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Speaker's Abstract

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Fang Fan Gabriel
Professor (Practice)
Department of English Language Education
The Education University of Hong Kong 
Title:

English as a Lingua Franca in EMI Higher Education: Chinese Pre-service English Language Teachers’ Study-abroad Experiences and Support Needs

 

Globalisation and internationalisation have strengthened the role of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in English-medium instruction (EMI) higher education. While EMI policies and practices have attracted considerable scholarly attention, less is known about how ELF is experienced as part of international students’ academic and social lives from a multilingual perspective. This presentation reports on a qualitative study of Chinese pre-service English language teachers’ ELF experiences and support needs during their first month of postgraduate teacher education at a Scottish university. Drawing on focus group data, the study examines how participants navigated communication, participation, and inclusion in EMI settings. The presentation highlights the ELF–EMI interface and discusses its implications for curriculum design, language policy, and student support in international universities.

Fan Fang is a Professor (Practice) from the Department of English Language Education, The Education University of Hong Kong. He is a scholar in sociolinguistics and language education whose research focuses on Global Englishes, translanguaging, English as a Lingua Franca, intercultural communication, and EMI (English-medium instruction). He obtained his PhD from the University of Southampton and has published extensively on accent, identity, language policy, and multilingual education. He is the author of the Routledge monograph Re-positioning Accent Attitudes in the Global Englishes Paradigm and the developer of the ToPIC (Teaching of Pronunciation for Intercultural Communication) framework. His recent work explores the integration of Global Englishes and translanguaging perspectives into language teaching, teacher education, and inclusive multilingual education across diverse international contexts.
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