Abstract
As dichotomized notions of “native” and “nonnative” are unraveled, an ongoing question is how teacher educators in their own classrooms can create spaces where candidates can explore and enact alternative identities that resist the (re)invention of such binaries. In this chapter, I consider pedagogical possibilities by examining how a teacher educator at a large, urban university integrates critical discussions, normalizes diversity, and encourages and facilitates her students’ exploration of identity in ways that resist traditional, dichotomized paradigms, while also advocating for more nuanced ways of thinking about language, its users, and its use. To contextualize the glocal significance of Anna Marie’s approach, I first develop (non)native speakering as a poststructuralist, dynamic way of framing both the historical emergence of (non)native speakered subjectivities, as well as how “native” and “nonnative” identities are reified, conferred, denied, and performed through everyday interactions (see also Aneja GA, Crit Inq Lang Stud 13(4):351–379, 2016a; TESOL Q 50(3), 572–596, 2016b). I then use (non)native speakering as a lens through which to analyze the significance of the possibilities Anna Marie’s classroom pedagogy offers for undoing structuralist, binary views of identity. The chapter’s conclusion will discuss participants’ resistance against the ‘traditional’ (non)native speaker concept and how ELT professionals can continue to address inequity in the “field.”
[The native speaker] is at best a convenient myth the linguists have got used to working with, and at worst the visible tip of an insidious ideological iceberg.
Rajagopalan (1999, p. 203)
“Who the hell is a native speaker in New York?”
Anna Marie (Interview, March 4, 2015)
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Notes
- 1.
As Selvi (2014) notes, the acronym NNEST can stand for Nonnative English Speakers in TESOL or Nonnative English Speaking Teacher. In this book chapter, I may refer to either meaning, but when there is flexibility, I default to the former as it also includes academics, policy makers, test writers, administrators, and others who are deeply involved in TESOL as a field while not necessarily being teachers.
- 2.
- 3.
All names used in this chapter are pseudonyms, the majority of which were chosen by the individuals whom they protect.
- 4.
While an individual in a particular interaction may be more “native speakered” or “nonnative speakered” in a local context, at the global level, such acts mutually constitute their inverse. In other words, questioning an Asian American’s English proficiency not only “nonnative speakers” that individual, but also interpellates a racialized Caucasian native speakered subjectivity.
- 5.
While I recognize that this term is somewhat ambiguous and is theoretically distinct from translanguaging (Garcia, 2009), code-meshing (Canagarajah, 2011), translingualism (Canagarajah, 2013) and other similar terms, for the purposes of this chapter, I use the term as Anna Marie does—to mean altering and adapting one’s language to fit different contexts.
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Aneja, G.A. (2018). Doing and Undoing (Non)Nativeness: Glocal Perspectives from a Graduate Classroom. In: Yazan, B., Rudolph, N. (eds) Criticality, Teacher Identity, and (In)equity in English Language Teaching . Educational Linguistics, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72920-6_14
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