English as Lingua Franca: Perspectives from Pre-service and in-service English teachers in Iran: Perspectives from Pre-service and in-service English teachers in Iran

The present study tried to shed more light on the existing trend of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which is steadily overlooking the long lasting beliefs in the ELT field but it appears that Iranian pre and in-service voices have been underrepresented in this regard. To properly represent them, their attitudes toward ELF were examined. To collect data in a quantitative design the EFL attitude questionnaire consisting of four components designed and validated by Curran and Chern (2017) was employed. The questionnaire was distributed among 91 pre and 85 in-service EFL teachers randomly selected. The descriptive analysis of the data showed that both groups of the participants positively agree, with the statements concerning the use of English for communication, the role of language and culture and language used in classroom context. However, an underlying tendency towards native speakers’ (NS) norms was also found based on the analysis of the participants’ answers to the statements related to the models of English. Moreover, comparing the groups’ means by using an independent t-test did not reveal any significant difference between the pre- and in-service teachers’ attitudes towards ELF. Findings of the study might have implications for teacher-educators, materials developers and EFL teachers.