36

English language teachers

in context
Who teaches what, where and why?

Martin Dewey

Introduction
In this chapter, I explore the impact of Global Englishes1 on our understanding of the pro-
fessional suitability of English language teachers, examining this in relation to notions of
teacher identity, level and kind of experience, professional preparation and the concept of
expertise. In short, what does the global spread of English and English language teaching
mean for the way we perceive and determine the preparedness of an individual teacher in a
given pedagogic context? In order to address the questions posed in my title, it is essential
that we take stock of the impact of globalization on English and English language teach-
ing (ELT).
As a language of wider communication that functions on a worldwide scale, English is
continually reshaped in response to the infinitely varied local communicative contexts in
which it is spoken. English has for many years been undergoing considerable (and well-
documented) diversification, leading on the one hand to the emergence of new varieties of
the language nationally and regionally (the principal focus of World Englishes) and on the
other to the emergence of more transitory developments that occur interactionally (the focus
of research in English as a lingua franca, ELF), but where linguistic properties do not suffi-
ciently stabilize to be definable as characteristic features of a distinct variety. It has long been
acknowledged that there are more speakers of English whose primary use of the language is
as a means of transcultural or transnational communication in multilingual interactions than
there are who use English predominantly for interaction with speakers who share very simi-
lar linguistic profiles in settings that are more likely to be monolingual (see Brumfit 2001 on
the consequences of this for ELT). According to Seidlhofer (2011), ELF, which she defines
as ‘any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the
communicative medium of choice, and often the only option’ (2011: 7; italics in original), is
the most extensive contemporary function of the language worldwide.
The premise of this chapter is that both World Englishes and ELF are phenomena that
have given rise to considerable linguistic developments and engendered considerable socio-
linguistic debate – one key outcome of which has to be a consideration of the relevance of
Global Englishes for ELT. As a result of its globalization, English is developing in ways that

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require critical reappraisal of established thinking and practice in language pedagogy. In this
chapter, I focus on this reappraisal specifically by addressing who is best placed to teach
English in what kind of contexts. In the first section, I explore the concept of Nativeness
and how this is understood by teachers, learners and education systems. In light of Global
Englishes, it is essential that we reconsider what attributes, values and level of status are
customarily assigned to language teachers on the basis of how they identify/are identified as
‘native’ or ‘non-native’ speakers. In the following section, I look into the impact of Global
Englishes on language teacher education programmes, reviewing recent trends and devel-
opments in teacher education theory and practice and examining the relevance of Global
Englishes to the curriculum in teacher preparation courses. Finally, I consider the notion of
professional expertise in ELT, examining whether and in what ways our concept of teacher
knowledge has to be rethought in relation to the globalization of English.

English language teacher identities

In this section, I take into account how the way we approach teacher identity in the ELT
profession needs to be rethought in response to Global Englishes. Following Norton (2010) I
adopt a poststructuralist stance, where identity is constructed, contingent, multiple and fluid.

Every time we speak we are negotiating and renegotiating our sense of self in relation
to the larger social world, and reorganizing that relationship across time and space. Our
gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, among other characteristics, are all
implicated in this negotiation of identity.
(Norton 2010: 350)

This, of course, also holds true for teachers’ sense of self as professional practitioners. In
particular, this requires consideration of the ongoing debate surrounding the perceptions
of, attitudes towards and respective experiences of Non-Native English Speaker Teachers
(NNESTs) and Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTSs). In light of the global presence
of English and the exceptional diversity found in its many varieties and guises worldwide,
addressing the question of nativeness ought to be a far too reductive way to begin a discus-
sion of teacher identity in ELT. However, huge importance is (in some cases very unfortu-
nately) still attached to whether a teacher is identified as or indeed self identifies as a native
speaker of English (NSE), and this is despite some very substantial critical reappraisal of
the concept of native speakerhood. The question of nativeness continues to shape the way
teachers see themselves and are seen by others, which in turn can have – to a greater or
lesser degree, depending on context – a significant impact on teachers’ sense of self-worth as
practitioners. Nativeness is, in practice, a commonplace starting point for the consideration
of a teacher’s professional identity. It therefore seems imperative that I begin here, looking
again at what has been said up to now about NNESTS, NESTS and the skills and knowledge
associated with them.
One early and influential critical discussion of nativeness is Paikeday’s (1985) provoca-
tively titled The Native Speaker Is Dead! (aptly provocative given it represents a first serious
attempt to question previously unchallenged assumptions regarding the supposed prece-
dence of the native speaker), in which Paikeday argues that the native speaker ‘exists only
as a figment of the linguist’s imagination’ (1985: 12). Paikeday suggests ‘proficient user’ as
an alternative term to refer to speakers who can successfully use a language. Subsequently,
Rampton (1990) proposes the similar term ‘expert speaker’ to refer to successful language

