The growing use of English in the world has opened a new research field under the title of “English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)” in ELT and applied linguistics. Empirical study on ELF corpus reveals that speakers in ELF interactions manipulate some features of language differently from its British and American norms and their main focus in communication is on intelligibility. From 2000, ELF studies and researches, particularly by Jenkins, Seidlhofer, have questioned the current paradigm “English as a foreign language (EFL) in the expanding circles countries. Iran like the other expanding circle countries is norm-depended in ELT and the EFL paradigm is dominant. This study has investigated how academic students behave as English language users in face-to-face interactions and how English language teachers consider the ELF characteristics in teaching. Nine academic students and 15 randomly selected in-service English teachers were interviewed. The semi-interview questions were developed mainly from Jenkins’ questionnaires and her interview questions. The results of this qualitative study show that the student had the chance to speak with different nationalities (the first and most important reason of the emergence of ELF). Likewise, instead of strictly following a standardized English pattern, they have created an ELF norm in the interactions. The findings from teachers reveal that ELT in Iran is still norm-oriented and the ultimate goal is to lead learners to become native-like speakers. Although strong preference for British and American norms exists, some teachers seemed more flexible towards ELF as an approach. By comparing two groups, it reveals that a substantial gap exists between teaching and learning English and the use of English in reality in the Iranian context.
