One other ideology that shifts the status and privileges the English language over L1 is native-speakerism (or native speakerism). There is a widespread belief that “native speakers are automatically the best teachers of the language” (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 126). This ideology began to be questioned in the early 1990s (e.g., Phillipson, 1992), and Davies (1991) argued that the distinction between native and non-native speakers “is at bottom one of confidence and identity” (p. 167). Case in point, many language teacher-hiring companies in Korea, Japan and other East Asian countries advertise English language teaching jobs where being a native English speaker is a requirement. As a consequence, they disregard the professional status of qualified English language teachers based on not their credentials, but on their L1. Such practice discriminates against English language teachers whose socially constructed identity markers (e.g., gender, race, age, religion, and place of birth) point to outside the inner circle (Kachru, 1997).
Critical scholars have continued to oppose and expose such discriminatory practices (e.g., Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 1999; Jenkins, 2017; Ruecker & Ives, 2015). When L2 teachers develop critical consciousness, they become aware of their position in this intricate context where the color of their skin, eyes, and hair, gender, and age can affect their and their colleagues’ professional opportunities. They become aware that behind their students’ or institutions’ goal to become native-like (Cook & Singleton, 2014) lies the ideology that only native speakers are authentic L2 users (Cook, 2016) and that the non-native speaker is less than the native speaker. When L2 teachers develop critical consciousness, they demystify these socially constructed labels and examine notions of language authenticity (Higgins, 2015) and language ownership (Higgins, 2003) in their classrooms.
References:
Brutt-Griffler, J., & Samimy, K. K. (1999). Revisiting the colonial in the postcolonial: Critical praxis for nonnative‐English‐speaking teachers in a TESOL program. TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 413-431.
Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). On EFL teachers awareness and agency. ELT Journal, 53(3), 207-214.
Cook, V. (2016). Second language learning and language teaching (5th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Cook, V., & Singleton, D. (2014). Key topics in second language acquisition. Bristol, UK: Multingual Matters.
Davies, A. (1991). The native speaker in applied linguistics. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.
Higgins, C. (2003). "Ownership" of English in the outer circle: An alternative to the NS-NNS dichotomy. TESOL Quarterly, 37(4), 615-644.
Higgins, C. (2015). Insults or acts of identity? The role of stylization in multilingual discourse. Multilingua, 34(2), 135-158.
Jenkins, S. (2017). The elephant in the room: discriminatory hiring practices in ELT. ELT Journal, 71(3), 373-376.
Kachru, B. B. (1997). World Englishes 2000: Resources for research and teaching. In L. E. Smith & M. L. Forman (Eds.), World Englishes 2000 (Vol. 14, pp. 209–251). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Ruecker, T., & Ives, L. (2015). White native English speakers needed: The rhetorical construction of privilege in online teacher recruitment spaces. TESOL Quarterly, 49(4), 733-756.
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