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users. Despite the commendable motives underpinning their proposal, neither of these
terms – nor any of the other alternatives proposed since (see e.g. Jenkins 2000 on the terms
‘Bilingual English Speaker’, ‘Monolingual English Speaker’ and ‘Non-Bilingual English
Speaker’) – has been widely taken up, so we seem to be pretty much saddled with ‘native’
and ‘non-native’. Part of the problem is the lack of further investigation into how proficiency
or expertise might usefully be redefined in such a way that these can be detached from NS
norms. By now, we seem to have more or less abandoned any attempt to find alternative
terms of reference, and instead there has been extensive discussion of the assumed relative
merits of NNESTS and NESTS in a range of different learning and teaching contexts.
Following Rampton’s (1990) displacement of the native speaker, debate surrounding the
assumed merits of NNESTS and NESTS became widespread, with numerous studies aim-
ing to address whether language learners expressed particular preferences for NNESTs or
NESTs. For Medgyes (1992), for example, NSs and NNSs remain distinguishable, though
not for especially well-argued reasons. Medgyes (1992: 342) suggests that ‘few people
would dispute that those who use English as their first language have an advantage over
those for whom it is a foreign language’ (my emphasis), going on to add that ‘for all their
efforts, non-native speakers can never achieve a native speaker’s competence’. Problemati-
cally, Medgyes maintains that NNSs are norm dependent, commenting that the way they use
English can only be understood as ‘an imitation of some form of native use’ (1992: 343). In
short, he singularly fails to see NNSs as language speakers in their own right. He claims that
not only is the distinction between native and non-native a necessary one but also that this
operates in such a way as to determine a teacher’s professional practice.
There are several reasons these claims are no longer sustainable. First and foremost, and
as I have argued elsewhere (see Dewey 2012), it no longer makes much sense to describe
English as a ‘foreign’ language, as to do so grossly overstates the link between language and
the nation state. Obviously, English is no longer a language that simply belongs to England
(nor the United Kingdom, nor the United States, nor indeed any other ‘Anglophone’ coun-
try). We do of course continue to make territorial claims about the language, but to refer to
it as ‘foreign’ fails to recognize that English has already been appropriated, deterritorialized
then reterritorialized, and is thus continually being re-nativized in so many diverse contexts
globally. Second, there is also a growing body of evidence which reveals (see e.g. Alharbi
2016) that adhering to a single and specific NS variety of English is not in fact a very effec-
tive way of communicating.
Medgyes (1992) concludes, however, that NNESTs’ ‘deficient command of English’ is
offset by other assets, which NESTS do not usually have. He identifies the following six
NNEST attributes: a) only NNESTs can serve as a model of the successful learner of English;
b) NNESTs can teach learning strategies more effectively, as they will invariably have had
to adopt these in their own learning trajectories; c) NNESTs have gained greater knowledge
and insight into the inner workings of English (again a result of their own learning), thus
making them more valuable language informants; d) NNESTs are better able to anticipate
language difficulties; e) NNESTs are better placed to be empathetic to their learners’ needs
and f) they often benefit from sharing the same or a similar language background to their
learners and can make effective use of this in the classroom (c.f. Cook 2010 on the role and
value of translation in language teaching).
Somewhat confusingly, despite NNESTs being perceived to benefit from these six attri-
butes, while NESTS apparently benefit from only one (‘superior’ language competence),
Medgyes argues that NNESTs and NESTs can be equally effective, as their relative merits
balance each other out. Setting aside for a moment the flaws in Medgyes’ position on

