’ attitudes, to the extent that local contexts and stakeholders’ needs and wants allow.

In this chapter, we will provide a review of the major aspects related to teacherawareness, with special reference to non- native teachers’ awareness of English as an International Lingua Franca (ELF), and will then provide an account of a hands on practical approach aimed at introducing teachers in Expanding Circle countries (Kachru, 1985 ) to the challenges and implications of teaching a global language, thus transforming them into ELF- aware teachers who will be ready to convey such awareness among their students. We will focus on non- native English- speaking teachers’ (NNESTs’) awareness of the global properties of ELF. In order to support our suggestions in the light of a new model of transformative teacher education (Sifakis, 2007, 2014), we provide evidence from an on- going project on ELF- aware language teaching, and we report NNESTs’ perspectives on what they consider to be an ELF- aware lesson, as well as teachers’ observations of how successful they were in raising their students’ awareness towards ELF (Bayyurt and Sifakis, 2015a , 2015b; Sifakis, 2014 ; Sifakis and Bayyurt, 2015).

The chapter focuses on the challenges and opportunities raised by the growing awareness of the role that English as a lingua franca (ELF) can play in Expanding Circle contexts, namely, contexts where English does not have a historical or statutory role of any kind. The context under review is Greece, where English is taught as a foreign language (EFL). I present an account of the English language teaching, learning and use situation in Greece and reflect on the impact ELF can have for domains like language instruction, materials design, selection and evaluation and teacher education. I argue that ELF research can inform EFL contexts in a number of ways: It can be used to empower non-native speakers of English by broadening their perspective of communicating on a global scale in the 21st century. It can also be used as a means of teacher development. The essential element that underpins this perspective is that, for Expanding Circle contexts like the Greek one, English is not a foreign language (in the way that other major languages like French and German are), but a language with which learners have some degree of familiarity.

This volume examines the role of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in education in Europe. Following the implementation of the Bologna process, English has assumed a central role in European education offering institutions the opportunity to cater to the needs of an internationalized student body and increase their competitiveness. On the other hand, the increased use of ELF has become an issue of concern, often perceived as a threat to other languages, tilting the scale towards linguistic inequality and stressing the urgent need for the development of new language policies. Both aspects of ELF are at the center of discussion in the proposed volume, which consists of a variety of papers examining ELF in different parts of Europe (Eastern, Central and Western) and different levels of education. The volume makes a substantial contribution to the lively and controversial debate about what is recognized as a central topical concern of language education policy in Europe and beyond.

Developments in ELF research in the past several years have raised implications for many different domains surrounding the use, teaching and learning of English involving non-native speakers. What this research has offered is a fresh way of looking at English-medium communications that include non-native users, raising serious implications about the nature of the very notion of ‘English’ (Jenkins et al., 2011; Seidlhofer, 2011, p. 105; Widdowson, 1997). In this chapter, we focus on implications of ELF research for teacher education. As ELT situations around the world abound, we put forward the notion of ELF-aware teacher learning and development (our term) and suggest ways in which it can impact teacher development through appropriate teacher education. To that end, we present a framework for teacher education programmes aiming to raise teachers’ ELF awareness.

This edited volume seeks ways to present a unifying picture of TESOL policies and practices from different contexts in the broader Mediterranean basin and beyond. The book is divided into three major sections: (i) English language education; (ii) English language teacher education and recruitment policy; (iii) English language testing policies and practices in different contexts. Each chapter has a different research focus (e.g., CLIL, English as an international lingua franca in education, English for specific purposes, etc.), but aims at drawing informed and balanced conclusions with regard to a series of TESOL concerns. Essentially, what this volume provides, and what makes it unique as an edited publication in the field of ESOL education, is a principled awareness of the need to communicate research in one specific domain of teaching and learning to a broader area of ESOL education that is not necessarily delimited by familiar educational practices but can be generalized for other contexts as well.

Recent work in the field of English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF) has been focused on defining, delineating, and clarifying the nature of ELF. While some work has addressed issues of teacher education and training (see below for a review), we have yet to see a comprehensive proposal that aims both to educate English as a Foreign Language (henceforth EFL) or English as a Second Language (henceforth ESL) teachers about ELF and to engage them in developing, teaching, and evaluating ELF-aware lessons in their own teaching context.

