By: Zahra Zamani
From my first attempts in Canada to be an English Teacher (what I used to be in my country), I understood that there is a long journey in front of me to be admitted to the club. Assuming that you are from a non-native English-speaking country, native speakers (especially native English speaker teachers (NEST)) become sensitive to check your pronunciation and your knowledge of English language to be sure that you are put in the right position. The questions that I always see in their eyes are “does she make a good teacher of English language while she has not learned it naturally and cannot speak it with a perfect correct accent? Do not we have enough native speakers who can teach the course?”
This view/ attitude can be easily seen in the teaching market demands when you see that majority of EFL and ESL teaching job sites require applicants to be native speakers. Then, you will confront this fact that being a non-native English speaker teacher (NNEST) can be a serious disadvantage for you despite your many years of studies in ESL programs at accredited universities and your valuable teaching practices. This happens while just being a native English speaker (NES) gives a great opportunity to some other people to be English teachers all around the world without having enough knowledge and experience about teaching.
The reality is that both native and non-native English speaker teachers can make good and efficient ESL teachers and it is totally up to them, not to their nationality, to be good or bad like any other domain of teaching such as Math, Physics, Physical Education, etc. Being NEST OR NNEST has their own advantages for ESL students: while students can be benefited from the English accent of the NESTs and their total familiarity with English culture which is reflected in the language, NNESTs are able to train ESL students with more considerations and sympathy because of the same language learning process they themselves went through. Since they have finished the journey of learning English successfully as their second (third, fourth or …) language, they can be valid guides as well as fitting models to their ESL students.
During my ten years of experience in EFL/ESL teaching in Canada and in my country of origin, I came across several talented, efficient, dedicated and successful NNESTs. I think what makes us to be a good English teacher, far from our nationality, is our competencies in teaching, our skills in conveying the lessons and in encouraging our students to be effectively engaged in professionally designed activities that lead to their success in language learning.
Zahra, you are picking up on a theme that is clearly close to the hearts of several of your classmates. I hope we are all spreading the news of this blog far and wide so that these posts and the comments on them will be read by MANY.
In my community schools we are desperate for Kanien’keha language teachers. Similar to some of the job descriptions for English teachers over seas, teaching experience is secondary to Kanien’keha language proficiency. Just because you are proficient in a language does not qualify you to be a L2 language teacher. At our Kanien’keha Immersion school we now have L2 language coaches that aide the teachers who are less proficient in the Language. They are a teacher and student resource. The children get to hear what authentic language sounds like.
In the past I have worked with some fluent speakers who were pretty bad language teachers and I’ve seen some of the best L2 language learners that are some of the best L2 teachers we have had.