Native Teachers or Non-native Teachers?

jesus wrote on May 10, 2005:

hi!

as you can see above i’m for native teachers, although there’s some “loose ends” that, we, as teacher, will have to get better with time…

but, i would like knowing your opinion about an intermediate measuare that is taking place in many schools; i’m talking about exchanges between teachers; i mean, for example, a teacher for london come to Toledo for a term, and this teacher from Toledo come to London. What do u think about it? Do you think it’s a good measure? I really like it too, but, of course, it isn’t the same having a native teacher during the year…
what’s your opinion?

thank u very much,
jesus

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Rosa wrote on May 10, 2005:

Hola Jesus,

I think it shouldn’t matter as long as the teacher’s competency is good. I have been teaching ESL in Sydney since 1991 and while my accent is not purely Aussie, British or American, it is as good as any other accent, it’s part of my history (not learning English from a very early age, being Spanish, etc).

I think there are two very different situations to take into account: EFL & ESL teaching. I can understand EFL students preferring native teachers, as they are usually learning English in a non-English environment. On the other hand, ESL students often prefer a non-native teacher, as they have gone through the process of learning another language themselves (often not the case of native teachers!) and understand the difficulties of learning a second language and the intricacies of the English language.
BUt, as I said earlier, the important thing is for the teacher to be a good competent inspiring teacher. Good luck with your studies!

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Aaron wrote on May 11, 2005:

I tend to agree with what Rosa mentioned: that what is important is that the teacher is competent and skillful at his/her craft. Whether the teacher is native or not really isn’t the most important issue.

I also think that teacher exchanges are a really good idea. Just like student international exchanges, it would give teachers an opportunity to be in a new cultural and professional environment, which is always helpful to gain insight into both their practice of teaching and their knowledge of self.

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Bee wrote on May 11, 2005:

Hello Jesus,
Some time ago I held an interview with a teacher from Sweden who swapped jobs with a teacher in Austria. They are both non-native teachers of English so the purpose was not to learn the language but compare methods, culture and pedagogy.
You can have access to this archived pdf file
Tell us what you and your colleagues think of such an exchange.

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jesus wrote on May 12, 2005:

first at all, thank u very much to all of you, because i’ve learnt a lot of u…
i already understand that it isn’t so important than the teacher be native or non-native, but also, the compentence, the training he/she have.

Another important feature i would like to share with you it’s about the accent… do u think we (non native speakers / teachers) have to “imitate” English accent? Maria – my english teacher -, says us NO. But, other teacher, says YES. Listening to Maria’s reasons i agree with her because you can’t pretend be English, without being it. What do u think about it? thank u very much for your opinions…

jesus.

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jesus wrote on May 12, 2005:

hi bee:

thank u very much for the interview… i’ll have a look at the weekend. i promise u to reply…

jesus

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Maurice wrote on May 13, 2005:

Native and non-native teachers –
Firstly, I agree absolutely that the teacher’s skill is paramount – whatever his or her language background, it is essential to be a good communicator, to stimulate, motivate and to promote independent learning. However, from my experience as a teacher in Germany I have often noticed that there is a fundamental difference in the teaching strategies employed by native and non-native teachers. Native English speakers tend to shy away from bilingual materials and are less ready to use the student’s own language in class. On the one hand, this increases the ‘amount’ of English used in the classroom but it also underuses a valuable resource – the students’ first language. ‘NNES teachers, on the other hand, often feel more comfortable than their NES counterparts when explaining abstract concepts and complicated structures in the students’ own language. Similarly, a native English speaker generally has a cultural advantage when discussing matters relating to the country of the target language, whereas the home-based teacher is often more attuned to the cultural sensitivities of the students themselves. In other words, the really important thing is to compare, but not to compete, for native and non-native teachers to cooperate, whether within an institution or through external networking, to share experiences and strategies, to learn from each other and – most importantly – to learn from the feedback given by their students. After all, the best teacher is not only a good communicator, but a good listener.

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Aaron wrote on May 13, 2005:

Maurice, I like your idea of both native and non-native teachers working cooperatively to share their experiences and strategies. In that way, learners can benefit from the strenghts of both.

Jesus, I think it is important to be familiar with different accents and to be able to pronounce words in different ways. Because English is now spoken all over the world, their is no ‘one correct form’ of pronunciation for any given word. Therefore it is crucial for good speakers of English to be able to recognize and understand different accents and to be understood when speaking.

