ELF serves social and personal needs beyond communities of native English speakers, as its users adapt language in functionally appropriate ways in diverse contexts (Widdowson, 2015). Understanding and accepting such practice requires deliberate rethinking on the part of ELT practitioners (Dewey 2012) and transformation of deeply held convictions (Sifakis, 2014). The hesitance among English language teachers to embrace the dynamic and hybrid nature of ELF interaction in classroom contexts (Jenkins, 2007; Seidlhofer, 2011) is exacerbated by TESOL’s naturalized essentialisms, including assumptions about the superiority of native versions of English, and discrete and bounded views of language and culture (Toh, 2016).