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language competence, attaching as much importance to one supposed attribute as six attri-
butes when determining professional expertise seems questionable. This disproportionate
privileging of language competence (still not at all clearly defined) is the result of rather
skewed reasoning. It is a wholly normative approach to language in pedagogy, which in
light of Global Englishes is a very restrictive approach to English. More recently, Medgyes
(2017) has revisited the question of NESTs and NNESTs regarding their relative merits as
teachers of English. Despite acknowledging the extensive debate into the changing status
of English and English speakers engendered by globalization, and despite acknowledg-
ing (to some extent) the substantial volume of work that has addressed inequity and dis-
crimination regarding NNESTs and their treatment in the profession, he seems not to have
moved on at all conceptually from regarding professional competence in ELT as being
chiefly determined by the type of English a teacher is able to ‘command’. Medgyes disap-
pointingly continues to refer to the ‘language deficit’ of NNESTs, and to their ‘shortcom-
ings in English’ (2017: 84), concluding that an ideal NNEST is one who develops ‘near
native proficiency’.
As we move into the third decade of the 21st century, this is a demonstrably inadequate
way of thinking about the suitability of language teachers’ awareness and knowledge of lan-
guage. Globalization, the emergence of so many nativized varieties of English and the per-
vasiveness of ELF in language contact settings all make it essential that we entirely rethink
the notion of nativeness in ELT. One emerging theme is the notion that we are entering an
era that Blair (2015) describes as ‘post-native’, where a teacher’s first language background
is unimportant and where nativeness no longer matters at all. Alternatively, we might con-
tinue to take account of nativeness but do so in an entirely different, more apt manner. In the
following section, I reconsider the notion of native speakerhood, seeing this as something
that entails a teacher’s own sense of self and identification, and revaluing the relevance of
nativeness in a context-oriented way.

Reconstructing nativeness for world Englishes and English as

a lingua franca
From a World Englishes perspective, identifying as a native speaker of a relevant nativized
variety can matter hugely in contexts where the learners’ goal is to become a fluent speaker
of a nativized variety. Undeniably, if teachers speak the variety of English that is being
adopted as the classroom model, they are at a distinct advantage. However, nativeness can
also continue to matter in other ways, and for all the wrong reasons. How a teacher identi-
fies and is identified by others (and there may well be substantial tension between these
identifications) as a native or non-native speaker continues to influence the way teachers see
themselves and the way others see them in terms of their professional profile and standing.
One key focus of my empirical work in recent years has entailed exploring the value for
language teachers of conducting narrative inquiry as a means of (re)claiming professional
legitimacy and as means of facilitating the development of critical pedagogic perspectives
on current principles and practices in ELT. Engaging in narrative inquiry (Clandinin 2013) is
essential if we are to fully understand the complex phenomena that shapes the suitability of
a teacher in any given context. Narrative inquiry can provide a means by which teachers are
able to share their lived experiences of language, language learning and language teaching.
This is especially relevant for NNESTS, as it enables us to uncover some of the language
ideologies that underpin the assumptions we make about who is and who is not best placed
to teach what and in what context.

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As Borg (2006) has argued, language teachers enter the profession with often unarticu-
lated but deeply ingrained notions about how to teach and what to teach. If these beliefs are
not articulated and thereby foregrounded, then we have no way of knowing whether, to what
extent and in what ways teachers’ thinking about language and language teaching methods
are influenced by language ideologies and dominant discourses. For the purpose of this
chapter, I am principally interested in what assumptions teachers make about the language
and the way this ought to be modelled in the language classroom. In short, as Reis (2011)
discusses, our beliefs are socially constructed and are therefore subject to discourses which
may be empowering or disempowering. In the case of NNESTs, we have already seen how
discourse about language knowledge in ELT has conventionally been somewhat disempow-
ering. Reiss also comments that what counts as a legitimate professional identity has been
quite narrowly conceived, asserting that despite the many challenges and substantial pres-
sure from research aimed at revaluing NNESTs and dispelling the ‘native-speaker myth’ (see
e.g. Braine 1999, 2004; Llurda 2006; Moussu & Llurda 2008; Mahboob 2010), a constrained
notion of nativeness has continued to undermine the professionalism of NNESTs.
Conventionally, in conceptualizations of professional expertise, teachers were marginal-
ized, seen not as ‘knowing professionals’ or agents of good practice and pedagogic change
but rather as recipients of knowledge (in what Freire 1970 termed the banking model of
education). In this traditional model, it is academic researchers who are privileged, posi-
tioned as expert outsiders who create and hold knowledge that is then disseminated to the
practitioner (see further discussion in the following section on professional development and
preparation). Language biographies and narrative inquiry can serve as a powerful means of
overcoming this and to thus elevate teachers themselves into positions of expertise.
To illustrate this, I report subsequently on research findings from a language autobiogra-
phy project (see also Dewey 2014), in which practising teachers were asked to provide oral
and written narrative accounts of their language learning and language teaching experiences.
The following is an edited excerpt from a written narrative account provided by Priya, an
experienced English language teacher who identifies as Anglo-Indian.

