Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

186
Box 10.10 Top-rated features of teachers by Hungarian
students (Benke and Medgyes, 2005)
The non-native speaker teacher:
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assigns lots of homework;
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prepares conscientiously;
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corrects errors consistently;
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prepares learners well for exam;
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assesses my language knowledge realistically;
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relies heavily on the coursebook.
The native speaker teacher:
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focuses primarily on speaking skills;
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is happy to improvise;
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provides extensive information about the culture;
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is interested in learners’ opinions;
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applies group work regularly in class.
The most obvious reason for preferring native speakers is the model of language
that the native can present. Here is a person who has reached the apparent target
that the students are striving after – what could be better? The native speaker can
model the language the students are aiming at and can provide an instant author-
itative answer to any language question. Their prime advantage is indeed the obvi-
ous one that they speak the language as a first language. Ivor Timmis (2002) found
that, given a choice between sounding like a native speaker or having the ‘accent
of my country’, 67 per cent of students preferred to speak like a native speaker.
Do all native speakers present an equally desirable model? A native speaker of
British is presumed to speak RP; yet this accent is used by a small minority of people
in the UK (as we see in Chapter 4), let alone in the world at large. Is a Welsh accent
equally acceptable? A London accent? Both are native accents, but do not have the

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same status as RP outside their own localities. A Finnish professor I knew reckoned
he was the only RP speaker in his university department, despite all his colleagues
being native speakers of English. A Middle East university who hired a native
speaker teacher were disconcerted when a British speaker of Geordie turned up. And
yet he is as much a native speaker of English as I am, or as most of the inhabitants
of the UK are.
But as we see throughout this book, gone are the days when the goal of learning a
second language was just to sound like a native. Many students need to communicate
with other non-native speakers, not with natives, sometimes in different ways from
natives. Native speaker speech is only one of the possible models for the L2 student.
Students who want to become successful L2 users may want to base themselves on the
speech of successful L2 users, not on monolingual native speakers.
Being a native speaker does not automatically make you a good teacher. In many
instances the expat native speaker is less trained than the local non-native teacher,
or has been trained in an educational system with different values and goals; the
local non-native speaker teacher knows the local circumstances and culture. Native
speakers are not necessarily aware of the properties of their own language and are
highly unlikely to be able to talk about its grammar coherently; one of the 16-year-
olds in Benke and Medgyes’ study (2005: 207) says: ‘They are sometimes not very
accurate and they can’t spell – especially Americans.’ Given equal training and
local knowledge, the native speaker’s advantage is their proficiency at their native
language, no more, no less.
Crucially, the native speaker teacher does not belong to the group that the stu-
dents are trying to join – L2 users. They have not gone through the same stages as
their students and often do not know what it means to learn a second language
themselves; their command of the students’ own language often betrays their
own failings as learners – I was told of a German class in London where much of
the time was taken up by the students teaching English to the teacher – perhaps a
not uncommon example of reciprocal language teaching. A non-native teacher is
necessarily a model of a person who commands two languages and is able to com-
municate through both; a native speaker teacher is unlikely to know two lan-
guages, even if there are exceptions.
Peter Medgyes (1992) highlights the drawbacks of native speakers, who:
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are not models of L2 users;
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cannot talk about L2 learning strategies from their own experience;
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are often not explicitly aware of the features of the language as much as non-
native speakers are;
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cannot anticipate learning problems;
●
cannot empathize with their students’ learning experience;
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are not able to exploit the learners’ first language in the classroom.
In addition, students may feel that native speaker teachers have achieved a perfec-
tion that is out of their reach; as Claire Kramsch (1998: 9) puts it, ‘non-native
teachers and students alike are intimidated by the native-speaker norm’. Students
may prefer the more achievable model of the fallible non-native speaker teacher.
From my experience, native speakers were overwhelmingly preferred by lan-
guage schools in London for teaching English, as the job ads imply. It may, how-
ever, no longer be legal in England to discriminate against non-native speakers. 
Are native speakers better language teachers? 187

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In 2000 the Eurotunnel Consortium had to pay compensation to a French national
married to an Englishman whose dismissal on grounds of not speaking English
was ruled ‘an act of unlawful discrimination on the grounds of her race.’ The
chairman of the employment tribunal said that the job description asking for a
native English accent was comparable to having a ‘whites-only policy’.
So non-native speaker teachers provide:
●