Native and Non-Native English Speaking Teachers: Labels that should be dropped

Christopher Smith 

University of Sheffield ELTC

 
At the IATEFL Conference 2015 in Manchester I heard and took part in lots of discussion about native and non-native English speaking teachers. These are fairly common terms, but to define slightly, the former is an English teacher whose first language is English, and the latter is one whose first language is something other and who has learned English as a second language to a proficient level. So a teacher from Southern England, speaking something akin to the Queen’s English, would fit the mould of ‘native’ while a teacher from Brazil, with a Portuguese accent would seem to be non-native.


This simplistic dichotomy would fit many teachers, but there is a grey area that becomes a little more difficult. How would you classify a teacher from Wales, whose first language is Welsh, but is bilingual in English? How about a teacher born in the UK but brought up in an Urdu speaking family? How about if that family first moved to the UK when the teacher was 5, or 11, or 18, or 25? At some point there would need to be a line drawn in the sand to mark the difference between native and non-native. Where and how would this be drawn? Actually that’s a trick question. In my opinion we shouldn’t be asking it at all.


The distinction between native and non-native is a troubling one. In my experience in Japan, students would often be proud to have a native teacher, a bit like having a Dyson rather than a cheaper generic vacuum cleaner. At IATEFL, Higor Cavalcante reported adverts for English teachers that specified a preference for native speakers, which he rightly argued is prejudiced. Later, Martin Parrott commented on native and non-native teachers, and said that in his experience non-native teachers were often better. That statement shows 2 things which are fairly common in ELT. Firstly, there is belief or assumption, often unstated, that native English speaking teachers are inherently better than non-native teachers. Secondly, there is a well-intentioned movement to explain that non-native teachers are just as good, if not better.


If we look at that first assumption, it starts to break down under analysis. Recalling the first character, the Queen’s English speaking teacher from southern England, that teacher might fit everyone's image of a native speaker. However there are many varieties of English that have difficult accents, use dialect words or are filled with slang. Furthermore, being a native of the UK does not magically bestow an explicit knowledge of English and the corresponding ability to teach it. Being a ‘native’ does not automatically mean that person is a language expert or that their language is better then someone for whom English is a second language.


In fact, when we analyse it we start to see that the distinction between native and non-native is not actually a linguistic description, it is based on where you were born. This is something Donald Freeman mentioned in his IATEFL plenary. He said “nativeness is a geopolitical, it is not a linguistic idea; we cannot really define nativeness linguistically” (sic); the idea of nativeness is actually a term bestowed on those who were born and raised in an English-speaking country, so it is a result of geographical and political factors and is not directly dependent on linguistic ability. The implication is that although the ‘(non-) native’ term is an attempt to describe language level, it is actually a reference to a person’s origins. If we are categorising teachers into native and non-native, if one group has better access to jobs than the other, and if this distinction is based on the country of birth or residence, then this distinction is unfairly discriminatory and possibly even racist.


If we look at the second of Parrott’s ideas, the explanation that non-native teachers are often better, I have heard lots of anecdotal evidence as to why. For example, they have been through the whole process of learning English as a foreign language and can relate that to students; they may feel like they have a lower status than native teachers and so therefore work harder; they may have a better explicit knowledge of English than a native-speaker. These are all arguments I often hear in the debate, but the very existence of the debate is part of the problem. By maintaining labels of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ we are grouping all teachers into one of two camps. By using these terms we are perpetuating a dichotomy that helps create an atmosphere whereby some teachers can be discriminated against because of where they are from.


The criteria which should be used to judge an English teacher are their teaching ability and their expertise in English, not their origins. Here at the University of Sheffield ELTC, the director of teacher training, Will Nash, explains that when recruiting potential teachers for training or experienced teachers for jobs, whether someone is ‘native’ or not is not a consideration. What matters is whether they are an expert user of English. This is a much more comfortable definition because it is purely linguistic and does not carry any nasty connotations. I would propose in the wider TEFL world, we stop labelling teachers as native or non-native altogether.


For example, if you work in a language school and you have a request for a native-speaker teacher, please explain that you don’t label teachers in that way and all the teachers are English experts. If you are advertising for a job, please don’t ask for “native English speakers only”.


