A Study On Pre-Service Teachers' Beliefs of English As an International Language

Abstract

In the 2nd semester of 2011/2012, the first World Englishes class was introduced to students of the English Department of Petra Christian University in Surabaya who enroll for the English for Education Business programme. There were 11 students registered; and I was asked to facilitate this class. At the beginning of the semester and before each class started, I asked them some questions related to the issues of English as an International language (EIL) so that I knew what their before-course-perceptions were. During the class meetings, I asked them to share their thoughts and conceptions actively. I noted down these teacher trainees‟ points of view. As their reflective papers, I asked them to write down their reflections related to the issues of (a) the role of English as an international language, (b) the best variety, (c) the use of the students‟ mother tongue in English classrooms, and (d) the best teacher of English. In this paper, I would like to share the (un)shifting of these teacher trainees‟ perspectives towards the native speaker norms.