Raising trainee teachers' awareness of language variation through data-based tasks

Despite the growing interest in language awareness in teacher education (Andrews 2003, 2007; Bartels 2005, 2009; Borg 1994, 2003, 2006), little attention seems to be paid to English usage in different geographic and professional contexts, including the features of the English used by non-native English speakers (Jenkins 2007; Sifakis and Sougari 2010). Additionally, the language awareness component in teacher education courses traditionally assumes that teachers’ use of English conforms to an ideal native model (Kamhi-Stein 2004; Llurda 2005), overlooking the fact that their use may show features of English as a lingua franca typical of other types of speakers (Pedrazzini and Nava 2010, 2011). After examining the concept of ‘teacher language awareness’ with particular reference to some issues concerning language variation, this chapter reports on a study carried out with a group of EFL trainee teachers who were led to reflect upon specific features of selected varieties of English and the use of English as a lingua franca through awareness-raising tasks. Compared to similar studies investigating teachers’ attitudes to language variation through questionnaire- and interview-based methods, the study was also aimed at gauging the effectiveness of data-based task methodology in view to its implementation for teacher education programmes (Borg 1998).