Who Makes a Better Teacher – Native or Non-native?

Kamila Kaczmarczyk, Poland

Kamila Kaczmarczyk has graduated from the English Unlimited Teacher Training College, under the academic care of University of Gdańsk, Poland. At present she is working as an English teacher at the state school and doing an MA in English Philology at the University of Gdansk, Poland. E-mail: missouri84@wp.pl

Language teaching brings a lot of issues to discuss among which is a relation between native and non-native teacher. This has been the focus of public debate and an area of research. It appears that there is no way to agree who is actually a better teacher. Robert Phillipson (1996) states that “Teachers are made rather than born, whether they are natives or non-natives.” Let me analyse the advantages and disadvantages of this matter in language teaching.

We need to consider the nature of language proficiency and identity. In article of M. B. H. Rampton (1996) we can read that we should speak of accomplished users as experts rather than as native speakers. Moreover, Rampton claims that “Expertise is learnt, not fixed or innate.” He also says that “the notion of expert shifts the emphasis from who you are to what you know, and this has to be a more just basis for the recruitment of the teachers.” Thus, native and non-native speaker can be a specialist in certain language. Nevertheless, knowing the language is not enough. One must know how to teach in order to provide good teaching and learning to students.

It happens quite often that conversation classes are led by native speaker while classes that prepare for serious exams, like Cambridge CPE, BEC, TOEFL, IELTS are assigned to non-native teacher. Why is that so ? Is it because NNEST have better understanding of the target grammar ?. We may say that a native speaker of a language is not able to explain particular grammar points and provide accurate examples. Besides, there are few native teachers working in public schools, simply due to the lack of teaching qualifications. Quirk (1990) points out that unqualified native speaker is a potential menace because he ignores the structure of the mother tongue. Knowing the mother tongue of a learner plays here an important role as well. Sharing the native language of a learner may be sometimes a lot more beneficial and helpful especially at the beginners level.

Another fact speaking for non-NEST is that he or she went through their own learning process so they should know better what problems their students might have, what mistakes they will make and in this case what teaching method to use. Such teachers know exactly what differences there are between target language and mother tongue. Non- native teacher may be more aware of their students’ needs and this certainly has an influence on learners and every day teaching.

Looking back on my learning experience I noticed that natives rarely did pre-activities, although a proper lead-in can be extremely useful to pupils. I also observed that their classes were slightly chaotic. Some people claim that native teachers put less effort into preparing their lessons, which sometimes influences the quality of a lesson.

Pronunciation is an integral part of every language teaching and learning. Jenkins (1999) declares that in comparison to NNEST many native teachers have insufficient knowledge of English phonology. What is more, a wide range of CDs, tapes, videos and DVDs are available on the professional language teaching market and learners have a chance to be exposed to different types of native speaker speech. As stated by UNESCO monograph (1953:69): “A teacher is not adequately qualified to teach a language merely because it is his mother tongue”.

Furthermore, non-native teachers have greater empathy because they know from their own experience what difficulties students may encounter in acquiring a sound system of another language. There is always a possibility that NEST may judge success in comparison with his own perfect performance. In terms of pronunciation, we need to consider a risk of accent. Therefore, we should give it a thought whether we want our students to communicate with variety of English users or make them speak like people in a particular area, country or social group. So, native speaker may not be a good model to imitate.

Motivation is another aspect to think about. When it comes to success in language learning, non-native can be a better example to follow. On the other hand, native speaker may build more motivation to communicate by creating relaxed atmosphere.

All in all, we may agree that a native speaker has a huge language competence. Nonetheless, in teaching situation his competence is not so obvious. Native and non-native issue is a constant matter of argument that is why we should make our judgment based on student’s progress. More importantly, we all have strengths and limitations. According to M. B. H. Rampton (1996) “Nobody’s functional command is total: users of a language are more proficient in some areas than others.” Hence, teachers should treat every challenge as a stepping stone to further improvement and achievements in teaching career.

Peter Medgyes (1996) contends that both native and non-native speakers have equal rights to use a particular language and that there is no need to distinguish these two categories. This author also asserts that “natives and non-natives stand an equal chance of achieving professional success.” While Edge (1988: 156) affirms that “As far as teaching of English is concerned, it seems more and more important that… training and development should help us to escape from the essentially nationalistic view of native speaker / non-native speaker …” The best attitude is to view teachers by virtue of their professionalism.

References

Jenkins, J. (1999). Pronunciation in teacher education for English as an international language. Speak Out ! , 24, 45-48

Medgyes, P. (1996). Native or non-native: Who’s worth more? Power, Pedagogy, and Practice. Oxford: OUP.

Phillipson, R. (1996). ELT: the native speaker’s burden ? Power, Pedagogy, and Practice. Oxford: OUP.

Rampton, M. B. H. ( 1996). Displacing the ‘native speaker’: expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. Power, Pedagogy, and Practice. Oxford: OUP.

Please check the Expert Teacher course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the From Teaching to Training course at Pilgrims website.