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 …
I’m no native (English speaker) by Luna Checchini Read More »
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 …
What do students think and feel about Native Speaker English? by Steve McVeagh Read More »
“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 …
My ELT Voyage as a Non-White Native Speaker by Sulaiman Jenkins Read More »
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 …
Why is the term ‘non-native speaker’ so problematic? by Sulaiman Jenkins Read More »
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 …
How to implement a successful equal opportunities policy by Matt Schaefer Read More »
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. …
Friday, August 25, 2017: A bad interview and a bad haircut. In that order and equally frustrating. While I can get over the latter, telling myself that hair grows back, I cannot come to terms with the former. I keep thinking that closed-up people who do whatever they please in a free democratic country like …
A closed-minded school in an open-minded country by Laura Brass Read More »
In our area of the education sector, the most common cause for concern, is an unfair policy towards non-native speakers as English language teachers. Many people in ELT would probably agree that native and non-native teachers both have advantages over the other. While native speakers are normally fantastic sources of vocabulary, non-native teachers often have …
The importance of promoting equal opportunities by Steven Cameron Read More »
Everyone reaches a point in their life when they ask themselves who they are, whether they are at a major crossroad professionally, emotionally, spiritually, or find themselves reeling from a dramatic event that became their wake-up call. To me, this moment came a few years after I had immigrated to Canada, when my husband and …
I just can’t get rid of that thought recently that the native vs non-native speaker teacher dilemma is oddly similar to the one concerning drinking water (be forgiving please, as I’m zero-waste lifestyle obsessed at the moment). Why? Because we reached for bottled water (natives) thinking that it’s better for us than tap (non natives). …
On H2O, Bella and the courage to be yourself by Katarzyna Komorek Read More »
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