The paper describes a framework for the education of ESOL teachers that is inspired by principles grounded in research on English as a lingua franca (ELF) and world Englishes (WE). The essential feature of such a framework is that it involves interested teachers in a critical reorientation of their beliefs toward English language teaching, learning and communication. This transformative framework informs what we call the ‘ELF-aware’ teacher education component. We then present a framework for a transformative perspective for ELF-aware and WE-aware teachers and describe the phases of a teacher education project that attempted to put this framework into practice.

In foreign language contexts, course books assume a considerable amount of responsibility for the structuring of class time, classroom interaction, and language learning. In this paper, we evaluate EFL course book materials by considering their structure and effectiveness through survey questionnaires administered to teachers working in Greek state primary schools (4th and 5th grades) and via in-depth interviews with the book authors. Our research has shown that materials production can be a predominantly top–down process, in which policy makers, materials authors and teachers can draw independent pathways to developing and implementing the final product, i.e. the course book. The findings of the study have implications for teaching, teacher training, materials design and policy making in contexts where learners use course books for foreign language learning.

The paper discusses the challenges and opportunities that the English as a lingua franca (ELF) paradigm raises for ESOL teacher education. I argue that one of the prominent implications of the ELF paradigm for ESOL teachers is the need to review and ultimately change their convictions about key aspects of foreign language teaching, such as normativity, the role of native/non-native speakers, and the function of teacher feedback in the foreign language classroom. I review evidence from the ELF literature that supports such a perspective and discuss the kind of reflective reviewing that teachers need to engage in. I argue that, while the critical approach is certainly the right way to go, it is not enough. What is necessary is a more rigorous approach that would go beyond merely exposing teachers to the principles and criteria of ELF and prompt them to critically consider and ultimately transform their deeper convictions about these issues. I present a framework for such a transformative perspective that aims at educating the ELF-aware teacher.

Launching the distance-learning student-tutor interaction process, tutors of the first module of the M.Ed in English course at the HOU lay the foundations of academic student autonomy by means of providing – inter alia -- the appropriate written feedback on written assignments. In doing so, they need to gauge the content and form of their written comments systematically with regard to both output- and student-, that is human factor-related issues (cf. Goldstein, 2004), the latter being particularly relevant to the distance-learning context. In this article we discuss tutor policy as well as tutor perceptions (cf. Lee, 2004, 2009 among others) regarding written feedback on students’ academic assignments in terms of aspects of deviance treated and the relative gravity of ‘global’ and ‘local’ errors (e.g. Ferris, 2002), the directness of the correction, the punitive or facilitative nature of the comments provided as well as the relative balance of student strengths and weaknesses on the tutor’s comment agenda (cf. Hyland & Hyland, 2006). The role of the tutor as an assessor and/or counsellor is explored and the importance of striking a delicate balance between the two, especially in a context where face-to-face feedback opportunities are severely restricted, is underscored. We suggest that distance-learning feedback practices may need to be at least partially individualized to maximize student response and meet the goal of ‘informed autonomy’.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Μ.Ed. in TESOL programme of the Hellenic Open University, we distributed a questionnaire to graduates as well as current students of the programme. Our primary goal was to further reflect on the usefulness of the programme ten years after and identify possible weak points that need enhancement for the ultimate benefit of our students and the Greek society at large. To that end, we aimed to map out students’ views about the programme and its influence on their professional life. In the various sections of the questionnaire we tried to explore (a) whether their expectations are fulfilled; (b) which modules of those on offer they have selected and which they consider as the most and least important for their professional training and development; (c) how the programme has influenced the professional choices they make/have made outside teaching a class-proper; (d) whether they regard the programme as a springboard for further professional development which they can embark upon on their own; (e) what suggestions they can make for the programme’s further improvement of. The results were very positive. The goals we had set forth in 1998, when this Μ.Ed. in TESOL teacher education programme was inaugurated, were definitely fulfilled for the benefit of the teachers of English at large both in the private and the state sector. The work that has been carried out so far points to a bright future, provided we continue on the same successful course and implement all necessary changes and adjustments required by our changing times.

The paper presents a notional account of the challenges facing the introduction of English as an international lingua franca (ELF) curriculum in the state schools of the expanding circle, taking Greece as a case in point. It broadly delineates an ELF curriculum as one focusing on the skills necessary for carrying out successful communication involving non-native speakers and then highlights a set of challenges linked to both teaching context and teachers’ perceptions of professional identity. It focuses on challenges related to three facets of the professional identity of academically trained Greek state school EFL teachers, namely, their roles as users, specialists, and, ultimately, custodians of English for their learners and wider community. These facets are discussed with reference to a description of the country's current sociolinguistic and educational profile. The paper concludes with an overview of the strengths of an ELF curriculum for Greek state schools and discusses implications for ELF teacher education.

