Teacher employment practices at a new language center, the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF), are not limited by the widely held assumption that only native speaker-like forms of English are appropriate for conversations across international borders. The CELF, an initiative of a private university in Tokyo, was founded with serious consideration given to the pedagogical implications and increasing awareness of the widespread use of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Such deliberation is not yet prevalent among academics and practitioners who should be most affected by ELF (Seidlhofer, 2011). Most users of ELF have different first languages, and do not usually interact with speakers of English as a first language, but rather with other users of ELF. We believe that such circumstances warrant critical questioning of the forms of language being targeted in the classroom. Teachers need to examine their teaching practices with their students’ future use of English in mind.
