Native-English-Speaking Teachers: Do They Bring Values to EFL Learners? A Study on Listening Proficiency of Taiwanese Elementary School Students

Abstract

Native-English-speaking teachers (NESTs) have not been examined to the same extent as the non-native-English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in research. A summary of research results focusing on NNESTs was found (e.g., Moussu & Llurda in Languae Teaching, 41(3), 315–348, 2008) while no such an article can be found on NESTs. However, in reality, the presence of NESTs in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms continues to be evident in different countries. As such, a gap exists between language teaching research and practice. This study addresses this gap by focusing on the influence of NESTs in EFL classrooms with a particular focus on learners’ listening proficiency gain. The large sample size of 1025 Taiwanese elementary school students allowed this study to compare students’ listening performance before and after receiving listening input from NESTs for 1 year using a standardized English listening test as a measurement tool. It was found that students’ listening performance improved significantly. In addition, when comparing listening proficiency of students across different geographical regions, it was found that NESTs helped improve significantly listening performance of students from the East region, an area of Taiwan known to be low achieving. As well, this study captured a dynamic pattern of listening proficiency gain when comparing learners of various proficiency levels. The results of this study suggested that the use of NESTs as a provider of listening input can be one effective method of improving foreign language students’ listening ability.