Moussu and Llurda compile and summarize research concerning non-native and

native English teachers. While there appears to be a preference among employers and
students for native English teachers in many contexts, research shows that non-native
English teachers have advantages over native teachers in various respects, including their
ability to empathize with students, become role models of what students can achieve, and
predict what mistakes students will commonly make if teaching a group of students who
have the same native language as the teacher (Moussu and Llurda, 322). Furthermore,
the authors assert that the native vs. non-native dichotomy is not valid as language ability
fits a continuous model better than a dichotomy, and there are cases in which nonnative speakers are more intelligible than native speakers, especially in global settings
(Moussu and Llurda, 318). Therefore, non-native and native teachers both have valuable
roles to play in ESL/EFL education.
Assumptions are made in the belief that there are distinct differences between the
teaching abilities and teaching styles of native and non-native English teachers and that
these differences are patterned enough to generalize them as characteristic to the two
groups. Furthermore, despite the concession that there is not necessarily an organic
divide between native and non-native speakers, much of the research collected functions
with this assumption at its base. These assumptions may be necessary, however, to build a
basis for further research as this is such a new field and does not have a strong base of
early research upon which to go further yet.
Research on native and non-native English teachers is a fairly recent
development, and, therefore, is still narrow and lacking in many respects. Most research
currently focuses on ESL in North America (Moussu and Llurda, 342). This means that
many areas are currently being neglected by research, such as EFL contexts and ESL
contexts in places such as England and Australia. Furthermore, research is lacking in the
respect that it treats all non-native teachers as if they are of a single group (Moussu and
Llurda, 337). As discussed earlier, language ability cannot simply be broken into a
dichotomy of native and non-native. Rather, there are many differences in ability and
experiences in each group. For this reason, more research is necessary to see how nonnative teachers a perceived when they are of differing abilities and backgrounds. It is also
necessary to do research on these different groups in order to determine how theyre
abilities compare to native English teacher abilities.
At Kyunghwa, the use of native and non-native teachers in English classes seems
to reflect the traditional idea that non-native teachers are better at teaching grammar
while native teachers are better at teaching conversation due to their native
conversation skills. At Kyunghwa EB High School, grammar is almost exclusively taught
by the Korean teachers. While some of them have studied in the United States and have
very high levels of English, they would still be considered non-native English teachers
based on the generally accepted dichotomy of native vs. non-native English teachers.
Conversation, on the other hand, is left to the native teachers. What struck me the most,
however, is the examples of non-native teachers, even those who are simply co-teaching
and are not actually English teachers, are sometimes better at anticipating questions

students will have or aspects of grammar that will confuse them. For example, the other
day when we were teaching the pattern, I wish I could it was our co-teacher, not us
or the other native English teachers, who thought to clarify that in this pattern we always
use could and never use can.