This presentation will introduce some insights drawn from research on ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) in MUN (Model United Nations) simulations and will summarize some of the best practices in MUN events and delegate preparation. This includes the MUNCE (Model United Nations Spoken Corpus of English), a specialized corpus currently being compiled at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies in Japan. It will be shown how Model United Nations (MUN) simulations are uniquely positioned to help students develop their language ability and their global competencies, as well as being ideal opportunities for participants to experience ELF in an intensely communicative context. One of the most important 2lst century skills is the ability to negotiate constructive resolutions in the face of conflict of interest. Both MUN and ELF can be seen as communities of practice both involving mutual engagement in a negotiated joint enterprise using a shared repertoire (Wenger, 1998). The corpus offers glimpses into MUN community of practice. It also allows researchers to go beyond the analysis of linguistic and descriptive features of MUN situated simulation ELF to the critical identification and description of breakdowns in communication in terms of type and cause, as well as the identification and description of communicative strategies employed by MUN simulation situated EFL users. MUNCE analyses and descriptions can inform the creation of authentic, grounded teaching materials for the future of MUN participants.

Authors:
Lori Zenuk-Nishide, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan
Donna Tatsuki, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
Donna TATSUKI, Ed.D., is Professor Emerita at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. Her research interests include the teaching of pragmatics and descriptions of ELF-driven multi-party talk-in-interaction in MUN simulations.

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