A Facebook-based Debate through English as a Lingua Franca: A Move toward Intercultural Awareness for a World of Differences

Post date: May 31, 2020 9:53:33 AM

Asst. Prof. Dr. Sami B. Al-Hasnawi, Dept. of English, College of Education, University of Al-Qadisiyah gave a seminar entitled "A Facebook-based Debate through English as a Lingua Franca: A Move toward Intercultural Awareness for a World of Differences" on Thursday 21st of May at 1:00 pm in hall 106 departments of English. His seminar focused on students' intercultural awareness via setting up a Facebook-based debate program between groups of English language learners at the university level from Iraq and some other international students from a different university in the US.

•With the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), the English used among speakers of different lingua-cultural backgrounds for intercultural communication (Jenkins, 2014 and Seidlhofer, 2011), as a language of debate, students are expected to shape an online-community to practice their Englishes for intercultural awareness purpose. "