The article responds to the emerging need for a general framework for ELF (English as a lingua franca) teacher education that would appropriately inform and sensitize ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) practi-tioners about ELF teaching matters. The teacher education model put forward is based on the transformative framework for adult education suggested by Mezirow and has five phases. The framework aims at bringing about the much-needed paradigm shift in postmodern ESOL pedagogy by transform-ing ESOL teachers' worldviews about English and English language pedagogy and empowering them in bringing about the necessary changes in their own teaching context.

This article presents a survey of Greek EFL teachers' (N = 421) attitudes regarding their pronunciation beliefs and practices. It touches on two sets of questions. First, it refers to teachers' viewpoints regarding pronunciation-specific issues and the possible links between pronunciation teaching, English as an international language (EIL), and the sociocultural identity of nonnative speakers of English (NNSs). Second, it tries to establish the extent to which these teachers are aware of EIL-related matters, such as the need for mutual intelligibility in NNS-NNS communication. We conclude that teachers' viewpoints are predominantly norm bound. We further attempt to make sense of these viewpoints by referring to (a) the teachers' sense of being the custodians of the English language as regards English language learners and (b) the wider sociocultural linguistic background in Greece (which involves a history of diglossia and a recent experience of a massive inflow of immigrants). We go on to suggest ways to raise teachers' awareness of EIL-related concerns by suggesting that they use their immediate geopolitical and sociocultural surroundings.

The article concentrates on setting some specific criteria for the EIL (‘English as an international language’) classroom and raising teachers’ awareness of what is needed in order to identify and teach EIL classrooms. It starts by distinguishing between those communicative and teaching situations that are norm-bound and those that prioritise interlocutors’ mutual comprehensibility and cultural identity. On that basis, it goes on to delineate the EIL domain in norm-bound terms and suggests that teachers should also concentrate on teaching English as an intercultural language (EIcL). It subsequently addresses the following questions: What are the defining characteristics of an EIL/EIcL situation? How can a teacher identify such a situation and by what means can this be done? To what extent are EIL/EIcL situations similar to or different from other ESL, EFL, or more general ESOL situations? Are all EIL/EIcL situations around the world the ‘same’ and, if not, to what extent are they similar/different? To what extent do learners’ and teachers’ attitudes towards English, language learning and their own national, cultural and personal identity matter in EIL/EIcL learning/teaching?

The paper addresses the commonly acknowledged challenge of globalisation with respect to the area of English language teaching and, more particularly, teaching English to speakers of foreign languages. It is argued that some of the primary issues involved concern the increasing role of technology and communication in modern societies and the looming conflict between local communities and the decision-making bodies. It is further suggested that the global English language teaching (ELT) community has already gone a long way towards researching and, in certain cases, resolving such conflicts and has much insightful material to offer. The paper incorporates a discussion of the notion of English as an international language and the question of 'ownership' of such a language. The roles and defining characteristics of the native and non-native speaker of English are then considered and the various occasions when communication and learning take place are briefly reviewed, with frequent reference to the authors' own teaching situation, i.e. English language teaching in Greece. The paper culminates with an appreciation of the pedagogical, ethical and methodological considerations that are suggested as a means of sensitising TESOL teacher education vis à vis the global status of English (also with the Greek context in mind).

The paper brings together recent work in English for specific purposes/languages for specific purposes (ESP/LSP) and adult education and puts forward an integrative model for ESP curriculum design. It outlines a set of characteristics that identify the ESP learner within the general adult learning framework. Taking current theories on the adult learner profile as a starting point, it then focuses on a model that associates adult education principles with effective ESP learning. This model has two sides. One side requires the adult learner's ESP teacher to come to terms with adulthood-oriented considerations (i.e. issues unique to adult learning), such as ‘mess-management’, motivation and adult learning cycles. The other side involves both a number of ELT-methodology-specific communicative strategies that are indispensable in the ESP class, such as self-directed learning techniques, as well as enhancing the role of the ESP teacher as counsellor. Some implications for the construction of CALL programmes are discussed and the paper ends with the suggestion that all approaches to teaching learners in the ESP framework can benefit from the successful handling of both aspects of the earlier model.