Innovation in Language Learning
Declared and Enacted Language Ideologies among English Studies Teachers
Javier González Ruiz, University of Málaga (Spain)
Abstract
Research on English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in teacher education relies heavily on self-report, leaving the relationship between declared orientations and enacted practice largely untested (Sifakis 2019). Diert-Boté et al. (2026) identified three recurring identity positions among English Studies teacher educators (ELF-compatible, ambivalent and normative) and examined their alignment with pedagogical practices described in the interviews. Building on that work, the present extends the analysis from interview data to classroom practice, based on a dataset of several recorded sessions for two teachers at the University of Málaga, collected in the same period and prior to interviews. The analysis proceeds in two stages. First, the interviews were examined through deductive qualitative content analysis (Selvi 2020) using the orientations proposed by Dewey and Pineda (2020) and distinguishing linguistic from pedagogical identity. Second, the recordings were coded with an observational scheme addressing error treatment, orientation towards varieties and accents, language alternation and translanguaging, evaluative criteria surfacing in feedback and the provenance of materials. Declared and observed data were then confronted case by case, with the lecturers as the unit of analysis. The preliminary findings indicate a high degree of convergence between discourse and practice, although not always in the expected direction. Teachers with an ambivalent profile combine a normative model of English a British standard justified by course guides, with flexible translingual classroom management (Jenkins 2015). The strategic use of Spanish to clarify technical concepts, brief affective switches and acceptance of students’ questions in their L1, while their declared openness to other varieties and to ELF remained aspirational. Teachers with a normative teachers enacted the correctness-oriented, English-only practice they had described. Although the analysis showed ELF-compatible elements, these only surfaced in specific activities, such as virtual exchange with non-native peers and did not extend to teachers’ language policies or error treatment. The paper argues for reframing such divergence not as teacher inconsistency but as the appropriation of language ideology under local constraint.
Keywords: English as Lingua Franca, language ideologies; teacher educators; classroom observation; higher education
REFERENCES
[1] Dewey, M., & Pineda, I. (2020). ELF and teacher education: Attitudes and beliefs. ELT Journal, 74(4), 428–441
[2] Diert-Boté, I., Ruiz, J. G., & Pineda, I. (2026). Identity at the crossroads: ELF-compatible, ambivalent and normative perspectives among English teacher educators. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 11(1), 24.
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[5] Sifakis, N. C. (2019). ELF awareness in English language teaching: Principles and processes. Applied linguistics, 40(2), 288-306.
