Overcoming Institutional Native Speakerism: The Experience of One Teacher

Abstract

Native speakerist practices have been documented in various forms. This chapter examines how one teacher challenges the native speakerist ideology in a Japanese prefectural university to articulate and assert a legitimate professional identity . Data collection for the study included journals, letters, class reflections, critical incidents, class teaching materials and conversations with students. The results show that a native speakerist ideology at the institutional level is problematic as it fosters a narrow definition of language teaching as a transaction of teachers passing on a marketable set of standardized knowledge items and skills to students. In addition, an exonormative approach to English learning has also resulted in a negative attitude towards an accented Japanese English variety amongst Japanese English as a Foreign Language learners and can be damaging to the professional identity of Japanese teachers of English. However, a critical and reflective attitude on classroom instruction and the adoption of a teaching pedagogy that emphasizes multicultural identities and diverse norms of English use can help overcome the native speakerist ideology at the institutional level. This chapter argues that in addition to helping learners adopt a positive attitude towards their home-grown variety of English, a non-native English teacher can provide an intimate knowledge of learners’ needs and progress in their English learning journey. There is an urgent need to educate major administrators on the literature relevant to World Englishes and English as a lingua franca to empower non-native English-speaking teachers as legitimate English language teaching professionals within the local English language teaching community.