ELF Awareness and Intercultural Communication in the English Language Classroom

Abstract

This paper draws from Byram’s construct of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and by tying together the main principles of ICC and English as a lingua franca (ELF) pedagogy, it seeks to offer a novel multidimensional outlook on a subject that, so far, has undergone extensive research. Based on the author’s ten-year teaching experience and observation across different education cycles, it is argued that the integration of an ELF-oriented approach into the traditional English teaching paradigm can effectively foster learners’ intercultural awareness in multicultural settings and that implementing a dual teaching approach in the English classroom can improve learners’ intercultural communication skills and benefit their personal growth. The conclusion underpins that traditional English language pedagogy needs reconsideration from an ELF-aware perspective to meet today’s multicultural scenarios’ requirements and offers practical, theoretical, and policy implications for the professional development opportunities addressed to in-service and prospective teachers and the use of English globally.