Native or Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (original) (raw)

On Issues Regarding Native vs. Non-Native English Speaking Teachers

This study discusses some issues regarding nativeness in English language teaching. Both native and non-native professionals have raised their voices against the wide-spread idea that an ideal English teacher is a native English speaking teacher {NEST). This is called the native speaker fallacy (Phillipson, 1992a). This paper first reviews recent issues regarding NESTs vs. non-NESTs and then introduces the six advantages of llon-NESTs clarified by Medgyes (1994). Then three suggestions are made for Japanese teachers of English (JTEs). JTEs are expected 1) to know the fact that `the native speaker fallacy' and its related issues have been discussed over many years, 2) to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of both NESTs and non-NESTs, and 3) to establish an English community where everybody uses English as a means of communication to create practical English users or multiple competent speakers <Cook, 1999).

Sutherland (2012) - Native and Non-native English teachers in the classroom

Arab World Englishes Journal, 2012

Native English speakers are often claimed to be better language teachers than non-native English speakers, both by those who have not reflected critically on the inherent differences between knowing how to use a language and knowing how to teach a language, and by those who assume that non-native English speakers are by definition not fluent. Nativeness is thus equated with pedagogical superiority. This claim, whether it is made by students, parents, hiring boards, or other interested parties, is detrimental to non-native English teachers as educators and to the students who learn from them. Non-native English speaking teachers may be demoralised or discriminated against in hiring practices. Students lose when they are taught by teachers with nativeness as their defining characteristic, rather than by the best teachers. In this article the native speakers model, itself a problematic concept, is analysed to show how supposed nativeness is difficult to define accurately. Then the benefits of being taught by native English speakers and non-native English speakers are outlined, with a view to promoting more just hiring practices and sounder educational results for students of English worldwide.

Native and Non-Native English Language Teachers

SAGE Open, 2014

The English language teaching industry in East and Southeast Asia subscribes to an assumption that native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) are the gold standard of spoken and written language, whereas non-native English-speaking teachers (non-NESTs) are inferior educators because they lack this innate linguistic skill. But does this premise correspond with the views of second language learners? This article reports on research carried out with university students in Vietnam and Japan exploring the advantages and disadvantages of learning English from NESTs and non-NESTs. Contrary to the above notion, our research illuminated a number of perceived advantages—and disadvantages—in both types of teachers. Students viewed NESTs as models of pronunciation and correct language use, as well as being repositories of cultural knowledge, but they also found NESTs poor at explaining grammar, and their different cultures created tension. Non-NESTs were perceived as good teachers of grammar, and...

Chapter 2 A HISTORY OF RESEARCH ON NON-NATIVE SPEAKER ENGLISH TEACHERS

Research on the self-perceptions of non-native speaker (NNS) English teachers, or the way they are perceived by their students is a fairly recent phenomenon. This may be due to the sensitive nature of these issues because NNS teachers were generally regarded as unequal in knowledge and performance to NS teachers of English, and issues relating to NNS teachers may have also been politically incorrect to be studied and discussed openly.

The Non-native Speaker Teacher (2011)

2011

‘Non-native English-speaking teachers’ (NNESTs) have tended to be conceptualized within ELT along the same lines as NNS in general. The second language acquisition literature traditionally ‘elevates an idealized ‘‘native’’ speaker above a stereotypicalized ‘‘nonnative’’, while viewing the latter as a defective communicator, limited by an underdeveloped communicative competence’ (Firth and Wagner 1997: 285). The resulting (in)competence dichotomy positions theNNS/NNESTas a deficient or less-than-native speaker (cf. ‘near-native’, Valdes 1998). In an attempt to solve this problem, a number of alternative terms have been suggested, for example ‘proficient user’ (Paikeday 1985), ‘language expert’ (Rampton 1990), ‘English-using speech fellowship’ (Kachru 1992), and ‘multicompetent speaker’ (Cook 1999).However, the field is still a long way from reaching a consensus about whether to adopt any of these labels.