An Investigation into the Influence of Chinese Undergraduates’ Developing View of World Englishes on Their Preference for a Native or Non-native Speaker Teacher of English

Abstract

British and American English as the only acceptable forms of Standard English have been seriously challenged in the World Englishes literature. Meanwhile, with the emergence of English as an International Language (EIL), there has been a growing acceptance of different local varieties of English as Standard Englishes. Thus, some linguists in China have voiced the opinion that China English should stand alongside British, American English and other varieties of English. It follows that nonnative speaker teachers would be better able to teach this variety than native speaker teachers. In order to investigate Chinese students’ responses to these two claims, I conducted a research project with subjects from eight different universities in the People’s Republic of China. The data gathered from questionnaires, participants’ group discussions and interviews indicate that Chinese students show a positive attitude towards EIL and China English, and this in turn influences their preference for a Chinese teacher rather than a native speaker teacher of English.The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 looks at some recent discussions on World Englishes, China English and ELT in China. Then it presents the arguments for and against the native norms. Afterwards the attention shifts to the hot debate on native vs. non-native teachers of English. In the light of these theories, a research project was carried out in universities in China in order to explore learners’ reactions to World Englishes, and their evaluation of native and non-native teachers of English. The second section introduces the methodology of the research, followed by an analysis of the data collected from the study in the third section. Section 4, the conclusion section suggests the implications of the research and attempts to provide some possible suggestions in further research.