Teacher Preparation and Nonnative English-Speaking Educators

Abstract

Nonnative English-speaking (NNES) educators constitute a large majority of English as a second or foreign language teachers around the world (Canagarajah 1999). However, it is only recently that they have become more visible and that the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) has begun to address issues that are of concern to them. Although there is wide agreement that the terms native and nonnative speaker are impossible to define (Kaplan 1999) and that they “obviously and pointlessly dichotomise the world neatly into ‘us’ and them” (Kaplan 1999: 5), the reality is that “teachers who are perceived as speaking a language other than English as their mother tongue – regardless of their actual proficiency with English – are typically labelled as ‘nonnative English speakers’” (Pasternak and Bailey 2004: 156). This chapter focuses on NNES educators in relation to issues of language teacher preparation programs.