Ricerc@Sapienza

Model United Nations (MUN) simulations are uniquely positioned to help students develop both their language ability and their global
competencies. Thus, MUN could be characterized as part of the CLIL family of methods. MUN simulations are also ideal opportunities to learners to experience and for researchers to study English as a Lingua Franca in an intensely communicative context.

It is an incontrovertible fact that, with the spread of English as a lingua franca (ELF), we are at present witnessing “an unprecedented linguistic situation” in which “a language has reached truly global dimensions, across continents, domains, and social strata […] accelerated by the dramatic expansion of electronic communication through the internet” (Seidlhofer 2011). ELF as a contact language – with a sociolinguistic function, differentiated according to place, time, and context – is in constant growth and expansion.

Introduction to the volume.

The analysis of the data from the Teachers’ survey has highlighted several aspects of current ELT teachers’ professional profile and personal beliefs that would lead to teachers’ reflection in a moment of global change and in an ELF-aware perspective.The two authors present findings on teachers’ competencies and draw implications related to teaching practices, in an innovative perspective for English
language education.

This paper presents selected findings emerging from the survey related to the PRIN Prot. 2015REZ4EZ questionnaire, created and administered by the Unit 3 of the same PRIN project. This tool of investigation was specially devised in order to research and acquire the main values and beliefs ascribable to a volunteer group of teachers, operating in the Italian territory and catering for different