Global English awareness: experiencia de comunicación intercultural en el aula de inglés

Resumen

This paper proposes a classroom intervention for teachers to use in their English as aForeign Language (EFL) lessons to familiarise their students with the idea of English as aLingua Franca (ELF). Here, Spanish students’ perceptions towards non-standard varietiesof English in international contexts are investigated. The study, first of all, reveals anawareness by the majority of the participants of the need to learn to communicate betterwith other non-native speakers of English inside the EFL classroom. Most claim theywould like their teachers to pay more attention to pronunciation in order to avoidmisunderstandings, others suggest they need more exposure to non-standard varieties ofEnglish to be prepared for real-life interactions, proving that the proposed interventionraises students’ awareness towards the intercultural usage of English in globalcommunication settings. The main objective of this paper is to show a classroomexperience designed to teach Spanish students Global English, instead of the traditionalStandard English, with the aim of facilitating real-life communication outside theclassroom. This classroom experience aims at raising awareness towards other varieties ofEnglish which students will most likely encounter in international contexts. This classroomexperience proves that students are not presented to world Englishes in their learningprocess, not even C1 level students, which is the second highest level of English learningaccording to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). It isclear that this intervention raises students’ awareness and creates more intelligible Englishspeakers who are more prepared for international communication. After seeing thepotential of this short classroom experience, one could claim that a wider classroomintervention based on this experiment could result in not only aware English speakers butalso more intelligible ones, prepared for international interactions in today’s era: the era ofthe communication. This classroom intervention could be modified to be implemented inany other EU country for common intelligibility amongst EU nations.