MA ELT – WORLD ENGLISHES

TERM PAPER 2015

Tutor: Dr. Andrew Blair

Candidate number: 102371

“Feathering our NNEST- An investigation into the native/non-

native speaker debate”

Candidate Number: 102371

Contents:

1) Introduction

2) The Speak Good English Movement

3) NNESTs need not apply

4) Why I wish I was a Non-Native English Speaker

5) Thornbury’s double irony

6) The tide is turning

7) Conclusion

8) References

9) Appendices:

A: How good is your English? Test with answer key &

score evaluation

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B: TESOL Position Statement

“Feathering our NNEST- An investigation into the native/non-

native speaker debate”

The use of the labels “native speaker” and “nonnative speaker” in hiring criteria is misleading, as this labeling minimizes the formal education linguistic expertise, teaching experience, and professional preparation of teachers. All educators should be evaluated within the same criteria. Nonnative English-speaking educators should not be singled out because of their native language. TESOL Position Statement

“Those who know nothing of foreign

languages know nothing of their own.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Introduction:

During the last few decades English has become a truly global

language. At the same time the world has become more

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accessible than ever. “For the first time in history, across

much of the world,” writes the Economist, “to be foreign is a

perfectly normal condition. It is no more distinctive than

being tall, fat or left-handed. Nobody raises an eyebrow at a

Frenchman in Berlin, a Zimbabwean in London, a Russian in

Paris, a Chinese in New York.”(The Economist, Dec 17th 2009).

English is spoken in 112 countries (ethnologue.com). Over 1

billion people throughout the world are currently learning

English, and there are estimated to be more students of

English in China alone than there are inhabitants of the USA.

(Crystal, 1997). This rapid spread of English to other

countries resulted in the creation of many new varieties of

English – the World Englishes. Crucially, English is the most

common tongue for non-native English speakers in the world.

Among English speakers, non-native speakers may now outnumber

native speakers by as much as three to one.

(Thehistoryofenglish.com) Inevitably, this has implications

for the teaching of English. Non-native English speakers all

around the world are teaching students English- and very

successfully, judging by the amount of English speakers around

the globe. Nevertheless, the idea that someone with an English

mother tongue automatically trumps all other speakers of

English by way of birth-right is a wide- spread unjustifiable

mindset (A definition of what exactly it means to be a native

speaker is by no means simple, but it will be omitted here due

to the brevity and limited word count of this paper).

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The following essay, then, will look at the debate about

native speaking English teachers versus non-native speaking

English teachers (hereafter referred to as NEST and NNEST) and

try to establish its dimensions in the modern world. I will

look at select examples of NNEST prejudice, cherry-picked by

necessity, but highly valid nevertheless and I will argue that

like any other discrimination there is no room for it in

contemporary society. Roughly the first half of the essay,

therefore, will look at specific examples of prejudice and try

to expose its irrationality. The second part, then, takes on a

much more encouraging tone in that it looks at positive steps

taken against these out-dated attitudes as the voices calling

for a change to NNEST prejudice are getting louder.

Kachru (1985) developed a model that describes the spread of

English with the aid of three concentric circles: the Inner

Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle. For many

governments from the Outer and Expanding Circle countries, the

native speaker model is used as a medium of instruction in the

English classroom. Indeed, there is a persistent, if

unsubstantiated belief that student prefer to be taught by

NESTs. Many of the above schools provide Standard English

only, but as Ferrell and Martin (2009) point out: “[…]

insisting on Standard English can devalue other varieties of

English that exist around the world” (p. 3).

Speak Good English Movement:

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A drastic example of insistence on the native speaker model

can be seen in Singapore. If you google ‘Speak Good English

Movement’ you are taken to a website from the Singapore

government. 1 This will immediately strike you as a promotion

for all those who prescribe to the ideal native speaker of

English as a point of reference for all English learners (and

– in particular – Singaporean English learners). With fierce

determination, this idea was launched in 1999 by the then

Prime Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong in response to an

ever increasing Singlish, or Singapore-English.2 It is

spearheaded by a committee of figures of significant influence

in Singapore, amongst them the Vice-Dean of SIM University and

an Assistant Director of the Ministry of Education. What you

encounter on following the link is a well equipped, user-

friendly and visually pleasing moodle site for learners of

English, per se, but particularly developed to sway

Singaporeans away from their fast spreading use of Singlish.

The site claims that its main aim is to “[…] encourage

Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is

universally understood with the help of partners who run

interesting programmes.” In a ‘name and shame’ fashion, some

purely Singaporean blunders are given as examples of bad English and

to highlight the importance of using correct grammar.

