Resumo:
The spread of English into four corners of the planet has called into question the way the
language has been taught in the classroom. New teaching perspectives should be considered
since, while it travels around the world, English is becoming more plural and no longer
follows the rules of traditional native speakers‟ language and culture. Given the new role of
the English Language in contemporaneity, this work investigates how its condition as a global
lingua franca, within a theoretical basis in full development, and issues concerning the
adoption of an intercultural approach to teaching are understood and materialized by teacher
educators of a Letters/English course at the State University of Bahia (UNEB), Campus VI, in
Caetité/BA, since they are the ones who set changes forth in training courses and influence
future teachers decisions. The literature used to support and direct this research is based on
works of researchers affiliated with recent studies about English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) as
Seidlhofer (2004, 2011), Jenkins (2006, 2007, 2009), Widdowson (1994, 2012), Siqueira
(2005, 2008, 2011, 2012), Sifakis (2014), El Kadri e Gimenez (2013), besides others
admittedly focused on the area of intercultural studies as Kramsch (1993, 2004), Byram
(1997), Mckay (2002), Baker (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015), Mendes (2007, 2008), to name a few.
To collect data, a questionnaire was applied to four English language teachers of
Letters/English course at UNEB, Campus VI, in basic, intermediate and advanced levels. In
addition, to better discuss the issues that were raised, four classes of each surveyed teachers
were observed and one semi-structured interview was carried out with all participants.
Finally, to serve as a complementary source of information, a documentary analysis on the
course curriculum was also an important part of the data collection task. Data were analyzed
based on a study guided by the qualitative paradigm of ethnographic nature. With regard to
the results, it was observed that the informants have some difficulties in translating their
representations on ELF and interculturality to classroom reality. However, participants were
willing to turn such issues more central in language teaching/learning process and to make
reasonable efforts so that future English teachers of the referred institution become better
prepared for current educational demands and consequently more aware of the real meaning
of being a global lingua franca teacher
