An investigation of pre-service EFL teachers’ attitudes towards speakers from three circles of English

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Öz Please fill up the following information accurately. (Please use Times New Roman, 12 pt. Title of the paper (Capitalize only the first letter of the title and proper nouns) This study investigated World Englishes from the perspectives of non-native pre-service teachers in Turkey. More specifically, the study explored how EFL pre-service teachers evaluated speakers from different countries of origin, representing the different circle in Kachru’s (1985) model, either positively or negatively. To elicit their perceptions of the speakers’ English accents, we asked them to listen to audio-recordings of six different speakers representing Kachru’s Three Circles of English, reading the same passage, and then to discuss which variety they were familiar with and which one they would prefer. Pre-service teachers’ orientations towards speakers from different varieties emerged under the following themes: (i) native speakerism, (ii) intelligibility, (iii) reference to own experience, (iv) potential ownership and (v) potential professional awareness. The findings suggest that, although they were starting to develop professional awareness regarding different varieties of English, to broaden their experience of varieties, and even to develop a potential ownership, they still revealed a tendency to conform to the native-speaker norms and to rate speaker intelligibility according to these norms. We argue that revisiting language teacher education programmes to address the current sociolinguistic reality of English is a must. Information about Author(s)* Author 1 Author (Last name, First name) Çeçen, SevdeğerAffiliated institution (University) İstanbul Bilgi UniversityCountry TurkeyEmail address [email protected] & Rank English Language Teacher Education Corresponding author (Yes/No) Write only one corresponding author. Yes Author 2 Author (Last name, First name) Serdar Tülüce, HandeAffiliated institution (University) İstanbul Bilgi UniversityCountry TurkeyEmail address [email protected] & Rank English Language Teacher Education Corresponding author (Yes/No) No Author 3 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No) Author 4 Author (Last name, First name) Affiliated institution (University) Country Email address Department & Rank Corresponding author (Yes/No)