36.1096, Reviews: English as a Lingua Franca in Latin American Education: Khilkovskaya (2025)

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Subject: 36.1096, Reviews: English as a Lingua Franca in Latin American Education: Khilkovskaya (2025)

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Date: 31-Mar-2025
From: Alena Khilkovskaya [alena5 at uni-bremen.de]
Subject: Applied Linguistics: Khilkovskaya (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-3202

Title: English as a Lingua Franca in Latin American Education
Subtitle: Critical Perspectives
Series Title: Developments in English as a Lingua Franca
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
           https://cloud.newsletter.degruyter.com/mouton
Book URL:
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110750966/html#overview

Editor(s): Sonia Morán Panero, Maritza M. Martínez-Sánchez, Gloria J.
Ronzón-Montiel

Reviewer: Alena Khilkovskaya

SUMMARY
The book titled English as a Lingua Franca in Latin American Education
by Sonia Morán Panero, Maritza M. Martínez-Sánchez and Gloria J.
Ronzón Montiel is a welcome addition to the field of English as a
Lingua Franca (ELF) study.
In Chapter 1, the authors justify the relevance of the book by
contextualizing it within the literature on the topic, tracing the
evolution of ELF and proving the necessity for more ELF research with
a focus on Latin America (LA). They outline the aims of their work and
make a case for the importance of exploring how the experiences and
theorizing of language educators as well as researchers from Latin
America could enrich the ELF research; how said research might provide
a new perspective across diverse LA settings such as classroom
activities and curriculum design; which challenges arise in
abovementioned settings and which opportunities for collaboration in
the sphere of ELF studies could be generated. Moreover, in subchapter
1.3, a brief outline and summary of each book chapter is provided for
ease of navigation.
Chapter 2, which is the first contribution to the book, begins with T.
Gimenez describing her discomfort as a professor with the idea of
standard varieties of English being the only ones deserving of being
reproduced. Gimenez goes on to critically examine the policy decision
to endorse an ELF perspective in the Brazilian national curriculum and
examine the implications of choosing ‘ELF’ instead of ‘English as a
Foreign Language’ (EFL) as a label. The author constructs an
insightful discussion of how ELF can be framed within decolonial
praxis and thought. For instance, Gimenez brings our attention to the
way treating English as a lingua franca instead of a foreign language
allows us to delink it from a particular territory and legitimize the
use of English in local contexts.
The topic of reproducing and resisting hegemonic language ideologies
is further explored in Chapter 3 by Gonzalo Pérez Andrade, albeit on
the example of Chilean English teacher education. Similar to Gimenez,
Pérez Andrade posits that the emergence of ELF raises awareness of the
fluidity and diversity of English users and Englishes and challenges
the dominance of the EFL paradigm. Moreover, the author recounts the
results of a multi-case study and reports on complex and at times
conflicting beliefs about the English of Chilean teacher educators
that they themselves might not be aware of. Whereas some teachers saw
themselves as guardians of the standard English variety, other
educators within the same institutions challenged the normative
approach, leading to certain tension. The teachers also tended to
refer to their own experience of learning English, emphasizing the
role identity performs in forming the attitude toward L1-influenced
Englishes.
Adriana González opens Chapter 4 by recounting the history of ELT
traditions formed in Columbia and the role the imposition of CEFR
(Common European Framework of Reference) has played in it. For
example, as the skills of teachers are oftentimes evaluated based on
their CEFR language test scores, the only way to be seen as a
competent instructor is to adhere to the standards of native
speakerism. González presents the results of a qualitative case study
that she conducted using Sifakis’s ELF-awareness concept for analysis:
namely, that regardless of their level of awareness, all the
participants agreed that ELF should be introduced in teacher education
in Columbia, but it would be challenging, largely due to the
discrimination perpetuated through the national education policy.
In Chapter 5, Sonia Morán Panero shifts the focus from teachers to
discussing the students’ ontologies of English and the potential
transformational power of ELF-informed metalinguistic activities. In
the course of her study, undergraduate students from Chile, Mexico and
Spain who had not previously been engaged with ELF scholarship read a
short academic text about ELF and generated about ten hours of
discussion, which were later analyzed in regard to the participants’
conceptualizations of ELF. The majority of participants were
discovered to align with the ELF-friendly theorizations, and few
people changed their opinions by the end of the debates.
In Chapter 6, Alessia Cogo and Sávio Siqueira explore the possibility
of empowerment through ELF by examining the experiences of Brazilian
student-teachers. At the beginning of the chapter, they indicate the
links between ELF and empowerment: decentralization of English from
native speakers as models for learning, teaching and linguistic
