English as a Lingua Franca and language teaching

This chapter overviews English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in relation to language teaching, especially English Language Teaching (ELT). It explores the definition of ELF and, in contrast to English as a foreign language and as a second language, it moves away from linguistic and cultural reference to native norms, while emphasising its complex, adaptable, intercultural, and multilingual nature. The chapter outlines the origins and latest development of ELF research, from sociolinguistic analysis of corpus data to understanding of culture, identity, and attitudinal aspects. It then surveys pedagogical issues and their relevance in ELT with suggestions for teacher education (both for pre-service and in-service teachers), and other applications for the ELF classroom including materials development, curricula and programmes development. The chapter ends with a call for more research in this area, both in sociolinguistic applications and in the direction of decolonising ELT.