I often have my students try to imitate my accent (which is a standard American one with a bit of Southern twang), mostly for fun and for practice. I explain to them that there is nothing wrong with their Japanese accent, but that learning to imitate a native speaker will help them be better understood when speaking other native speakers.

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Diana Caballero López wrote on May 13, 2005:

I think is a potentially controversial and a difficult topic but I think that we must to be english teachers because we know the tipical mistakes of the students when they learn a second language and how interfere the native language in the target language. And what about you?

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Blinger wrote on May 15, 2005:

Just for the record, I have found this discussion interesting and useful. I will be citing this in an essay I am writing on culture in the ELT classroom.

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phil wrote on May 19, 2005:

Bonjour from the Ardèche (France)!

I think it’s really hard to generalize, based on a single criterion, native or non-native speakers. Just the simple fact of having been born and raised in an anglophone environment does not necessarily qualify a person to teach.

Here in France there are relatively few native speakers in permanent tenured positions in secondary education, for the simple reason that the teacher certification exam requires them to demonstrate high levels of competency in translation (both ways) and writing essays in French. However, there are a lot of native speakers working in private language institutes, some of them will only hire native speakers (though technically that is illegal discrimination).

A good language teacher needs to be fluent both in the students’ target language and their native language, I think. As a native speaker in the French national education system, I’m able to get considerable mileage out of the fact of being a native speaker, but I wouldn’t even be able to be here in this position if I weren’t perfectly fluent in French, and a skilled teacher besides.

So at the end of the day, I don’t think it’s one or the other. You need both skill sets, and whether you were born with it or not does not in itself validate a person’s ability to do the job.

Cheers, —- Phil

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leslie simonfalvi wrote on May 20, 2005:

Hello Everybody

I find this dicussion so interesting that I just cannot resist the temptation of joining.

I have been the director of an international school for 23 years now and have employed over the years more than 700 teachers.

Based on this experience I must say that there is no one good answer to the question whether the NES teachers or the NNES teachers are better.

We teach English and many subjects in English. By the way, whose mother-tongue is History? Why don’t we have the same debate re different subjects we teach in English?

In my definition, a TEACHER is a PERSON who is very deeply interested in the subject he/she attempts to teach, who is a good learner, who can LEARN effectively in all the methods he/she will use in TEACHING, who is very deeply interested in HUMAN COMMUNICATION and INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS,
who has something to say, who has a high level of empathy and remembers what it was like not to know, who knows the subject-matter subconsciously to be able to use it with a unique taste, who knows the subject-matter consciously as well to be able to plan, who is not primarily interested in prestige through presenting hard stuff, who is interested in making hard-looking materials simple and friendly, who has a wide range of learner’s vocabulary [the vocabulary to go up to in own learning], who has a wide range of teacher’s vocabulary [the vocabulary to come down with to the students’ level], who sets a really high ethical standard to self and demands the same from students, who has a good sense of humour but never starts the laughing, etc.

Based on the above, a GOOD TEACHER is a person who meets a high number of the criteria listed.

Leslie

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semra wrote on May 02, 2007:

Hello everybody
Now, I’m studying this topic for my assignment. I read yours and I agree some of you. For my opinion, it is important whether the teacher is native or non-native because from my recently experience as a student, I have noticed that there is a significant diffecence between them in teaching, communication with students and being able to understand them.
Semra

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Kathleen wrote on June 26, 2007:

Dear Semra,

You raised a good point. My immediate thought was pronunciation. It’s an important area of concern, particularly if you will need your English in business. Commerce = money, but not if you can’t keep up with what’s being discussed in high-pressure conference calls or fast cell calls. Right?

For my conversational English students, the biggest concerns / problems are: pronunciation, slang, idioms, semantics, and synonyms—all very difficult to “get” with an inexperienced second-language-user-as-teacher. We all have timetables, and some of us need “correct” right now, but there are many good second language instructors, too! What if they weren’t teaching students?

What are your experiences? What is your class?

Kathleen

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Majid Attisha wrote on August 30, 2007:

I am a native Arabic speaker but I speak Italian fluently and I teach it to adults.
I am preparing a presentation to show that a non native speaker can compete with natives of a Target language, in teaching the language. What sources do you advise me to consult to come out with a good presentation?
Thanks
Majid Attisha

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Aaron wrote on September 02, 2007:

Hi Majid…

Garr Reynolds has some good presentation tips on his website that I think are worth reflecting on:

As for academic resources, maybe someone else can help you with that? It’s not my area…

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