Neutrality or Normativity? Pre-Service TESOL Teachers’ Language Ideologies in a Global Englishes Context

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 7:45 am - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Beyond Neutrality: Decolonizing English Language Teacher Education

Abstract

This mixed-methods study examines how U.S. pre-service TESOL teachers construct legitimacy around English accents within a Global Englishes framework. In Phase 1 (N = 136), participants rated speakers of diverse Englishes on linguistic legitimacy and instructional competence. Inner Circle accents received significantly higher ratings (p < .001), with no significant effect for prior Global Englishes coursework. Phase 2 interviews (n = 10), analyzed via critical discourse analysis, revealed three discourses: performative openness to diversity, anxiety about standardization, and appeals to imagined classroom expectations. Together, these rationalized accent bias as pedagogical necessity. The study argues that disrupting linguistic inequality in TESOL requires more than exposure to variation—it demands critical engagement with the discursive structures that sustain standard language ideologies.

Author

• Onur Özkaynak, The Ohio State University