World Englishes instruction in an ELT department in Turkey: Student teachers’ reflections

The present study is a qualitative inquiry into the influence of a World Englishes (WE) instruction on language teacher candidates from a multitude of aspects such as their WE awareness, opinions on the instruction, and intentions to adopt a WE-informed pedagogy in the future. The participants were 27 English language teacher candidates and they were enrolled in an elective course, which aimed to develop students’ understanding and awareness of WE and its potential as part of ELT practices. The data were gathered through reflection papers written by all participants and semi-structured interviews with five teacher candidates. The qualitative content analysis of the data revealed that the instruction assisted English language teacher candidates in raising awareness towards WE-relevant issues positively changing their beliefs regarding a WE-inclusive ELT pedagogy. The findings further illustrated that some students planned to use WE-aware practices in their future classes, while a majority of them believed that the course should be a required component of the curriculum rather than being an elective. The paper is concluded with implications and limitations of this exploratory study