About Us
At TEFL Equity Advocates & Academy we believe that all English teachers should be treated equally based on their qualifications, experience and skills.
Our story
Hi! My name is Marek Kiczkowiak, and I’m the founder of TEFL Equity Advocates & Academy. Back in 2011, something that completely turned my professional life on it’s head happened.
I was turned down for a job because I was a ‘non-native speaker’. Not because of my qualifications or experience, which according to the recruiter were even beyond what they’d expect from a candidate.
My story is unfortunately similar to those of numerous other ‘non-native speakers’, but also those ‘native speakers’ who because of their skin colour, name or accent do not fit the perceived image of a ‘native speaker’ of many recruiters and students.
And this discrimination in recruitment is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are ‘native’ and ‘non-native speakers’ who have had to pretend they were from London to please the school director and clients. There are ‘native speakers’ who are told they can only teach speaking or pronunciation. There are ‘non-native speakers’ who are told they can only teach low levels.
Such discriminatory practices should have no place in our profession.
TEFL Equity we sincerely believe that all teachers should be treated equally and judged for their ability to teach the language, rather than their perceived ‘nativeness’. That’s why since the beginning we have aimed to raise awareness of native speakerism among ELT professionals and general public as well as provide you with tools and strategies to help bring about a fairer ELT for all of us.
We hope you join us on this mission.
What We Do
Training
Helping ELT professionals promote equality, tackle native speakerism and teach English for global communication
Resources
Providing ELT professionals with tools that can help them promote equality, tackle native speakerism and teach English for global communication.
Advocacy
Promoting equality between ‘native’ and ‘non-native speaker’ teachers teachers and raising awareness of native speakerism.
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