Singaporean Blunder: With regards to the matter, I think …Standard English: With regard to the matter, I think …

1 http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/2 English-based creole or patois spoken colloquially in Singapore.

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Singaporean Blunder: The shop is opened from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Standard English: The shop is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Singaporean Blunder: You go where?Standard English: Where are you going?

None of the above examples, of course, obstruct comprehension

or communication. Nevertheless, the message is clear: Speak

well- be understood! Interestingly, the site also links to a

self-evaluation quiz claiming to establish the students’

niveau of English: “How good is your English?” The test lays

out the pre-requisites of being a good (to equal competent?)

speaker of English. Interestingly, the test is created by the

British Council in partnership – so the site claims - with the

‘Speak Good English Movement’. Collaboration, of course,

suggests affiliation with the Singaporean movement and raises

questions about the British Council’s own attitude towards the

‘model English speaker’.

The test itself (Appendix A) consists of 30 questions relating

to grammar and vocabulary and the subsequent test score

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evaluation suggests that “[…] if you scored below15 then you

need to go back to the drawing board, your communication is

suffering because of these common mistakes.” Whilst this may

be the case with a few of the questions since they are

homophones and may cause confusion, this paper argues that the

majority of potential errors – whilst grammatically incorrect

- would not cause a breakdown in communication. In fact,

issues such as “It’s/its/its’ been a long time” are common

errors even in native English speakers. Indeed, what the

Singaporean Government is failing to take into account is the

close link between Singlish and identity. Many Singaporeans

see Singlish as a legitimate language in its own right, and a

source of national pride and, unlike English, it is understood

by most if not all Singaporeans. As Ee (2005) puts it:

“I LOVE Singlish so much, I speak it at every opportunity… It is the language

that defines our identity and connects us to our community. Speaking Singlish

is a means of survival here, a way of communicating effectively with the people around you. It is even more important at home. Many young people of my generation cannot speak dialect. So, the next best alternative is to use Singlish with our parents and grandparents…It is almost impossible to eradicate Singlish from our

lives. And since we can’t live without it, we should learn to use it in the proper context. That means we needto be able to code-switch effectively between English and Singlish. Singaporeans are pretty adaptable. At McDonald’s we say “Takeaway, please”, but at the hawker centre a simple“Tah pau, hor!” does the trick.

The reasons for the Singaporean government’s quest, of course,

are closely interlinked with the fear of alienating its people7

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from the rest of the world and disadvantaging Singapore as a

global business contender. The economic value of speaking good

English clearly outweighs the interests of the people.

NNESTs need not apply:

The bias towards the native speaker model becomes even more

blatant when we look at jobs in the teaching industry. Visit

the job seeker pages of tefl.com, for instance, and the real

extend of the NNEST prejudice becomes shockingly obvious:

English teacher for ASEI School in Torino, Italy. Details of Position: im (sic) looking for mother toungue (sic) of english(sic) 3

ESL Teacher, China, Qingdao, British run school. Details of position: No preference for experience, but applicants should be native English speaking.4

Native English Teacher, Turkey, Istanbul. Details of position:Experience one year and must be native English speaker. 5

Ad infinitum.

According to Marek Kiczkowiak, winner of the British Council’s

Teaching English blog award, up to 70 per cent of all jobs

advertised on tefl.com – the biggest job search engine for

English teachers – are for NESTs. And in some countries such

3 http://www.tefl.com/job-seeker/jobpage.html?jobId=69019&countryId=106

4 http://www.tefl.com/job-seeker/jobpage.html?jobId=62548&countryId=44

5 http://www.tefl.com/job-seeker/jobpage.html?jobId=67543&countryId=216

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as Korea it’s even worse – almost all recruiters will reject

any application that doesn’t say English native speaker on it

(www.britishcouncil.org, 18.07.2014) It is curious that whilst

society is steadily progressing in fighting racism, sexism and

other social injustices, NNEST prejudice is still ripe.

Indeed, Lippi-Green (cited in Moussu and Llurda, 2008) argues

that language discrimination is rarely considered a true

discriminatory practice, and judges are inclined to believe

that accented speakers may objectively not be suitable for

certain jobs in which language plays a key role. Thornbury

(2014) points out the very notion of the NEST versus NNEST

distinction has become extremely slippery in an increasingly

mobile, multilingual and globalized world. Crystal (2014) is

surprised at how long it is actually taking NNEST prejudice to

die. It is astonishing that this kind of prejudice has existed

for such a long time:

The facts are perfectly clear: for every one native speaker of English in the world there are now around five non-native speakers. The centre

of gravity has shifted, and is not going to return. And because of the nature of their previouslanguage-learning experience, fluent and linguistically aware

NNSs bring to the table an analytical and comparative perspective that adds immense value to the teaching situation.

