Drawing the s(elf): exploring individual repertories through autobiographical illustrations within the English as a Lingua Franca perspective

Abstract

Current research on English teaching has increasingly turned to the notion of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). However, when we look at the reality of the classroom, teachers still feel insecure about how to employ this concept and the discussions throughout their practice and the research ends up, largely, in the academic scope. Therefore, in this study we explore discussions and reflections of students about their experiences with English learning through an activity involving autobiographical illustrations. To this end, throughout the text we approach the elements that constitute ELF – to the detriment of the concept of English as a Foreign Language; we present studies that approach ELF within the classroom; we describe our methodology, the activity we propose with students, and discuss the results based on the issues raised. From this, we argue that activities like the one proposed here can be used by teachers to understand the individual repertoires of their students and, with that, to raise possible ways to work in the classroom having the ELF paradigm as its basis. We finish, then, with some possibilities of approaches focusing the development of an ELF informed classroom practice.