analysis; emphasis on the diversity of English; and the multilingual
nature of EFL communication. The authors go on to summarize their
study. The discussion of the idea of empowerment, generated via three
questions among three teachers at various stages of their careers, was
analyzed according to Dörnyei’s chronology. The results showed that
ELF is associated with empowerment as it encourages openness to the
idea of choosing the pronunciation the students want and reduces their
anxiety associated with their accents. The authors posit that the
results indicate a surface-level understanding of the concept of ELF
among their study participants.
Chapter 7, written by Maritza M. Martínez-Sánchez, focuses on the
interactional pragmatic strategies (IPS) practiced in Mexican ELT
universities while preparing students for Business ELF with the aim of
informing syllabus content design. The IPS mapped against classroom
discourse within the scope of Martínez-Sánchez’s study comprised
repetition, rephrasing, code-switching and repair. The results showed
that the most frequently used strategy was code-switching, yet
students oftentimes lacked awareness of developing the IPS or viewed
them as signs of low proficiency.
Chapter 8 by Melina Porto, Belkys Moncada and Ana María Calle is a
contribution to ELF research from Venezuela, Ecuador and Argentina.
The authors explore the conceptualizations of English as an
international language (EIL) and ELF among teachers from above
mentioned countries using interviews and a questionnaire. The vast
majority of views regarding EIL among the study participants were
uncritical and neutral. The authors posit that the perception of
English as a de-nationalized and de-territorialized language by
teachers has an impact on the teaching practices that hasn’t been
sufficiently studied yet, which presents further opportunities for
research.
In Chapter 9, Gloria J. Ronzón-Montiel brings us back to the study of
English teaching in Mexico and interrogates what the
internationalization process means for higher education. The specific
study presented in the chapter aims to answer the question of how the
perception of the students and teachers of ELF influenced the
practices for the development of intercultural communicative
competence (ICC). Although the comments of the Mexican teachers
suggest that the uptake of the ELF is minimal, the overall perspective
is that viewing English as simply “the language of the West” is
outdated.
Chapter 10 by Sonia Morán Panero, Maritza M. Martínez-Sánchez and
Gloria J. Ronzón Montiel presents a summary of crucial patterns and
themes emerging in the contributions to the volume. They conclude that
there are a certain lack of top-down transformational strategies and
at the same time a multiplicity of local experimental changes
conducted by individual actors. Furthermore, the authors suggest
possibilities for future research and the implementation of
ELF-informed pedagogies in the classroom.
EVALUATION
The structure of the volume, largely due to the outline of the work in
the first chapter, was extremely clear. The book was not only
engaging, but also academically useful. The sources referenced were
for the most part written in the past thirty years, which is important
considering the field of study discussed is relatively modern.
Moreover, the positionality of the authors of the referenced books was
taken into consideration as well. Each contribution to the volume
examined ELF in different LA contexts, allowing for a comprehensive
understanding not limited to one country. The authors did a great job
of presenting an unbiased view of the current state of affairs in
regard to both the teachers’ and the students’ perspectives on
utilizing ELF practices. However, I have one minor point of criticism:
while the various chapters outline the possible challenges of
utilizing the ELF-informed pedagogies, they do not take a step further
and suggest possible solutions to the problems in question. That is
understandable as that would probably require a separate study, and
yet I was left with the impression that the book lacked a practical
application section. Moreover, each chapter begins with the
theoretical overview of the role of English in the globalized world in
general and LA education in particular, which was at times repetitive.
That being said, the way the studies were presented with the use of
tables, algorithm maps and interview transcriptions made it possible
to clearly understand the methods used and results obtained.
The summary in Chapter 10 allows the reader to draw parallels between
the presented studies conducted in different countries and to obtain a
fuller understanding of the attitudes toward ELF in LA overall.
The book is made accessible to a wide range of readers, including
students, due to its clear and not jargon-laden explanations.
The authors have achieved their goals with the book. It would be
useful not only for those interested in ELF in general, but also those
seeking understanding of the best ways ELF could be implemented in the
modern educational system and curriculum.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Alena Khilkovskaya is a Master’s student of the English-Speaking
Cultures: Language, Text Media program at the University of Bremen,
Germany, with a BA in Foreign Languages and Intercultural
Communication. Her research interests lie at the crossroads of
translation studies and English as an international language.



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