Article Critique ELT: the native speaker's burden?

Robert Phillipson

In his article ETL: the native speakers burden Robert Phillipson explores the two trends in ELT. It refers
to the quality of teachers based on the assumption that a native speaker per se is better qualify than a
non-NEST (Native English Speaking Teacher) to deliver English Classes. This article analyses samples of
promotion of native speaker and British ELT expertise. This article also unmasks the misconception of
correlation of Native Speaker-ideal, well qualified teacher. It also provides a detail description of the pro
and cons of both sides. There is an assumption which claims that more English or more ELT can only
benefit the learners of the language. However, there is more to say about, the British government
started a world-wide diffusion of its language, firstly with the purpose of maintaining its political
influence as a world power nation. There is also the dominant role of English in southern countries such
as ours in which the educational and social crisis is eminent as Mateene, 1985; Ngugi, 1986; Hawes and
Coombe, 1986 expressed. English language is also analyzed under three aspects. The first one is the
intrinsic nature of a language which refers to the language itself. The extrinsic which refers to all the
resources associated to the language such as materials, classroom and also training and management.
This also is related to the last aspect which is the use of the language which also deals with the
technological advances, changes in society, prosperity and nation unity. Phillipson also analyzes the
arguments used in marketing ELT. The first comes for a policy statement on foreign language teaching in
Europe after 1992 and the other information comes from an article in Standard English published in
English Toda. It seems that a native speaker might be a more qualify foreign language teacher because
its claimed that they know best what is important in language teaching for the future which is an active
and creative use of the language as Fruedenstein (1991) mentioned. The ideal teacher being a native
speaker is the based idea of monolingual pedagogy. ELT started is expansion in the 1950s as the
connection of English as a worldwide second language and the British influence then ESL started to grow
under the influence of structuralism in linguistics and behaviorism. The problem rises in the tendency to
accept that a NEST is the ideal teacher especially in third world countries such as Ecuador. The other
point of view is the idea that non-NEST can be the ideal teachers when he/she has a proficiency in the
foreign language and comes from the same linguistic and cultural background as the learners. It implies
that the teacher has gone through the whole process of acquiring or learning the target language, the
teacher is also aware of how the mother tongue and the target language differ and are the difficulties
that an ESL or EFL student can go through in the process of learning the new language. In this sense a
non-NEST is better qualified for teaching English as a second or foreign language. There is also another
important fact motioned by the author the use of material and technological aids in the process of
teaching language. It is time to question the material, syllabus and methodology the teacher uses in
class. It is necessary to create authentic material which focuses on the reality of the students, the
environment, culture and the context in which the language is taught. We cannot categorize the
different kind of English in a degree of importance saying that American or British English as the only
reference for the ELT Programs. We also cannot associate a good command of English to a good
performance in teaching; they are complementary to each other. A good language teacher might be the
one who masters the proficiency of the language together with methodology and pedagogy. With the
aid of the technology, authentic material and electronic devices students are expose to different accents
which prevents having the teacher solely as the only reference of the target language. Finally further
researches are necessary in the field of ELT to consider it the native speakers burden.