James Fidel Tomassoyan (112018054)

The Decline and Fall of The Native Speaker

2.1 Introduction

The field of applied linguistics has lately been questioning and thus redefining the concepts of ‘native
speaker’ (NS) and ‘non-native speaker’ (NNS). Studies on interaction between ‘native speakers’ and
‘non-native speakers’ (Long, 1983; Pica, 1988) or research on ultimate attainment in SLA, (Coppetiers,
1987) exemplify such an approach in which NNSs were paired to or compared with NSs. As Matsuda
(2003) has claimed, the discussion has typically been based on the overall perception of ‘native’ as
positive, in contrast to ‘nonnative’, perceived as a negative feature.

The issue has been repeatedly raised in the electronic list:

 TESOL (Teaching of English as a Second or Other Language)

 NNEST (Non-Native English-Speaking Teacher)

‘Native speaker’ is no longer an identity category, and rather than being something that someone is, it
becomes something that someone does (Piller, 2002: 201). Piller choses to look at native speaker
identity in a dynamic way, by which individuals do not always totally fi t into one given category, but can
temporarily move from one to another. Piller provides a rich new view on advanced L2 users who can
temporarily take a native speaker identity, due to

1. the particular type of communicative performance the speaker is involved in

2. the incorporation of local speech features in a way that ‘coincides with the stereotypes of the
audience’;
3. the medium used for the communicative encounters (oral, written, and electronic); and
4. the interlocutors.

There is a widespread acceptance of the idea that the NNS is an imperfect user of the language, and the
NS is often valued as the ideal teacher by potential students, who see in them a ‘natural’ superiority
over NNSs for teaching the language. And, in some places, there is even a prevention against native
teachers who have spent too long in an environment with a majority of NNSs, as they may have got
contaminated by the non-native speech of local inhabitants.

According to Cummins’ Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis (1979, 1981) the languages spoken by a
bilingual speaker are not stored in separate compartments. Instead, they appear to share a single large
common area which serves as a shared space between all the languages spoken by a single person. It
appears only logical that the decline of the concept of the native speaker as the ideal speaker is parallel
to the surge of the concept of the bilingual speaker or more recently of the multi-competent speaker (V.
Cook, 2007; this volume)
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2.2 Research on Non-native Speaking Teachers

Before, language teaching had been carried out by native and non-native teachers alike, with some
methods stressing the importance of foreign languages being taught by native teachers (e.g., the Direct
Method). However, since Communicative Language Teaching appeared as the dominant theoretical
framework in second and foreign language teaching, an implicit rule was that native speakers were ideal
for promoting natural and spontaneous communication, and therefore when available they should
naturally be preferred over non-natives. This was the case of ELT in ‘expanding circle’ countries (Kachru,
1981).

The notion of ‘the native teacher as the ideal teacher’ was equivalent to the notion of ‘the monolingual
native speaker as the ideal speaker’. In some extreme cases, monolingual native speakers would be
preferred over native speakers with a good knowledge of the learners’ L1 (see Llurda, 2009, for evidence
of the pervasiveness of such a monolingual ideology among current non-native teachers).

Medgyes (1992, 1994) changed the parameters of the discussion and introduced the question that
challenged the above assumptions: who is worth more as a language teacher, the native speaker or the
non-native speaker? This point had already been raised in an influential language teaching forum like
TESOL with their ground-breaking statement on Non-native Speakers of English (TESOL, 1991). And now,
for the first time, NNSs were the object of research and were mentioned in academic literature.

In the last few years, visibility among the research community has been granted by an increasing
number of papers dealing with NNESTs, and more specially by the publication of books exclusively
centered on the study of NNESTs (Braine, 1999; Kamhi-Stein, 2004; Llurda, 2005).

Although research on native and non-native speaking teachers is still lacking in many aspects and suffers
from some important problems, it has so far come up with some relevant findings. These include very
diverse aspects that range from students’ general openness and acceptance of non-native teachers,
especially after having had sufficient experiences involving NNESTs, to teachers’ self-perceptions and
characteristic lack of self-confidence.

