This study explores teacher educators' and student teachers' perceptions of teaching and learning situations in an international English as a lingua franca (ELF) context in an English-medium instruction (EMI) teacher education programme in Finland. Students assisted freely and teaching became two-way. Some teachers reflected on having employed typical ELF context strategies, like code-switching, to prompt communication and engage students. However, teachers' fluency deficiency sometimes fostered frustration among students and impacted negatively their feeling of being professional teacher educators. Nevertheless, by raising more learner-led activities, ELF can positively influence teacher education pedagogy.