ABSTRACT
The burgeoning need for English for communication in ASEAN countries and in those of their development partners – Japan, China and South Korea, collectively known as ASEAN Plus Three – is unquestionable. However, little research has examined how the practice of pre-service teacher education is shaped by the complexity of this diverse sociocultural, sociolinguistic and socio-political group, where English is generally conceived of either as a foreign language (EFL) or a second language (ESL) – a conventional conceptualisation tied to the ideologies and frameworks of English as a native language (ENL). Working on an assumption that more contemporary conceptual frameworks such as English as an international language (EIL) and English as a lingua franca (ELF) tend to be more relevant to the context of ASEAN Plus Three, we examined a case of the practice of pre-service Cambodian English teacher education. Our analysis of qualitative data obtained from interviews and policy documents shows that ENL ideologies were heavily laden in not only the teachers’ conceptions about English and English teaching but also policymakers’, as reflected in their authoritative documents such as the manual for teacher trainers. We argue for a more radical shift to the emergent concept of ELF and discuss the implications such change may have for pre-service teacher education and language policy in Cambodia.
