Elements Influencing Students’ Prejudice Towards Non-native English Teacher

Abstract

The number of learners of English as an international means of communication increases, so does the demand for the English as a second language (ESL) teachers. More and more non-native English-speaking teachers begin to make a figure for themselves in the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field. However, it happens that the nonnative English-speaking teachers receive prejudice and discrimination from the students and school administrators. The root of the discrimination is the perception that students benefit more from being taught by native teachers rather than nonnative ones. Even though some researches exploring the qualification of non-native English-speaking teachers claimed that they do have advantage over native English speaker teachers in some aspects. For instance, Auerbach described that teachers and tutors who shared the background and at least some of the experiences of the learners are better able to reach and help those learners [1]. However, the prejudice and discrimination still existed recently. Moussu [2] figured out that feelings of students and school administrators toward nonnative teachers were often negative.