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Native Speakerism Personal Teacher Talk

I have a dream…(NN)EST

My journey teaching English as a non-native English speaking teacher.

When my parents named me they wrote my name in Armenian, as they are Armenians at birth themselves and so am I.

The Armenian language is very complex and ancient. It has 39 letters and it is really hard to learn. I personally never learned how to write Armenian, but that’s another story.

My name was spelled “մէրի” (mēri)… and it is pronounced like the English “Mary” name. However, since our documents had to be translated into a more international and known language, my name was suddenly spelled M-E-R-I.

The way my name was spelled soon brought on to many misconceptions as to who I really was. Spelling errors which could have been easily avoided, bureaucratic problems and mistrust, a bunch of lost opportunities in ELT and, well…funny stories too.

I will not get into now.

Instead, I will tell you how I got my first students.

Flash forward to when I came to live in Parma, Italy.

I began working in Italy as an English teacher, I quickly realised it was a better idea to write “Mary” on public ads to get a callback and say I was a mother tongue speaker instead of saying I was an English teacher with this or that qualification. It always worked. It was easier to start a conversation by saying that rather than have no conversation at all. Soon enough I had my first private students and a year’s contract.

I concluded I would first teach a lesson to later speak about who I actually was. Once I had earned my students’ trust, I could come clean and explain my position, as I am doing right now here in writing. I still feel like a fraud when I spell my name M-A-R-Y in public ads, btw.

My son running around in Piazza Duomo, Parma (Italy) – May 2021

I needed to make a living and I was being penalised for a spelling mistake, and even more so for being Armenian (the unknown country that would scare pupils away).

On paper, I had no business teaching English in Italy, and unless I somehow had a chance to speak to a recruiter directly in English they would never hire me based on my CV alone. This still continues today.

My conclusions:

People are afraid of the unknown. The old fight or flight response has seen generations after generations make the same mistakes in judgement, that is categorising people based on their origin, name, colour, accent, etc.

Somehow it is easier to make sense of the world by sticking labels onto things so as to keep everything well organised, in specific slots. If you give “it” a name, “it” will seem more friendly and less unknown.

I do think this reasoning might have made more sense in the past when one was born and raised in a given town or city, had spent their entire life in their hometown, and never as much as laid foot in another territory. Maybe their general traits could be more easily identified or guessed based on their environment. Yet, I also realise we could argue that we would not be able to define and categorise a person in that circumstance much like any other human being. We can be complex that way.

So what is the dream I have?

I dream for English teachers not to be categorised into Native vs. Non Native speaking teachers. It is not a competition as much as it is a desire to have equal opportunities in the job market.

I wish I never have to explain WHY I can speak English as someone who was born in a Non English Speaking Country ( or whose name is spelled Meri) to anyone who is pondering whether to hire me as their English teacher – in my experience, no one expects Armenians to know English well, and frankly, not many know what “Armenia” is. What people do know is that Armenia is not the UK, and definitely not the US, and that is just enough to blow any deal as of today.

The long and winding road of TEFL/ TESL. The_Non_Native_Speaker.

Categories
Native Speakerism

The impact of Native Speaker ads in ELT

Students often do not know what is good for them.

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

The problems that arise with that are many, because speakers who are not teachers:

  1. Can’t speak in a clear, comprehensible way so that ANY level learner can understand them (grading language and local accent come to mind)
  2. They speak too fast because they just speak – meanwhile when a teacher speaks he or she is actually listening to him/herself through the students’ mind and adapting lexical choices just enough for them to understand, yet be challenged at the same time (comprehensible input +1)
  3. The use of unfamiliar and inadequate expressions simply comes from not knowing which elements are relevant to be taught and which are not as important. 

“…native-speakerism needs to be addressed at the level of the prejudices embedded in everyday practice, and dominant professional discourses must be put aside if the meanings and realities of students and colleagues from outside the English-speaking West are to be understood.”

Holliday, 2005. The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

There is a lot you can teach, but will it be useful to that particular student or group?

Experienced teachers almost always know what the next hurdle is, and they know how to guide you to overcome that specific hurdle eithout overwhelming you with unnecessary information in that moment.

The reason students find themselves in this condition – with NON-teachers teaching and unemployed teachers rolling their eyes – is because the truth has been concealed from them. 


Potential language learners have been brainwashed by ads telling them a NATIVE TEACHER is all they need, but a native SPEAKER is all they get.

They have been told they can SOUND native if they have a NATIVE TEACHER.

They have been told that if their teacher was born in a non English speaking country, then he or she cannot be a teacher.

I don’t know about you, but I’m only glad doctors don’t face the same discrimination. 

We – qualified teachers, native or not – are professionals and should be treated as such. Please share this blog post to raise awareness of discriminatory practices being fed to the public.

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Categories
Learning English

HOW TO REDUCE TEACHER TALK TIME

If you find your students blankly staring at you while you go on and on for the sake of comprehensible input or filling those uncomfortable silences. Here are some Tips & Tricks you might find useful for your next lesson so that you can start reducing TTT.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Ask Open Ended Questions

Do you think so?

What do you think about it? How come?

Don’t ask any questions to which one might reply, “Yes, I do”, or “No, I don’t”. Give your students the right amount of opportunity to take longer and freer turns. While they are putting their thoughts together and formulating sentences, you might want to take down some notes on how they are performing and later tackle students’ weaker areas. However, please remember to engage in the conversation as naturally as possible. Not as their teacher, but as a good listener. Feedback can come later.

Get into the habit of making things more personal (make it more about them)

Tell me about your day/week/plans for the weekend

Had a bad day? What made it bad? Tell me about it

By starting conversation on a personal note, you can take time to assess accuracy and fluency issues, while learning about your students’ English proficiency. Yes, you might have the perfect lesson for teaching the Present Perfect ready to go, but if you don’t connect with your students on a deeper and personal level, your role can become interchangeable with that of any other teacher. Give your students TIME and allow for them to share their experiences, just like they would in their L1 before starting any planned activity for the day. This can also give you a lot of insight on what to teach in your next lesson.

Use Back Channeling to keep conversation going on the student’s end

Oh, Really?

You’re kidding!

Most students don’t realise how to use back channeling in the appropriate way, simply because they are not involved in authentic conversations with English speakers on a daily basis. This is your chance to both use it to reduce Teacher Talk Time AND allow them to notice this strategic tool they can use for more natural sounding conversation. Your intonation here plays an important part in keeping the conversation tone authentic. Remember you are not acting, you are engaging with your students.

Leave a comment with what works best for you to reduce Teacher Talk Time.