The NEST/NNEST Binary and Translingual Identity of U.S.-Educated EFL Instructors in Saudi Arabia: A Study on Linguistic and Cultural Navigation in the Classroom

Abstract

This study contributes to the Global Southern epistemological debates on the professional identity negotiations of Global-North-educated English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors. Using semi-structured interviews, the study analyses how two Saudi Arabian EFL instructors, during their PhD studies in the United States, and upon their return home, coped with the phenomenon of native-speakerism and navigated their way through the binary of Native English-Speaking Teachers (NEST) and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNEST) in their teaching. They appreciated their Western education not due to the traditional privileged-Global-North-and-underprivileged-Global-South binary but because of the many ways in which it helped them negotiate their translingual identity. They saw themselves as better placed to give constructive feedback to learners but critiqued the NESTs’ inability to base themselves in the local culture and positioned themselves above NESTs due to their knowledge of indigenous Saudi culture. Thus, they dismantled the traditional privilege associated with native-speakerism but did not hail one category over the other. Instead, they picked from both categories the materials, ways, means and attitudes that best served their purpose. They strove for hybridity. Through their negotiation of their foreign education and local challenges, they developed a unique translingual identity.