How to Change the Law to Guarantee Equal Opportunities for Non-Native Speaker Teachers by Gerhard Erasmus
It is often encouraging to see how far we have come in terms of equal opportunities regardless of a candidate’s place of birth or first language. For example, I have a number of friends teaching English in Australia even though English is not their first language. It is encouraging because despite Australia being a country where […]
How to maintain a thriving language school through an equal opportunities policy and an ethical code by Julie Wallis
We are a small, yet highly accredited learning organisation and we employ professional qualified academic staff. The London School is regularly inspected by AISLi, Eaquals and The Veneto Region and our teachers meet the high standards set by these organisations. Over the past year we have been working on a research project. We invited learners from […]
Resilience is the key: my journey as a non-native speaker teacher by Eleni Symeonidou
I am going to share my journey and lessons learnt as a non-native in the ELT industry in the hope that others will feel that they are not alone if they have had unpleasant experiences, and empowered about their teaching identity. I come from Greece where I did my BA in English Language and Literature […]
[LAUNCHING TODAY] How to Teach With TED Talks: A Practical Course for English Teachers
My love of using authentic video in the classroom started thirty years ago, when I was doing my MA. And the past five years have been all about TED Talks – developing materials, writing course books and giving presentations to help English teachers like you use TED talks in class. This has given me the […]
I’m no native (English speaker) by Luna Checchini
I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t fascinated by languages. My favorite doll scared the hell out of me when I first met her because she spoke, but she eventually became my favorite doll nonetheless. She. Not it. I’m Italian, I treat objects as people, get used to that. I spoke […]
What do students think and feel about Native Speaker English? by Steve McVeagh
Why is this important? Six years ago, during postgraduate study, I first considered the idea that Native Speaker English (NSE) might not be the one English model to rule them all. I read Bhatt and Pennycook on Singaporean and Indian English, and others, and Modiano and Jenkins on universal concepts like EIL. There was support […]
My ELT Voyage as a Non-White Native Speaker by Sulaiman Jenkins
“Finally, it needs to be stressed that if ELT wants to develop into a profession rather than remaining a largely unlegislated industry, then it should aim to eradicate all forms of discrimination. To evolve into a profession, the ELT community needs to challenge and remove from its belief system the notion that ‘some speakers are […]
Why is the term ‘non-native speaker’ so problematic? by Sulaiman Jenkins
I’ve had a lot of fruitful discussions with Marek Kiczkowiak and Andy Hockley as of late, and it was from our dialogue that I was encouraged to inject another perspective into this international conversation on native speakerism. As a Black American, a ‘native speaker’ of the language, and a graduate of some of the US’s […]
How to implement a successful equal opportunities policy by Matt Schaefer
I have, since 2013, worked as a program manager of Rikkyo University’s Center for English Discussion Class, a large-scale, unified-curriculum course that caters to roughly 4,700 students per year at a university in Tokyo, Japan. I am jointly responsible for curriculum design and evaluation and for hiring, training, and overseeing the professional development of 42 […]
A Non-Speaking Native Teacher
I recently learned of a website with some questionable messaging about accent and native speaker models of pronunciation. The site presented itself as something of an advocacy group fighting accent discrimination, but their messaging actually reinforced some of the selfsame problems they claimed to combat, concluding that the solution to accent discrimination was accent reduction. […]