Tag: ELT

Discrimination of non-native English-speaking teachers 

Jundong Ma

Just as Ramjattan (2015) mentioned in the paper, ELT is a type of aesthetic job because teachers are expected to look and sound a particular way. As such, nonwhite teachers may experience employment discrimination in the form of racial microaggressions, which are everyday racial slights. This kind of job discrimination can be found everywhere in daily life and more details can be seen in the video below:

As a non-native English-speaking teacher who comes from China, I encountered some job discrimination during my interviews. Instead of caring about my educational background or professional teaching experience, the interviewers pay more attention to my family background and my skin color. Once there was an interviewer told me that she really appreciated my working ability but she would more like to hire a white native speaker to fulfill parents’ expectations—parents have paid a large sum of tuition fee, and they want their children to be “well-educated”(in their opinion this meant being taught by native speakers). I had to admit that, at that time, I was really upset. I was not frustrated with my teaching ability but with the white-privileged society. Though being a native English-speaking teacher does not mean being a professional English teacher, all schools around the world still wait for native English teachers from Canada, the USA, the UK, and New Zealand to teach English. I hope this racial microaggression can be eliminated one day.

Apart from the unfair job discrimination, I would like to talk about some advantages that non-native English-speaking teachers may have. The first advantage that non-native English-speaking teachers own is their abundant professional knowledge. For instance, as an L2 English teacher, I can explain grammar, vocabulary, and articles from a professional learning aspect, not from a native-speaker’s intuition, which may give students a better way to understand. What is more, the second advantage for non-native English teachers is that, as an L2 English teacher, I can understand students’ problems because I once was in their shoes. I know all the confusion and frustration emotion that they may go through during the language learning process, which means I can better encourage learners to carry on their study journey. And I know the language learning points where students may find it easy to make mistakes because I used to make mistakes there.  This helps me better understand my students and can facilitate my teaching process as well. As non-native English teachers, we should realize our unique advantages and show them during future interview opportunities .

Question:

What action can the government take to help solve the job discrimination against non-native English-speaking teachers?

References:

Ramjattan, V. A. (2015). Lacking the right aesthetic. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 34(8), 692–704. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-03-2015-0018

TEFL TESOL Online course & Certification. (2021, December 22). Discrimination of non-native speaking teachers of English [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hotiF3OuHU4

Challenging the dominant narrative in ELT: A call for counterstories

Alison Crump

In last week’s class, we were talking about race, identity, and language education. We explored how identity is something that can be given to us (e.g., through Census categories, which define national identity possibilities and thus define access to things like education and resources) and something that we can perform and negotiate. We talked about how where you are can shape the possibilities for who you can be. We talked about stories that make our hearts feel heavy – people who are denied jobs on the basis of their accent or skin colour. By talking about the racism that is embedded in English language teaching (ELT) hiring practices and perpetuated through the white native speaker myth we were acknowledging the power of what critical race scholar Richard Delgado (1989) called “stock stories” or dominant narratives. These are the stories that tell us that “white” people who speak English are better suited for English language teaching. Yet, talking about race and the racialization of ELT can be discouraging for individuals who do not benefit from the (not always deserving) privileges that come with being able to identify with the invisible yet audible majority. The ideologies of nativeness and whiteness in our field of language education have real material and practical consequences for real individuals. How can we ensure that we are not repeating or perpetuating systems of inequality and racism in our teaching? How can we empower and validate language teachers and learners and challenge problematic discriminatory and racist practices in our field? How can we privilege all the stories of language teachers and not just those that reinforce the dominant narrative?

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