A Comparative Study of EFL Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions towards ELF and its Pedagogical Implications

Abstract

English has become the international language as a result of globalization. And English's status has already begun to have an impact on English language education. As a result of these changes in the language, it is vital to figure out whether there has been a paradigm shift in how EFL teachers and students think about it. The goal of this study was to find out how tertiary-level EFL teachers and students felt about English's status as an ELF and its pedagogical implications. The study enrolled 570 Turkish EFL students and 52 EFL teachers from an English preparatory program at a foundation institution, who were chosen using convenience sampling. Both groups' data were obtained using the same questionnaire based on the relevant literature. While EFL teachers were more enthusiastic about ELF than students, both groups were concerned about its pedagogical consequences. In supporting ELF as a concept, the findings of this study are similar to those of earlier research, but they also show some discrepancies in taking a neutral posture rather than preferring native English-oriented teaching in ELT classrooms, as was the case in previous research.