Why I wish I was a Non-Native English Speaker9

Candidate Number: 102371

In his provocative blog post Why I wish I was a non-native English

speaker James Taylor discusses his perspective as someone from

the UK who teaches English as a foreign language and who is

fully aware that the country of his birth has advantaged him

in his profession. Indeed, being a white, tall, heterosexual

male has already given him an ‘unearned advantage’

(www.livescience.com). Despite clear advantages as a NEST,

Taylor argues against a world in which “[…] nationality, size,

race, sexuality and gender are the yardsticks by which our

employability is measured.” (Taylor, 2014) He subsequently

goes on to list some of the many reasons that NNESTs have

their own advantages, most notably empathy and understanding

of the language student’s plight. Interestingly, Taylor

rejects the cultural knowledge of a NEST as an advantage:

“Firstly, there is no such thing as a culture of the English language. It is used in too many countries by too many people to be homogeneous. So as a NEST, I can only represent a very small element of that and that is inevitably the bit that I know best.

In my case it is British, specifically English; specifically the south of England – there’s an awful lot missing there.” (Taylor, 2014)

In fact, Phillipson (1992) goes so far as to say that non-

native speakers are better equipped to teach a second language

to adults than native teachers, since most non-native speakers

had learned their L2 as adults, whilst native teachers had

learned it as their L1 when they were children.

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Thornbury’s double irony:

Thornbury echoes Taylor’s sentiment, when he reports about

returning from a conference in Occupied Palestine, in which

most speakers were NESTs. In Thornbury’s own words “[…] this

was doubly ironic, perhaps, since the conference took place in

a context where oppression is experienced on a daily basis –

an oppression whose origins are directly traceable to the

machinations of British imperialist strategists at the turn of

the last century.” However, the conference was a great success

and Thornbury was urged to visit the University by two young

teachers from Jenin, who declared: ““We badly need native

speakers”.(2010) Whilst it would be easy to condemn such

outright prejudice against home-grown teachers of English,

Thornbury reminds us to weigh up the whole picture, since “[…]

the presence of foreign “experts” in a  country where travel

is so constrained, and where visitors are so few, acts as a

kind of validation of the teachers’ collective commitment to

their profession and to their national identity, as well as

providing a rare break from the daily grind of checkpoints and

restrictions.” (2010) Nevertheless, modelling best practice, which

is ideologically embedded, should never be encouraged. In

reality, however, we must also recognise that people have “[…]

aesthetic preferences for types of English and types of

speakers, and the possibility that they may prefer flavours

from the English-speaking West over indigenous flavours for a

multiplicity of reasons.” (Holliday, 2008: 60)

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The tide is turning:

A sure sign that the tide is finally turning are the fairly

recent developments in the TEFL/TESL industry. In April 2014

the TEFL Equity Advocates was set up order to speak out

against the discrimination of NNESTs

(http://teflequityadvocates.com/get-involved/). The campaign

aims to encourage schools and organisations to establish

egalitarian employment policies which will give equal

opportunities to both NNESTs and NESTs. It also conducts

research into recruiters’ and students’ perceptions of NESTs

and NNESTs. Amongst some of the goals the TEFL Equity is

working towards are diminishing the divide between the two

groups by encouraging cooperation and dialogue and to provide

support and advice in cases of discrimination (see Appendix

B). With this powerful and influential organisation, backed up

by ‘linguistic heavy-weights’ like David Crystal, Jeremy

Harmer and Scott Thornbury, we are finally moving towards an

understanding of what it means to be an effective teacher of

English in the contemporary, globalised world.

Conclusion:

It was not the aim of this paper to dismiss native-speaking

teachers and the benefits they can bring to the English

language classroom. Likewise, access to a native-like model

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may be both desired and appropriate in some situations. The

intention was to highlight the absurdity of equating native

Englishness to a skill. Both native and non-native teachers of

English bring their own set of skills to the table according

to training, competence, and experience. These are the skills

that determine a suitable pedagogue, which is just as well

since there are simply not enough Inner Circle teachers to

satisfy ELT needs. Furthermore, it was my intention to dispel

the myth of the ideal speaker. With so many World Englishes

being spoken around the globe, one type of speaker couldn’t

possibly function as role model for all. As David Graddol puts

it: “The reasons why people learn English are also changing.

