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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Candidate Number: 102371
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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