Excerpt 1
I was born and brought up in a small town in Tamil Nadu, South India. . . . As far as my
memory can reach, English was the only language we spoke at home. I remember hearing
my mother speak Tamil to my father and the neighbours but don’t remember speaking Tamil
myself, neither at home nor elsewhere. I understood Tamil but could only utter a few basic
words.

My sisters and I were different from the community where we lived. We were different
in the way we dressed and spoke. . . . It was a Tamil dominant community and it was
here that I started speaking Tamil since speaking English did not earn me any friends or
companions. My dark complexion and tongue used for communication, English, did not
match each other. English was associated with white skin which I had not and did not
have answers to the questioning looks then. I remember my classmates saying, ‘Anglo-
Indians are fair skinned, why are you dark; what makes you an Anglo-Indian?’ I never
had any answers to them then.

Priya begins her autobiographical account by describing her upbringing in Southern India.
She identifies as a native speaker of English and makes clear that English has always been

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her most dominant language. Yet despite this self-identification, she reports how others in
her community question her claims, as to them, her appearance did not match preconceived
ideas of who can and cannot be a NES. The following two excerpts are taken from an oral
account of Priya’s more recent experiences, in which she expresses frustration at having to
justify her claims regarding English.

Excerpt 2
It’s like, while I’ve grown up speaking English as my first language I’m asked to take a test
just because I’ve been born and brought up in India, which is not an English speaking country.
And I need to prove that I can speak . . .
  So I felt a little discriminated and again the same kind of feeling I had when I was young
when I was defensive when I needed to tell people about my background or who I am, it was
the same kind of feeling, what am I proving, why do I need to do it? And I did it because it’s
called for, it’s asked for

In this excerpt, the test she refers to is IELTS, which she was required to take for university
entrance for a master’s degree in the United Kingdom. The practice of requiring university
applicants to provide a valid IELTS score again speaks to the reductive, and in this case dis-
criminatory, way in which nativeness and language proficiency are determined institution-
ally (see Jenkins & Leung 2019 for a proposed alternative to standardized language tests).

Excerpt 3
She spoke to me and she said ‘I’m a little prejudiced about what you said the other day, how
can you claim English to be your first language?’ You know I didn’t get into the details, it
was like I’m again there. It was like I’m here, I shouldn’t be answering this, no-one should
be asking me this

In this final excerpt, Priya describes an exchange she experienced with a colleague on her
MA course, in which she reports having her identification as a native speaker of English
being called into question, commenting that this even occurred following an MA lecture on
the subject of World Englishes.
Priya’s experiences are echoed in other teacher biographies, which tend to make regular
make reference unequal practices regarding access to employment opportunities and then
unfavourable contractual terms and working conditions when they do secure a teaching posi-
tion. In a number of cases, teachers report having had their own claims to professional exper-
tise and language knowledge undermined or even actively challenged and denied as a result
of their non-nativeness (see Dewey 2014). This continues to occur despite a number of major
developments in the professional discourse of ELT, which I turn to in the following section.