Globalisation is bringing together more people than ever who

speak different languages and who are turning to English as

the means of communication. The English learner of the future

may be less worried about sounding exactly like a native

speaker and more concerned about how to use English

effectively in cross-cultural communication.” (BBC Learning

English). There is nothing to be gained from a NEST versus

NNEST segregation, only through collaboration and appreciation

of each other will – and most importantly our students –

benefit.

Ultimately, each educator has to be measured by his/her

individual teaching skills which – as anyone in the profession

knows – go far beyond being a native English speaker (whatever

its definition) and, as we have seen, is not necessarily

included in the prerequisites of being a good language 13

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teacher. It is true that teaching English requires proficiency

and the ability to analyse the language, but undoubtedly the

understanding of bilingual language use, identity in a second

language and code switching all add to the teaching

experience. It is our duty to question the policies and

discourses that have led to NNEST prejudice, given the far-

reaching implications on teacher education. Place of birth is

not a skill that one can acquire and must not be used to gauge

suitability as a language teacher. This essay, then, will

conclude with the parting words of Taylor’s blog post, in

which he addresses all NNESTs: “The tide is turning, slowly,

but it is turning. In the future you will have more rights and

be more respected by an industry in which you are the

backbone. And this is the point that needs to be remembered –

they are many, many more of you than there are of me. You have

the power, so use it.”

Reference list:

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Crystal, D.(1997) English as a global language Cambridge University

Press.

Crystal, D. (2014) cited on teflequityadvocates (online) foundat: http://teflequityadvocates.com/get-involved/support-us/ [accessed: 10.05.2015]

Ee, J.(2005, June 6). It connects us to family and community.

The Straits Times.

Ethnologue.com (author unknown/ online) found at: https://www.ethnologue.com/region/Europe [accessed: 15.05.2015]

Farrell, T., & Martin, S. (2009). To teach Standard English or World Englishes: A balanced Approach to instruction. English teaching forum Vol2. http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives/docs/09-47-2-b.pdf [accessed: 10.05.2015].

Goethe, J.W. von (1999) Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Peter Hutchinson (Editor), Elisabeth Stopp (Translator), Penguin Classics.

Graddol, D. (2006) English and the Future (online) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1720_ten_years/page9.shtml [accessed: 26.04.2015].

Holliday, A. (2008) What happens between people: who are we and what wedo. In Gieve, S., and Miller, I. (eds.) Understanding the Language Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan.

Kachru, B. (1992) The other tongue: English across cultures. Second edition. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Kiczkowiak, Marek (2014) NNEST blog of the month found at: www.britishcouncil.org (online) 18.07.2014 [accessed: 15.05.2015]

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Lippi-Green, R. (1997) English with an accent in Moussu and Llurda (2008) Non-native English –speaking English language teachers:History and research, Lang. Teach. (2008), 41:3, 315–348 _c Cambridge University Pressmo/

McKay, S., & Bokhorst-Heng, W. (2008). International English and its sociolinguistic contexts: Towards a socially sensitive EIL pedagogy. New York, NY: Routledge.

Phillipson, Robert (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Starnes, T. (2013) Pentagon training manual: white males have unfair advantages http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/31/pentagon-training-manual-white-males-have-unfair-advantages.html October 31 2013[accessed: 11.04.2015].

Taylor, J. (2014) cited on teflequityadvocates (online) found at: http://teflequityadvocates.com/2014/05/20/why-i-wish-i-was-a-non-native-english-speaker-by-james-taylor/

TESOL, Position Statement Against Discrimination of Nonnative Speakers of English in the Field of TESOL http://www.tesol.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/position-statement-against-nnest-discrimination-march-2006.pdf?sfvrsn=2[accessed: 16.04.2015].

The Economist, Being foreign – the others, http://www.economist.com/node/15108690 Dec 17th 2009, no author [accessed: 20.04.2015].

The History of English (author unknown/ online) found at: http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/issues_global.html [accessed: 01.06.2015]

Thornbury, S.(2010) N is for Native-speakerism (online) April 27, 2010 Available from ‘An A-Z of ELT’, https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/n-is-for-native-speakerism/ [accessed: 11.05.2015].

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Thornbury, S. (2014) cited on teflequityadvocates (online) found at: http://teflequityadvocates.com/get-involved/support-us/ [accessed: 10.05.2015]

Image:

http://teflequityadvocates.com/tag/peter-medgyes/ [accessed: 22.04.2015].

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