In 2013, Tamagawa University launched a new, campus-wide English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Program, the first of its kind in Japan. The ELF program is designed to enable students to effectively communicate with people all over the world using
English as a lingua franca. Beginning in 2014, the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) was established to accommodate the English program and a tutor service. The Center currently serves approximately 2,500 students, all of whom will be taught by approximately 40 instructors from around the globe. Aware of the deep-rooted, native English speaker bias and norms common not only in Japan, a conscious decision was made by Tamagawa University to seek qualified, professional English language teachers from outside the inner circle (Kachru, 1985) countries. The collection of articles in this journal represents the research and work from a handful of those ELF teachers.