Professional preparation and development

Recent trends
In this section, I take stock of recent developments and trends in second language teacher
education (SLTE), which I see as vital if want to fully examine concepts of teacher suit-
ability and preparedness. Burns and Richards (2009) comment that SLTE has undergone
a gradual process of professionalization since ELT began to emerge as a specialized

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discipline. This has entailed several key developments: growing recognition that ELT is
a professional field that requires a specialist knowledge base the establishment of entry
requirements and recognized standards of practice; the emergence of multiple professional
organizations with associated conferences, journals and practitioner focused periodicals
and, Burns and Richards argue, demand for greater sophistication in levels of knowledge
about learning and teaching.
A landmark publication in this period of professionalization is Freeman and Johnson’s
(1998) seminal call for a reconceptualization of the knowledge base of SLTE, which has
led to a series of major developments in the way we see language teacher expertise and
professional identity. Following Freeman and Johnson (1998), we have seen much greater
attention paid to the social, cultural and historical contexts in which teachers practice their
profession and in turn much more recognition than previously of the importance and value
of individual teachers’ decision-making. This has meant teachers being reconceptualized
as both legitimate users and producers of pedagogic knowledge, with research into teacher
cognition emerging as a distinct empirical field (see Borg 2006). This has also coincided
with the appearance of a ‘sociocultural turn’ in SLTE (see Johnson 2006; Johnson &
Golombek 2011), as well as the application of critical pedagogy in language teacher educa-
tion (see Hawkins & Norton 2009; see Dewey 2014 on critical approaches to ELT from an
ELF perspective).
Johnson (2009) comments that reconceptualizing the knowledge base was needed to
overcome the limitations of a conventional system in which SLTE content had been pre-
dominantly based on an ‘applied science’ model, where practitioners were thought to be
dependent on ‘expert’ advice from external sources – a system in which the process of
teachers becoming knowledgeable was seen as learning how to apply relevant theory and
research from the academy, with little attention paid to the classroom experiences of teachers
themselves. In short, teachers were previously not seen as valid sources of knowledge, the
premise being that practitioners rely on autonomous knowledge ‘obtained’ from the parent
disciplines of applied linguistics and SLA, which might then simply be transferred to the
language classroom. As conventionally conceived, the professional knowledge base of lan-
guage teachers involved little to no emphasis on practical pedagogic issues and little to no
scope for teachers to develop their own pedagogic practices and theories.
This model has now been widely criticized, with professional knowledge conceptu-
alized as personal, practical and situated. It has also been long argued that there has to
be a reciprocal relationship between ‘received’ and ‘experiential knowledge’, between
knowledge gained through formal study and knowledge that develops through actual
classroom experiences. There is now broad acceptance that the development of expertise
among teachers comprises both knowledge types, but, as Tsui (2003) has pointed out,
studies that examine expertise have largely focused on classroom management and the
more generic aspects of pedagogy, with relative neglect of content knowledge. Tsui com-
ments that ‘to understand the knowledge base of expert teachers, it is necessary to include
an investigation of their subject-specific knowledge, how it differs from that of novice
teachers, and how expert teachers develop this knowledge’ (2003: 3). Global Englishes
makes it even more imperative that we shift the focus from methodologies to subject mat-
ter in discussions of teacher expertise, given that research findings in WEs and ELF have
contest traditional assumptions about the language and the way it ought to be modelled
and assessed in ELT.
A further recent trend in SLTE has involved a move towards seeing teacher learning and
professional development as a process of becoming socialized into a community of practice.

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This also needs some examination in light of Global Englishes. Burns and Richards (2009)
comment on this socialization, but problematically, they do so in very broad terms.

Becoming an English teacher means becoming part of a worldwide community of pro-

fessionals with shared goals, values, discourse, and practices but one with a self-critical
view of its own practices and a commitment to a transformative approach to its own role.
Burns and Richards (2009: 3)

There is, however, a compelling need to re-examine to what extent these goals, values and
practices are in fact ‘shared’. To what extent can we continue to assume this when taking
account of the globalization of English? We cannot simply assume that shared beliefs and
practices regarding what to teach and how to teach continue to be equally relevant in all
contexts of language learning and teaching. The supposedly shared values and practices of
an imagined (see Anderson 2006) ELT community of professionals’ have conventionally,
and often tacitly, been understood exclusively in relation to NES norms and centre-derived
methodologies. This is clearly problematic in contexts where the goals of learners and teach-
ers are oriented towards a World Englishes variety and/or the use of English for interaction
in lingua franca settings. This will be taken up further subsequently in my discussion of the
impact of Global Englishes on the curriculum in teacher education.

