Abstract

In the last twenty years early foreign language learning has been implemented in Europe and almost all over the world as part of the primary school curriculum, usually from the age of six or according to each country school system. The primary school population in many European countries is composed of a growing number of migrant children who are in some cases being exposed to English as their third or fourth language including the language of schooling, e.g. the country's national language, and their family language. Since English lessons are almost always taught by specialist non-native (NN) teachers and the class is often made up of a polylingual population, the English learnt and used to communicate in the classroom is "de facto" a lingua franca. This paper describes the emerging features of ELF in classroom interactions, explores learners' attitudes towards English, investigates the acquisition processes activated and discusses implications for primary language teacher education and development of materials.