World Englishes in an English medium instruction university in Türkiye: instructors’ awareness, reported pedagogical practices, and institutional constraints

Abstract This qualitative case study investigates English language instructors’ awareness of World Englishes (WEs) and their reported pedagogical engagement with WE-informed principles in an English Medium Instruction (EMI) university in Türkiye. While WEs has been widely discussed in global ELT scholarship, its pedagogical enactment -particularly within institutionally regulated EMI contexts-remains underexplored. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with six instructors teaching both preparatory and undergraduate-level English courses, the study examines (a) how instructors conceptualize WEs and adjacent paradigms such as English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), (b) how they account for pedagogical decision-making related to materials, classroom activities, and assessment, and (c) how institutional structures shape these practices. The findings indicate that although instructors demonstrate relatively high conceptual awareness of linguistic diversity, their orientations are more closely aligned with pedagogically operationalized ELF principles than with WEs as a broader pluricentric and ideological framework. Reported pedagogical engagement with WEs remains largely limited to awareness-raising practices, such as tolerance toward accent variation and selective use of diverse listening materials. Deeper pedagogical integration is constrained by institutional factors including standardized curricula, textbook orientations, assessment regimes, and student expectations, all of which continue to privilege Inner Circle norms. The study highlights a persistent gap between theoretical awareness of WEs and its practical enactment in EMI settings and argues that this gap cannot be explained solely at the level of individual teacher beliefs. Instead, it reflects the regulatory role of institutional structures in shaping what forms of English and pedagogy become pedagogically legitimate.