The status of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has become an increasingly popular discourse in Applied Linguistics and current ELT. It has been suggested that native speakers and their Englishes have become relatively unimportant in international communication and that research interests should now fall on non-native speakers and their use of English. In this article, I will examine the conceptual and operational framework underpinning the case for a description of English as a lingua franca and address issues and problems that need to be taken into account if such a description is to be implemented in second language pedagogy. I will argue that a native-speaker model could serve as a complete and convenient starting point and it is up to the TESOL professionals and the learners in each context to decide to what extent they want to approximate to that model.
