Abstract:
English continues to maintain its status as a global language. It is spoken by a third of
the world’s population. However, majority of its users are non-native speakers. The
concept of ELF awareness orientates a set of principles that refer to knowledge,
attitudes and skillset of ELT stakeholders and ELT products. This study investigated
ELF awareness among tutors of English in Colleges of Education in the Ashanti Region
of Ghana. Using a convergent parallel mixed method, forty-eight tutors participated in
the study by providing quantitative data while nine out of the forty-eight tutors provided
qualitative data for the study. Questionnaires were used to elicit responses from the
participants while interviews were carried out to obtain qualitative data. The responses
from the questionnaire were analyzed by means of the SPSS and the interview
responses transcribed and analyzed thematically. The results of the data in terms of the
benefits of ELF awareness indicated that ELF awareness equips teachers with the skills
needed to prepare their student teachers to teach basic school learners. What is more,
participants revealed that ELF awareness can help improve practice in terms of
assessment, and designing test items around attainable non-native speaker norms. From
the results, it is argued that ELF awareness is beneficial and therefore tutors would have
to decide how it can help them teach English better in the colleges of education
Description:
A Thesis in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign
Languages Education and Communication, submitted to the School of Graduate
Studies, in partial fulfilment
of the requirement for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Teaching English as a Second Language)
in the University of Education, Winneba
JULY, 2020
