EFL students' perspectives on English: the (widening) gap between ideals and practices

this paper is based on a survey into perspectives on the english language conducted in a ma in tefl program in a croatian university. in the study we examine non-native student-teachers' attitudes towards english and explore four key issues: a) which varieties of english are preferred, b) how the notion of english as an international language is conceptualized, c) how attitudes about english inform teaching and learning, and d) to what extent the sociocultural context informs attitudes about english. in the english department, there is no articulated policy toward english, yet there appears to be a strong attachment to native-speaker norms. however, with the internationalization of english and the changing ownership of the language, in recent years, much debate has arisen over the native-speaker ideal (holliday, 2005; mckay, 2002). the english language is used primarily by non-native speakers to communicate with non-native speakers but it appears that this notion has had little impact on teaching and learning (see jenkins, 2007). we see this gap as an important, and relatively underexplored issue, which merits more interest in english studies. we conclude that, in this context, perceptions of english are still formed by native-speaker norms, and lack of policy on the english language, in fact, supports native-speaker policy.