Mind the Gap EFL/ELF: What lies in between what teachers teachand what students use, and its pedagogical implications

From the observations collected as a non-native English teacher in Italian high schools and from the data of my qualitative PhD research on the use of English/es among native and non-native Italian adolescent students, I will here investigate within the gap which is opening between what English teachers teach and what English students use in a context where English is taught and learned as EFL. Analyzing what is happening between language as norm and language as use, I will also address the pedagogical challenges that ELF advances, but also the educational opportunities it offers in the perspective of a critical linguistic pedagogy as it puts into evidence the cultural, complex and situated nature of language and of interactional encounters.