By Lun Cai
It is hard for teachers who do not speak English natively to teach in the world where native speaking teachers are more valued. Non-native English speaking teachers are viewed as deficient in their language and teaching ability. For example, their pronunciation and intonation, and use of expressions are sometimes thought to be not native-like, and therefore, they are regarded as less competent compared to their native speaking colleagues.
The unfair treatment they received can be demonstrated when they are teaching in the same language institution. For example, in China, Native English speakers are more welcomed in the market, therefore they are given more opportunity to teach without necessarily even having enough knowledge and experience. In addition, the salaries for native speaking English teachers is generally 3 to 4 times higher than those of non-native English speaking teachers. Also, when it comes to public school, no native English speaking teachers have the lower positions.
Having been long situated in this disadvantageous position, non-native English speaking teachers feel powerless, doubt their talents and fail to recognize the contribution that they could make to the classroom.
However, the stereotype of non-native ESL teachers should be problematized. The misconception on us is a result of dominant monolingualism that has shaped our education system. Even the name “Non-native English-speaking” teachers” is problematic.
By making the distinction between native and nonnative, we are implying that nativeness is a superior form of language competence and the most legitimate relationship between a language and the users. This ideology casts a deficient light on L2 learners and speakers, and makes it extremely hard for Non-native teachers to build up their confidence and pursue a better trajectory in their careers.
The ideas and misconceptions we have about languages is not only important but also relevant to our daily experience, because just as is said by Gerard Van Herk, “many of the language myths have widespread consequences. They serve to reinforce the higher status of the standard, at the expense of other varieties.” (2018, p. 177). The native-like myth is one of such that has resulted in materialistic impacts on bother non-native language teachers and learners. When languages are classified into the different categories and are attached with different social importance, language speakers are also stratified into different social ladders.
The native-like myth is built on monolingualism which takes languages separately as entities whose boundaries should be defended and whose purities should be preserved. Therefore, under this ideology, the native-like myth is constructed to serve as a golden benchmark, judging the linguistic proficiency of any language learners.
However, the monolingual bias is not sustainable when we consider how languages are actually used in people’s life. In practice, bilinguals and multilingual speakers do not take different languages separately when they are speaking. They use their rich personal repertoire to perform the sense making process without paying close attention to the boundaries of different languages. Or if you agree with the idea that everyone speaks a certain idiolect or a variant of a language, rather than a named language, even people who only speak one language do not conform to the monolingual standard.
Therefore, taking down the monolingual perspective and stopping to put emphasis on the dichotomy between nativeness and non-nativeness would empower non-native English speaking teachers by removing the prejudice attached to them, so that their rich language resources and life experience would be valued and appreciated. With this change, they would be more confident and motivated to bring their unique insights to the their teaching practice.
Reference:
Van Herk, G. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? (Second, Ser. Linguistics in the world). John Wiley & Sons.