Impact of World Englishes and English as a lingua franca on the curriculum

There have to date been several important developments in ELT professional discourse that
have come about in response to growing awareness of the globalized role of English, includ-
ing two key position statements from TESOL: ‘Position Statement against Discrimination
of Non-Native Speakers of English in the Field of TESOL’ (2006); and ‘Position State-
ment on English As a Global Language (2008). The first of these is especially poignant in
its policy against the ‘long-standing fallacy in the field of English language teaching that
native English speakers are the preferred teachers’. The more recent statement makes clear
that ‘a singular or monolithic approach to the modeling of English is no longer tenable’
(for TESOL position statements, see www.tesol.org/advance-the-field/advocacy-resources/
position-statements).
Global Englishes has also gradually begun to have an impact on the curriculum in pro-
grammes of language teacher education, with a growing volume of syllabus documentation
making at least some reference to WEs and/or ELF. The Cambridge Assessment language
teacher awards at both Certificate and Diploma2 levels include topic descriptions that relate
to the role of English globally. In the case of CELTA, the syllabus is organized into five
topic areas, the first of which, Learners and teachers, and the teaching and learning context,
encompasses several topic areas that are relevant to a Global Englishes perspective: Context
for learning and teaching English, Varieties of English and Multilingualism and the role of
first languages. In the most explicitly relevant of these, Varieties of English, the syllabus
guidelines state that successful candidates must be able to do the following.

a. understand the main ways that varieties of English differ from one another
b. demonstrate awareness of the need for teachers and learners to make informed choices
about language models for teaching and learning
c. make practical use of this knowledge and awareness in planning and teaching
(UCLES 2019a: 2)

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This is an encouraging development, but it remains to be seen what level of uptake there
has so far been in practice. That novice teachers are expected to demonstrate awareness of
different varieties of English and are then to make informed choices about language models
suggests that there has been or still needs to be a major shift in the way we conceptualize
language awareness and content knowledge in ELT.
The DELTA syllabus specifications go slightly further, making more overt statements
relating to Global Englishes, as well as incorporating several content descriptors which
cover sociolinguistic aspects of language. These include, among other things, the following
entries.

• How language is used to form, maintain and transform identity (e.g. cultural, social,
political or religious) and power relations.
• Differences in English in different world contexts (e.g. English as a global language;
World Englishes, English as a lingua franca, etc.) and in different interactional and tex-
tual contexts (e.g. register, genre, etc.); related decisions about which varieties to teach.
(UCLES 2019b: 3)

Undoubtedly, therefore, WEs and ELF have begun to appear as subject matter, at least in
principle if not yet in practice. This suggests that a very different profile of teacher and a
very different approach to professional expertise (the focus of my discussion in the following
section) are beginning to emerge.
In order to consider what awareness of Global Englishes ought to mean in practice, I
provide a brief outline of research in ELF (for an extensive overview of the field, see Jen-
kins, Baker & Dewey 2018), focusing particularly on those aspects of lingua franca inter-
action that have most relevance to language pedagogy. Research in ELF has shown how
lingua franca communication often involves speakers interacting collaboratively, drawing
on, manipulating and combining linguistic resources from within multilingual repertoires.
The natural fluidity and dynamic properties of language in interaction are often enhanced
in lingua franca use. Standardized forms matter less than what is found by speakers to be
communicatively effective (see e.g. Cogo & Dewey 2012). It has been widely attested that
speakers’ use of non-standard forms often occur in regular, systematic, and principled ways,
motivated by communicative strategies, not by ‘deficient’ language knowledge. Emergent
and novel language does not therefore occur as a result of lack in proficiency but through
processes of collaborative construction of meaning (see especially Cogo & House 2018
on pragmatics in ELF). To summarize, ELF interactions have been documented to display
the following properties: widespread use of codeswitching (or translanguaging, see e.g. Li
Wei 2016; see Cenoz 2019 on translanguaging and pedagogy) and effective use of com-
municative strategies (see e.g. Vettorel 2019 on strategies and the negotiation of meaning),
including especially paraphrasing, signalling non-understanding, providing and responding
to clarification requests and extensive use of accommodation strategies (see e.g. Cogo 2016;
Cogo & Pitzl 2016).
In short, research in ELF has shown that a number of long-held tenets in ELT are no lon-
ger tenable, especially (though not exclusively) in contexts where English is spoken as an
established, nativized variety and/or used predominantly as a lingua franca in multilingual
settings. We know, for instance, that in lingua franca interaction, traditional NS English
norms are not always optimal for successful communication; they can in fact compromise
intelligibility. Several studies have shown, for example, that intelligibility issues are in some
cases more likely to occur in the presence of NESs. Alharbi (2016), for example, comments

