Reassessing English in Europe: Italian Students’ Perspectives on teaching English as a Foreign Language in The Age of English as a Global Lingua Franca

The process of European Union (EU)’s integration and global digital media developments have accelerated the spread of English across the continent, where it increasingly functions as a lingua franca and undergoes nativization (Modiano, 2024). This shift challenges traditional English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching models and calls for pedagogical reform aligned with learners’ real-world language experiences. Attitude studies have exposed both opportunities and barriers to innovation. This paper contributes to this research through a small-scale interview study exploring undergraduate students’ perspectives on EFL teaching in the Italian education system. It examines the extent to which prevailing practices align with learners’ experiences and evolving views of English. The findings reveal a deep ambivalence: while students support innovative approaches, they also uphold traditional norms, reflecting the influence of standard language and native-speaker ideologies. Although not generalizable, the findings point to a need to realign EFL instruction with current linguistic realities.