Exploiting ELF in the English Classroom to Foster Learners' Intercultural Communicative Competence

Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) allows those engaged in interaction to accommodate cultural and language differences adequately to convey a message, and acquires, therefore, a central role in today’s globalized multicultural society, with English being used as the chosen lingua franca of communication (ELF). This brings to the forefront important implications for the conventional English teaching and learning framework where native English speakers have always been regarded as the source of linguistic correctness. This presentation addresses the need to reconceptualize the conventional English teaching framework by exploiting an ELF-aware approach in the English classroom to foster learners’ ICC. To this end, we draw on the foundations of ICC and ELF pedagogy domains and elucidate the interrelations underlying these tenets. In addition, we seek to suggest good practices for such a paradigmatic shift towards a more pragmatic ELF-aware approach. The findings offer a different perspective on the subject by clarifying the interrelations among, and explicitly drawing together, the foundations of ICC and ELF, and outline the practical and theoretical implications for the training of English teachers and the global use of English.