With the rise of multilingualism and the use of a local variety of English in Hong Kong, the current article proposes a framework for EMI teacher training for university teachers ("WEMTT-Framework") to expose them not only to a theory of World Englishes but also a practicum of teaching in multilingual settings. Even though Hong Kong has been regarded as a trilingual (Cantonese-English-Mandarin) city where English is taught as a second language, the EMI teaching in Hong Kong is still highly exonormative-oriented. With an increasing number of studies revealing the possibility of EMI teaching with the help of multilingual and World Englishes elements, the current paper also explores how World Englishes and multilingualism help in the present EMI teaching environment. The framework and the discussion are not only applicable to Hong Kong but also places with similar multilingual settings, thus expanding to many Asian cities with colonial backgrounds. The paper ends with a call for action from educators and researchers to work on the implementation of teacher training and carry out further studies in different settings. Copyright © 2023 Language Institute, Thammasat University.

The recent decades have seen enthusiastic calls for reconceptualizing English as a foreign language (EFL) education, taking into account the current socio-lingual status of English and how it is used genuinely for communication interculturally and internationally. However, a wide gap still exists between promulgation such as intelligibility over nativelikeness in pronunciation instruction and realities in the EFL classroom. The study investigated pre- and in-service teachers' cognition about accents and the incorporation of different accents in their classrooms. One hundred and sixty-six EFL teachers (89 pre-service and 77 in-service) from Hong Kong and Guangdong (a province in China) completed a questionnaire. Contrary to expectations, the teachers' overall attitude was neutral rather than positive towards General American (GA) / Received Pronunciation (RP)(1) associated with EFL teachers' accents and EFL education. Only two thirds of the teachers were certain about which accents to use and to teach in listening and pronunciation lessons (i.e. as many as one third were uncertain). Also, the participants were neutral about incorporating non-GA/RP accents into EFL lessons, with around one third objecting to doing so. Although no differences were found between pre- and in-service teachers' cognition, additional analysis revealed that teachers' individual background variables, namely teaching experience, self-rated language proficiency, and knowledge of sound systems (IPA for English; pinyin for Mandarin), have significant correlations with their cognition. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

As a consequence of English developing into a global language, new varieties of English have emerged and the language has assumed the role of a common medium of communication among speakers of different ethnolinguistic backgrounds. When Hong Kong was transforming from a British colony into “Asia’s World City” after its sovereignty was returned to China, the notions of “World Englishes” (WE) and “English as a Lingua Franca” (ELF) were also introduced to teacher-trainees taking English as their major subject in a local university in Hong Kong. Despite this, preference for the native English models seemed to prevail. This article examines the extent to which ELF was a rhetoric rather than a reality as perceived by this group of students. Through the Verbal-guise Technique and group interviews, the article examined the attitudes of 105 English teacher-trainees in Hong Kong towards four native and three Asian speech samples of English (including their own). The results showed that although the respondents displayed good confidence in their own accent and positive attitudes towards all speakers, their strong preference for the American and British models remained deep-rooted, suggesting that a linguistic hierarchy exists even in the WE paradigm. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited.