Category: Fall 2022

Albert M.

A widespread and deeply rooted bias against Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) have been documented. This prejudice, together with the discourses that support and normalize it, has been described as the ideology of Native Speakerism (NS). To be specific, Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) are claimed to be the best teachers based on the conception that they “represent a ‘Western culture’ from which springs the ideals both of the English language and of English language teaching methodology” (Holliday, 2005, p. 6). NNESTs are viewed as not only linguistically, but also instructionally inferior and second-class citizens to their native speaking colleagues (Curtis & Romney, 2006). Of course, both NEST and NNEST have their own strengths and weaknesses.

In a classroom research conducted among my Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) 4 students , I asked them: What kind of teacher do you like? a. Native Speaker of English (Teacher who is born in an English speaking country like Canada and whose first language is English) b. Non-Native Speaker of English (Teacher who is born outside an English speaking country and learn English as second language) c. No preference ( I like both), why?

At least 6 out of 7 students who answered the questionnaire on Google classroom disclosed: c. No preference. Their reasons being are: “I think native or non-native is not important. I like them both, because they are teachers. I do not like comparison- if someone who is not Canadian (NNEST) works in an educational centre, it is because s/he is qualified and deserves to teach English. The important thing for us students is to learn the English language – that teachers show us the way on how to improve our English. Teachers should not only be patient and responsible, but also to teach professionally.” Only one student answered b: NNEST “I like the second language teacher because I can understand him.”

Undeniably, the dichotomy of NEST and NNEST generates negative reactions from scholars. In fact, Motha (2014) reveals that the “NEST/NNEST construct shrinks to simply one aspect of linguistic identity. This is not to deny that in many countries the construct is heavily racialized.” While Motha et al. (2012) reject the dichotomy as simplistic, they offer a more appropriate nomenclature and argue for the term translinguistic identity as a more appropriate emphasis on the “considerable linguistic and pedagogical resources that translinguistics identity offers English language teachers.” (p. 15)

It is high time to dismantle the NEST and NNEST divide. At this juncture, the trend in English Language Teaching (ELT) is the promotion of plurilingual multicompetence among TESL teachers. As Ellis (2016) noted that “in the future, the question we ask of a TESL teacher may be neither: “Are you a native or non-native speaker?” nor “What variety of English do you speak?” but rather “How rich is your linguistic repertoire and how can this be deployed as a pedagogical resource?”

Questions:

As a learner of English as a second language, what is your teacher preference: NEST or NNEST, why?
As a native speaker of English, do you consider yourself as monolingual, why?

References:

Curtis, A. & Romney, M. (2006). Color, race, and English language teaching: Shades of meaning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ellis, E. (2016). “I may be a native speaker but I’m not monolingual”: Reimagining all teachers’ linguistic identities in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 50(3), 597-630.

Holliday, A. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Motha, S. (2014). Race, empire, and English language teaching. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Motha, S., Jain, R., & Tecle, T. (2012). Translinguistic identity-as-pedagogy: Implications for language teacher education. International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching, 1(1), 13–28.