Through a multiple case study approach, this study reports findings on newly arrived international undergraduates' use of pragmatic strategies for communication effectiveness in ELF academic group discussion in an internationalized university. The presentation will bring up discussion on incorporating ELF findings into EFL pedagogy to prepare competent participants for intercultural communication in globalized universities in 21st century.
English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions have become integral in everyday academic communication in internationalized universities, as global mobilities propelling the flows of diverse student and staff bodies (Baker, 2016). However, English language teaching (ELT) pedagogy still heavily relies on the native-speaker norms and standards, which has been found inadequate in preparing students for the flexible intercultural ELF interactions in internationalized higher education (HE) settings (e.g. Fang & Baker, 2018). There has been a growing concern for applying ELF pragmatics to ELT pedagogy to prepare competent participants in global intercultural communication (Taguchi & Ishihara, 2018). To better prepare international students for ELF academic interactions in globalized universities, the current study explores the use of communication strategies (CS) by first-year international undergraduates in ELF academic interactions. In ELF pragmatics, CS are a range of pragmatic strategies speakers employ to facilitate effective communication drawing on their plurilingual repertoires (Vettorel, 2018). Situated in an internationalized public university in the Northeastern United States, this study followed three summer ESL classes offered for incoming international undergraduates for six weeks. This presentation will zoom in on the use of CS by four focal participants during classroom group discussions. All participants grew up learning English in an EFL context (Kachru, 2006). Data collected include approximately 11 hrs audio recordings, observational notes, class materials, and semi-structured interviews. CSs were carefully identified from the transcribed recordings drawing on major types of CSs reported in ELF literature. Preliminary findings suggest that participants strategically used a range of CS to facilitate ELF communication, but those who had prior study abroad experience used a wider variety of CS, indicating the influence of ELF-related communicative histories on individuals' pragmatic awareness of and ability in ELF usage. Implications will be discussed for incorporating ELF findings into EFL classroom pedagogy.