Llurda (2009) brings up a more radical image to this debate by stating that many NNESTs suffer from a
syndrome that is somehow resonant of the Stockholm Syndrome, in as much as NNESTs suffer from
discrimination by NSs who are preferred in many professional situations, but they still find a justification
for such a discriminatory practice and do in fact agree with the choice, as shown by research pointing at
NNESTs’ typical preference for NS models and NS teachers (Llurda and Huguet, 2003; Sifakis and Sougari,
2005; Jenkins, 2007).
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2.2.1 Is There Anything Wrong with NS Teachers?

A great impulse has been given to the increasing assertiveness of NNSs by many NSs who have
contributed with their work to demystify the notion of the NS and value the capability of NNSs as
teachers (for example Phillipson, 1992; V. Cook, 1999; Modiano, 2005).

What is important here is to accept that all teachers, NS or NNS, need pedagogical training and
knowledge of the language being taught (Derwing and Munro, 2005) regardless of their place of birth,
race or self-attachment to any given speech community. And this includes those NNS teachers who do
not share their students’ L1.

2.2.2 Outcome of Research

The artificial construct of the separation between native speakers and non-native speakers in language
teaching that was discussed at the beginning of this chapter has been recently dealt with by several
researchers who have used two major arguments to eliminate such a discrimination:

(a) Minimizing perceived differences between NSs and NNSs

Liu (1999) conducted a series of interviews with seven language teachers to conclude that there
was no consensus regarding the meaning and implications of the terms NS and NNS. The fact
that three of the participants in the study could not affiliate themselves with either the NS or
the NNS category indicates that in some cases such a clear-cut distinction may not be easy or
even plausible to make.
Brutt-Griffler and Samimy (2001) also reported four cases that may be considered difficult to
categorize under the NS/NNS distinction. These studies illustrate the existence of intermediate
areas between the stereotyped NS and NNS, which provide evidence for the existence of a
continuum that ranges from extreme English nativeness (e.g., a monolingual speaker of
standard American or British English) to clear non-nativeness (e.g., a learner of English as a
foreign language at the beginner level).
Thinking in terms of language users rather than language learners (V. Cook, 2005) strengthens
the above argument, as there is no longer the need to focus on native speaker models in
language teaching. In this respect, the formulation of English as an International Language
(Sharifi an, 2009) or English as a Lingua Franca (Seidlhofer, 2004) comes in handy. A language
that is truly international is not owned by any group of speakers (Widdowson, 1994) and
competence is based on the capacity to use language forms that are intelligible for the global
community (Modiano, 1999).

(b) Vindicating the role of non-native speakers in language teaching

Recent research on NNESTs has additionally shown that language teaching can be successfully
performed by non-native teachers, and therefore has minimized the importance of an absolute
knowledge of standard and colloquial language forms by stressing the added value of teachers
who have a shared experience of struggling to learn the language with their students.
Some of the advantages of NNESTs that have been reported in the literature, mainly by
Medgyes (1994: 51), Tang (1997: 579) and Seidlhofer (1999: 235–242):
o They are a model for imitation
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o They can successfully teach strategies for language learning

o They have a high level of awareness of the language and can supply information
about it
o They can anticipate the difficulties that will appear in the learning process
o They can be more empathetic to the needs and problems of students
o They often have the same mother tongue as their students, which allows them
to use it when necessary, and act as mediators between different languages and
cultures
o They have more familiarity with the local context, and specifically with the
syllabus and examination procedures

2.2.3 Internal Diversity among Native and Non-native Speakers

Holliday (2005) pointedly remarks, NNSs have often been reduced to a single homogeneous group in
many discussions, with the result of reducing their complex reality to a simple stereotype valid for all
individual cases. This is similar to what has happened in many other contexts, in which the ‘others’ are
denied any internal variation and are reduced to a series of false stereotypes. Holliday calls this practice
‘native speakerism’, which constitutes one manifestation of the more general phenomenon of culturism
and, eventually, racism.