Equally, if you are in a conversation discussing the relative merits of native and non-native teachers, remember that no matter how well-intentioned everyone may be, the act of labelling teachers in this way maintains a division which does not withstand scrutiny, which is not based on linguistic ability and which may help perpetuate discrimination. If you disagree, imagine that same conversation discussing the relative merits of male and female teachers, or of teachers with different skin colours. The discussion just wouldn’t happen. I think the same principles should apply and the conversation should explain that teachers should not be judged by their origins but their expertise in English.

Christopher Smith
17/04/2015 

New Ideas on Feedback from IATEFL 2014

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was fortunate enough to attend IATEFL 2014 recently. I tried to go to sessions related to academic writing as this is my main teaching focus at the moment. This included sessions on feedback on writing, in particular, the ‘forum on feedback’ with 3 presentations on feedback for written work.

First up was Clare Fielder, who talked about Learner-Directed Feedback, which she advocates as a useful tool for developing EAP writing and academic skills. She identified the traditional method of feedback being red pen on a paper copy of work. For Learner-Directed Feedback, students choose the method of delivery of feedback, for example using an audio recording, via email, handwritten comments and so on:



In addition, students ask specific questions about their work:

Materials produced by Clare Fielder, for IATEFL 2014; adapted from Fauster & Campbell, presented at IATEFL 2012.

This puts the learners in control of the feedback and takes the pressure off the teacher to decide what feedback to give, which benefits both sides. This is an interesting approach and it has made me realise that I am quite a traditionalist when it comes to marking. Faced with a pile of essays, my preferred practice is to sit somewhere quiet and comfortable (The Hallamshire House is my favourite spot) and methodically work through the essays with red, green and blue pens. Applying a learner-directed approach complicates matters to some extent as I would need to ask each student about their preferred mode of feedback and what they wanted me to focus on. However, the likelihood that some feedback will be red pen, some recorded audio and some emailed means that the whole marking process will be more varied for the teacher as well as empowering for the student, which suggests it is a good approach to try.

Fielder conducted a classroom based research project to investigate this method of feedback and got very positive results. Her students liked this way of getting ‘feedback on demand’ and were interested to try alternative modes to the extent that the traditional red pen method did not generate much interest. The class she investigated this with were advanced learners in Germany, but I would be interested to see the opinions from other groups. Thinking about my own students, I expect that learner-directed feedback would be viewed equally as positively, but I suspect the red pen method would keep its popularity, because when I have individual writing tutorials and ask the students what they want me to focus on, they often ask for the correction of grammar mistakes.

The second spot in the forum was taken by Jane Mandalios who talked about peer oral feedback on student writing. This in itself is nothing new but the approach Mandalios takes is very lengthy and involved. 4 students worked in 2 pairs, using 2 copies of essays. Students A and B read the essays of students C and D and vice versa. They discussed the 2 essays together and then gave feedback in their groups of 4. That way, every student received feedback from 2 other students. This process actually took about an hour, so it needs to be properly planned and delivered.

Mandolis showed us a video of this in practice which revealed students being communicative, animated and highly engaged in the activity. She reported that the benefits were that students enjoyed the pair work and team work, that they liked reading other students’ work, and that they valued non-judgemental feedback. One disadvantage, however, was that they didn’t like giving negative feedback.

In the past when I have used peer feedback, I have noticed that stronger students can give effective feedback but that weaker ones sometimes struggle. An advantage of this 4 student approach is that it is never the responsibility of one student for another student’s feedback; rather it is co-constructed, which should improve the quality of the feedback and reduce the burden on individual students.

Following nicely on from this, Blerta Mustafa talked about ‘Peer Feedback: from friend to foe’. She started by outlining the problems of peer feedback, for examples that students tend to focus on the micro level without seeing texts as a whole and that there was a lack of trust in peer feedback: students were sceptical, they disliked it at first or thought it was pointless. In my own experience I have seen that students are often reluctant to be critical as they don’t want to cause offence, which can result in lots of vague positive comments that are no use to anyone.

Mustafa argued that students need to be trained in how to give peer feedback. In her own research she found that initially, students had negative perceptions of it and could not deliver useful feedback. However, in time, her students came to like the process more, they were able to give more effective feedback to their peers, and they became more accepting of criticism from others. It seems then that peer feedback should be viewed not only as an activity to do in class, but also a skill to learn and that this needs considered planning over a course.