Fostering awareness of the pedagogical implications of World Englishes and ELF in teacher education in Italy
Fostering awareness of the pedagogical implications of World Englishes and ELF in teacher education in Italy

Summary/Abstract: Teacher education represents an essential step to raise awareness of the sociolinguistic changes brought about by the current pluralization of English and by its lingua franca role. Within the pre-service teacher education programs run at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Verona,Italy, part of the English language course focused on issues related to World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF), aiming at fosteringawareness of and active reflection upon their pedagogical implications. Aftertaking into consideration recent developments in WE- and ELF-aware teachereducation, we will report on findings from a research study involving trainee teachers attending the aforementioned courses for English in academic years2012-13 to 2014-15. The main aim of the study has been to investigate whether, how and to what extent trainee teachers’ pedagogical knowledgeand reasoning about a WE and ELF-informed perspective in teaching practices may undergo a change after attending these courses. Drawing upon differentsets of data (questionnaires, reflections in e-learning discussion forums, interviews and final reports), the trainees’ increased awareness of and readinessto include a WE- and ELF-informed didactic approach after attending the course will be discussed, together with implications for foreign language teacher education.

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