The Academic Events Group, 9th World Conference on Educational Sciences

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Native versus Non-Native English Teachers. Which one is better?
Cennet Altıner

Last modified: 2017-01-19

Abstract


In field of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, there is an argument about who is the most qualified to teach English to students. It is often assumed that teachers who teach their mother tongue have a lot of advantages over teachers who are not native speakers of the language they teach. A large number of EFL instructors throughout the world are non-native speakers of English. Despite this fact, native English teachers are more popular and in greater demand than non-native English teachers. The main goal of this research is to address the controversial issue of native English speaking teachers (NESTs) and non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) from the perspective of EFL instructors. This research was conducted through an online questionnaire administered to 34 non-native English instructors working at 12 different universities in Turkey. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for each question. The research clearly shows that EFL instructors in Turkey do not believe that native English teachers are better teachers because they are teaching their native language. NNESTs were perceived as better teachers of grammar whereas NESTs were perceived as more helpful in developing students’ oral skills, such as pronunciation, listeing and fluency. Moreover, NNESTs were viewed as more capable of predicting student difficulties in learning English, more empathetic to the needs of students, and more knowledgeable of the students’ culture whereas NESTs were perceived as more competent in teaching the culture and the body language of the target language.

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