Oooooh yeah. I just had a looooong discussion with a fellow English teacher over here in Thailand. He, born and raised Brit – from London to be precise – told me that he considers it as quite nice and amusing that a German like me teaches English to those who can not speak but he also told me that he thinks that native English speakers should be paid higher and regarded more valuable.
Weeeell…you can imagine what my opinion about this matter was…I do obviously do not think that only native speakers should teach english. And there are quite a few arguments that support my thesis. Nevertheless I would never argue that native speakers might have a bigger vocabulary or deeper understanding of the English language….when they are educated in that matter.
However I consider Non Native English Speakers as valuable English teachers as well due to some easy to understand facts.
1.) Same same. The biggest advantage in my opinion. I had to learn English from scratch. Had to memorize vocabulary and trying to start thinking English. Just like my students do. This common ground makes it easy to motivate students. “I’ve done it, so you can do it as well”. This point really helps once in a while and students do understand it.
2.) Understanding. Goes ahead with the point mentioned above. As non native English speaker I do understand the complications of learning English and I do understand when students have problems with some kind of words, phrases or idioms that native speakers might consider as easy.
3.) Fear. A somehow stupid argument but nevertheless still valid. Many people do fear speaking with native speakers since they always think ‘I could do something wrong’. Obviously there shouldn’t be any reason to be afraid to speak to somebody – especially to teachers – but real life and theoretical statements drift apart in this case. Even a lot of my colleagues are afraid of speaking to native speakers. Non native speakers have – once more – more of a common ground to start the conversation from.
To keep it short and simple and to not start a never ending discussion. I think those 3 aspects show at least some advantages that non-native English speakers simply do have! Nevertheless I do not want to say that NES are better than NNES or vice versa. I just tried to point out some facts that are often overlooked. That’s it.
Oh and btw…of the millions and millions of english speaking people on our wonderful planet….how many of them might be native and how many might not be native speakers? See….
