Introducing English as a lingua franca: An online tutorial

British students on an undergraduate TESOL module and international students at York St John University worked together to create an award-winning online tutorial based on their experience of using English as a lingua franca (ELF). This talk demonstrates the tutorial and considers a range of issues for ELT of ELF.

This talk will demonstrate an online tutorial on English as a lingua franca, as well as reflecting on issues raised by the tutorial including: preparing evidence-based learning materials, using appropriate technology to create re-usable resources and the implications of ELF for ELT.

As part of an 'Enquiry-based learning' project at York St John University, four students worked together with the Head of Programme for the MA TESOL to explore their use of English in international situations. This involved students in using digital audio recorders to collect data and Audacity to edit their sound files, as well as in learning to transcribe and collaborating on a micro-analysis of their ELF talk using a conversation analysis-type method. The project team used Wimba Create to build a simple but engaging online tutorial to share their experience of researching their own ELF talk, with the further aim of sensitising other university students (both British and international) to the use of ELF in mixed language group work. The resulting tutorial uses audio, reflective video and interactive flashcards and is licensed under a Creative Commons agreement, meaning that anyone is free to use and customise the material to suit their own purposes. The tutorial is available here:

http://www2.yorksj.ac.uk/EnquiryCommons/elf/

The project team were awarded second prize in a national competition at the 2009 Association of Learning Technologies conference. The competition was organised by Jorum, a JISC-funded service to collect and share learning and teaching materials:
http://www.jorum.ac.uk/community/altcCompetition.html