“Sorry, Again Again…”: ASEAN ELF Communication Strategies in Multilingual Thai EMI Classrooms

ABSTRACT English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has become a cornerstone of academic communication in English‐medium instruction (EMI) programs across universities in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Despite the increasing prevalence of ELF interactions, limited research has examined how students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds in EMI programs across ASEAN employ communication strategies (CSs) to ensure mutual intelligibility and sustain academic exchanges. This study investigates the core ELF CSs used by 16 undergraduate students from seven countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and China) enrolled in EMI programs at three universities in Thailand. Utilizing conversation analysis, naturally occurring spoken interactions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to identify recurring strategies that facilitate effective ELF communication. Findings reveal that participants used a variety of CSs, which were organized into eight communicative functions: (1) maintaining communication flow, (2) clarification and understanding, (3) engaging in conversation, (4) error management, (5) confirmation and feedback, (6) negotiation and co‐construction of meaning, (7) clarifying misunderstandings, and (8) expressing uncertainty or lack of knowledge. These strategies enhanced intelligibility, ensured message clarity, and sustained conversational coherence, often prioritizing pragmatic effectiveness over native‐speaker norms. The results demonstrate the adaptive and interactive nature of ELF communication, challenging traditional Second Language Acquisition (SLA) models that portray non‐native English speakers as linguistically deficient. This study contributes to ELF research by providing empirical data on the communicative strategies of undergraduate students in ASEAN EMI programs, with implications for pedagogy, curriculum development, and language policy in multilingual educational settings.