Job Discussion Forums

[nrb]

Hi,

I'm just starting out as an employer and I've received some job applications from English teachers who were born and raised in Singapore and The Phillipines. They have teaching qualifications (although not TESL/TEFL qualifications) and many years' experience teaching English. On top of that, as far as I can tell, their English is at native-speaker level, both in terms of accent and grammar. However they don't class themselves as native speakers because English isn't their 'first' language.

Since I advertise that my teachers are 100% native speakers, I'm now wondering what the definition of a 'native speaker' is. In the Cambridge online dictionary, a native speaker is defined as 'someone who has spoken a particular language since they were a baby, rather than having learnt it as a child or adult'. In the Longman equivalent, the definition is, 'someone who has learned a particular language as their first language, rather than as a foreign language'.

English is an official language in both Singapore and The Phillipines and both of these teachers have been exposed to the language since they were babies. Can I include them under the definition of 'native speakers'?

If not, does anyone have any experience in hiring non-native-speaking teachers to give English classes?

Any thoughts/advice more than welcome.

Thanks.

[Justin Trullinger]

Hard one. Some people from former English colonies are actually native English speakers, some aren't. It would depend on when/how they acquired the language. If the people you're talking about have had English since early childhood, and speak it in a way that sounds native to you, then they probably are in fact native.

I've read that the threshold for acquiring an accentless native language is around 11 years old. For acquiring native proficiency, though perhaps accented, it would be around 15.

Anything after around then is an adult acquired foreign language, and regardless of proficiency, will be non-native. (Tending towards a permanent, strongish foreign accent, flaws in usage, and occupying a different part of the brain/memory entirely)

But as for hiring "non-native" teachers, here as much as anything, you would run into prejudices more than reality. Over the years here, I have hired a number of teachers who were in fact native speakers, having been born and educated in the US and Canada, but whose "native" status was constantly questioned by whining students, as they were ethnically latino.

I've seen and heard about the same kind of problems with teachers of Asian, African, or Indian descent. Here, the stereotype of an English speaker is one who is blond with blue eyes.

I know of some lower level institutes and schools that employ "native speakers of English" who are in fact German, Polish, and Dutch. Though most of these obviously do not have native level English, and I know of one case where the "teacher" had hardly any, as they tend to be tall and blond, Ecuadorian business owners seem to feel that the students will never notice. Regrettably, this appears to be true.

Maybe the question you should ask yourself, besides "are these people native?" is "How much am I willing to do to educate students/clients about what native means?"

Native English speakers come in all shapes, sizes, colors and descriptions...do your students know this? How can you get them to know it?


Best,
Justin

[DainaJ]

The above post is very thorough. The only thing I would add is that schooling in a language is important, not just "exposure" to a language. Were your applicants formally educated in English, or did they just learn to speak English informally?

I agree that you have a great opportunity to show your students that English native speakers come in all sorts of colors and from all sorts of backgrounds.

[rusmeister]

Justin's post is good.
My definition is slightly stricter. It has to be first language (L1) AND from babyhood. If one of those is missing they are a virtual native speaker. If both are absent they don't qualify at all. Obviously, ethnicity and the other criteria don't mean anything wrt this.

[Sherri]

I used to hire teachers for a private language school in Japan. We did not say that we had only "native" English speakers, mainly because I and others there did not believe that this should be a defining term in what makes a good language teacher. Instead we focused on the language ability of our teachers, their training and experience. Assuming the language compentence was there, I would much rather hire a trained and experienced non-native speaker than a so-called native English speaker with limited or no training or experience. We had teachers from Japan, South American and Europe whose first language was not English but were all excellent teachers (with an excellent command of the English language). They were popular with the students and especially the Japanese teachers--were role models.

As for the native speaker definition, because this school had interpreting and translation classes, we attracted a lot of bi-lingual and bi-cultural people. In the end all of the candidates for these classes regardless of nationality had to take the English placement test as well as the translation and interpreting tests, simply because we ran into so many hard to define people.

Sherri

[wildchild]

a native speaker is one who can convince most of the people most of the time that one is a native speaker.

[Stephen Jones]

A native speaker is one who has acquired the language as an L1. The cut off point for being able to do this is puberty, so if somebody moved to Australia at the age of eight or nine they would be native speakers of English.

The problem comes when you have a country where English is the medium of instruction but the native language is different; much of Africa together with many schools in India, the Philipines, and Singapore come into that category.

I would argue that English would be an L2 in most cases, but of course the standard of English may be of native speaker standard. After all there are only 200,000 native speakers of English in India, but the number who are fully competent is in the millions.

The simple answer is test out their English. If they don't make any mistakes and understand everything accept them. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.......

[nrb]

It's a tough one, but I've decided to give the teachers in question a try. They have convinced me, and I figure if they don't convince the students (who may be equally unconvinced by a teacher whose L1 is English) they are within their rights to request a new teacher.

I agree it's important to acknowledge that speakers of English come in all shapes and sizes. I remember having a discussion with an English woman once who was horrified that I would be employing a teacher from Scotland!! Prejudices do exist and I would rather help break these down in some way than perpetuate them.

Thanks everyone. I've really enjoyed reading your views on this. Keep them coming.

[dmb]

[thrifty]

[dmb]

Cheers Thrifty, you've made my day but probably upset a few people.

[madison01]

This is possibly one of the longest running debates I've come across since becoming an EFLer.

I don't have the answer as such. In the strictest sense a Native English speaker is someone from a country where English is the native language. The UK, The US, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand. The problem starts arising when the definition is applied to ability rather than nationality.

In the past I was able to hire teachers from countries where English is an official language, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa etc. the biggest stumbling block came when students queried the teachers 'native speaker' status.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to get across to some students that a Nigerian or Sri Lankan is a 'native speaker' if that teacher doesn't hold a passport or was not born in the country where English is the 'Native' language. In the past I've had to move Zimbabwean, Indian and Nigerian from classes where the students felt that they had expected to have a British, American, Canadian, Australian, etc. and would not accept that the teacher they were supplied with was as capable a teacher and speaker of English as someone from a country they recognised as 'native' speaking.

The biggest issue is those teachers from countries where English is not official nor native, The Netherlands, Sweden and so on. I have met many people from various countries who speak English fluently and proficiently, having learnt it from a very early age, however I wouldn't be able to hire them as teachers as they would be nigh on impossible to justify to students as native speakers.

[Sgt Killjoy]

I think it is someone who grows up speaking the language and living in the culture where English is the dominant language, the language of media, movies, tv, radio, newspaper etc and the language of education. It's may or may not be the language you spoke at home, but it would be the language you talked to your friends in. Why? Because it is the language you are most comfortable speaking.

In this respect, it excludes the Philippines and India. Whenever a Filipino says they are a native speakers, I nod and agree and later I ask them what language they speak to their friends in and they say tagalog or visayan or whatever, but never English. Why? They are not as comfortable speaking English.

[Stephen Jones]

[Deconstructor]

A good teacher deserves a chance regardless of where s/he is from. As far as the accent goes, it is irrelevant because most students could never, ever pick it up and the vast majority couldn't even hear it. In job posts they often ask for someone with North American or British accent. This is romantic bull: no foreign language learner who has begun learning English after the age of 15 has ever, even remotely, come close to mimicking any of the native English accents.