Introduction

The idea of integrating English as an International Language (EIL) pedagogy into a microteaching course originated from informal observations when I was assigned to teach a microteaching course after completing a PhD in 2010. I was a teacher educator in a four-year preservice teacher department in a private university in Indonesia. From the informal observation as a course instructor, I learned that many mini lessons were informed by student teachers' (STs) understanding of English as belonging to the so-called English-speaking countries of the Inner Circle, to use Kachru's (1986) term. When teaching listening, for example, many STs utilized American songs or texts depicting standard American or British English. Interestingly, although in some songs there was some slang, there was no attempt to highlight the diversity of English uses even within English-speaking countries. The model speakers in the listening texts were native speakers. When teaching English in the era of English as a lingua franca (ELF), many scholars have recommended not to foreground one variety of English as more correct than others, but to focus more on the contextualized English use serving different identitary and pragmatic functions. Unfortunately, such awareness was not present in the teacher candidates' mini lessons. For instance, when teaching pronunciation, many of the aims were to pronounce English correctly rather than appropriately. When formulating the objective for teaching speaking, Rin (a pseudonym) wrote that 'students will be able to read with correct pronunciation and intonation of a simple text' (my emphasis).

I speculate that there are two primary, yet contradictory, reasons underlying STs' continued beliefs of English as belonging to English-speaking countries. First, STs might not be aware of the pedagogical implications of the current ELF status. Perhaps their previous courses or the curriculum in the present preservice teacher education program continue to use course books depicting English as belonging to the Inner Circle countries. A second possible reason is that STs are indeed aware of ELF but they continue to believe that English belongs to the Inner Circle countries.