In the field of NSs, a basic distinction needs to be established between well trained teachers and what
Árva and Medgyes (2000) call ‘backpackers’, who spend one or two years teaching English in a foreign
country without any previous training, experience or knowledge of the local language and culture.

‘The teacher’s knowledge/experience of the acquisition of the content in formal contexts’ (Ellis, 2006:
3), whereby the content can be ‘English’ (restricted to NNSs) or ‘a second language’ (open to bilingual
NSs). According to Ellis (2006: 4) monolingual NSs’ experience of language learning ‘is in the babyhood
and the process of learning is not accessible for examination by the speaker’.

Cook demonstrates that what ELT really is concerned with is the development of the L2 user ‘somebody
who knows and uses a second language at any level’ (V. Cook, 2007: 228). Such a concept ‘recognizes
that L2 users are different kinds of people from monolingual native speakers, and need to be evaluated
as people who speak two languages, not as inefficient natives’ (V. Cook, 2007: 229). Cook’s concept of
the L2 user nicely complements that of multi-competence (V. Cook, 1992) and its basic claim that the
different languages spoken by a multilingual person combine in their mind in a way that creates a new
complex system in which both languages interact rather than simply one being added to the other
(Grosjean, 1989).
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2.3 Critical Approaches to Language Teaching: The Decline and Fall of the NS

The Natural Approach, the Audio-Lingual Method, and Communicative Language Teaching, among
others, have emphasized the teacher’s fluency and capacity to use the language. Unfortunately, this
reaction to traditional language teaching did also bring a discredit and a rejection of aspects of language
teaching that might prove useful and effective in many classrooms, such as the use of the L1 in the
language classroom (V. Cook, 2001; Macaro, 2005), the use of translation as a pedagogical tool (G. Cook,
2007), or the development of learners’ language awareness (Cots, 2008).

Simon Borg (2006) points to the native–non-native distinction as one of the characteristic elements of
language teaching, inexistent in the teaching of any other subject matter. It is obvious that there are no
native speakers of, say, physics, or mathematics. But it might nonetheless be argued that in order to be
a good professor of Spanish history, one needs to be a Spaniard. Interestingly, nobody has made such an
assertion. It appears, then, that the need to be native is only perceived as reasonable when we use the
word ‘language’, instead of ‘history’, ‘geography’ or any other discipline.

NNSs have now finally gathered the strength to voice their concerns and claim their right to be heard in
the language teaching and research community. As claimed by Flowerdew (2000, 2001), the voice of
NNSs’ has often been silenced in influential professional and research forums. And as Jenkins (2007)
demonstrates, their concerns are still fairly invisible in many professional publications addressed to the
international language teaching community.

Despite the increasing publication of studies centered on NNESTs (Moussu and Llurda, 2008), I
personally feel these are still marginalized and perceived as non-relevant by the majority of the
language teaching community. And, what is more, a great deal of NNESTs are still convinced that the
good teacher is the NS teacher (Llurda and Huguet, 2003; Llurda, 2009).

2.4 Final Remarks

Sifakis (2004), in his analysis of teachers’ awareness of English as an international language (EIL) makes a
useful distinction between three areas in the debate surrounding EIL:

‘Theory’ is concerned with the delineating and defining of the EIL paradigm. ‘Reality’ is related
to observations of actual EIL communication and an understanding of the various cognitive and
communicative processes involved. Finally, ‘application’ is related to the teaching of EIL and
refers to those pedagogical considerations that the EIL teacher should be aware of. (Sifakis,
2004: 238)

Contemplating all language users, both native and non-native, as collaborators in a context of increasing
international communication, and advancing from theory to practice in the understanding of the
implications for teaching English as an international language, are the best way to comprehend the
complexity and diversity in our profession.