What if Non-Native Speaker meant…
I won’t sit here pretending, An opportunity denied was just the ending to the years and years of hardship and turmoil, simply because I was not born on the right soil. For who are they to deny my competence? To turn my linguistic repertoire into divergence, While claiming inclusivity, a key word, was what the […]
I have a dream…(NN)EST
When my parents named me they wrote my name in Armenian, as they are Armenians at birth themselves and so am I.
The impact of Native Speaker ads in ELT
I will say it again, this time more clearly:
New English students don’t really know anything about teacher qualifications, what native speakerism is, the struggles that non native speakers face, or how good their teachers are.
The message for the longest time has been, native speaker teachers are good (meaning non native teachers are bad).
Hence, we find ourselves having to justify WHY we are English teachers at all, being born in so and so place, not speaking like Her Majesty.
The narrative has become counterproductive for students because they find themselves in a room with a native speaker and not a native or non-native TEACHER.
HOW TO REDUCE TEACHER TALK TIME
Things you can do to reduce TTT:
– Ask Open Ended Questions
– Use Back Channeling to keep conversation going on the student’s end, etc.