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on how employees in a multinational corporation based in Saudi Arabia commonly reported

having experienced communication breakdown predominantly when NESs are present for
meetings and business transactions. This raises fundamental questions about the modeling of
English for language learning. We can also assume, for instance, that as NESs are generally
more likely to be monolingual than multilingual, they are not necessarily effective commu-
nicators in contexts where English is used transculturally. It is extremely questionable that
we have tended to automatically see NESs as ideal models of language use without any con-
sideration of the context in which English is being spoken. There is nothing ideal, of course,
in using a single variety of English in a unilateral way in multilingual interactional settings.
This has major implications for how we conceive expertise with regard to the subject matter
of ELT, a matter I address in the following section.

Rethinking expertise and language knowledge

Findings from ELF research reveal that the properties of effective communication in lingua
franca interaction in English are not particularly well reflected in the conventional character-
ization of language and language knowledge we find in ELT professional discourse. Andrews
(2007), for example, has a book-length treatment of Teacher Language Awareness, which
Andrews describes in relation to teachers’ ‘reflections on and insights into the workings of dif-
ferent parts of the language systems’ (2007: 183) but with a virtually exclusive focus on gram-
mar. The approach Andrews adopts is a reflection of language viewed largely as autonomous,
discrete and unconnected to the settings in which it is spoken, heard, written or read. This is
broadly representative of the way language and knowledge about language are conceived in
ELT and SLTE (similarly, see Thornbury 2016 – and see my discussion of this source in the
following section – for a series of more practice-oriented language-analysis tasks designed
to stimulate teacher reflection on language). When we take account of Global Englishes, it is
clear that such an approach is an inadequate way of representing what it is teachers need to
know about a) language and communication generally and b) English in particular.
The main focus of language analysis work in teacher education, however, has tended to
orient towards increasing teachers’ knowledge about aspects of grammar, lexis, discourse
and phonology but to do so in line with very firmly established notion of a single (idealized)
version of English. By contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to the nature of lan-
guage itself, its intrinsic fluidity and variability. In a handbook for language teachers aimed
at developing language awareness, Thornbury (2016) comments that ‘teachers of English
not only need to be able to speak and understand the language they are teaching; they also
need to know a good deal about the way the language works: its components, its regularities,
and the way it is used’ (pp. xv). The focus of the book, however, is predominantly on the
components and regularities and much less on the way it is used (with little to no account of
the way that use will be shaped by the contexts in which English is spoken). Thornbury goes
on to explain that conducting language analysis enables teachers ‘to discover the language’s
underlying systems, in order to be in a better position to deal with them from a pedagogical
perspective’ (2016: xvii). The teacher’s role, then, in developing their language awareness is
to understand underlying systems and rules. The unwritten assumption, though, throughout
this volume (notwithstanding an early chapter on World Englishes and ELF) is that develop-
ing language knowledge as a teacher consists of learning how to identify the underlying rules
and systems of a very particular kind of English.
In short, what seems to matter most in conventional conceptualizations of teacher knowl-
edge about language is being able to determine accuracy and appropriacy in the grammar,

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lexis, phonology and discourse patterns of a limited number of NS varieties (Standard Ameri-
can English and/or Standard British English). In this framing of content knowledge and peda-
gogic content knowledge, grammar tends to be given primacy over other areas of language
(see e.g. Andrews 2007), often to the extent that grammatical accuracy is broadly seen as a
precondition for successful communication. As a result, intelligibility is statically defined
and largely characterized as being norm dependent. Teaching thus becomes predominantly
norm driven and assessment focused, with pedagogic goals generally defined in relation to
correctness and appropriacy in standard American and/or British English. Learner proficiency
is in turn narrowly and normatively determined not in relation to a speaker’s communicative
capabilities but in relation to the extent to which they can approximate to a fixed and prede-
termined set of language forms, regardless of context. These are inherited assumptions that
continue to influence thinking and practice in ELT, but each of these is at odds with Global
Englishes, particularly as illustrated in ELF research findings, in that effective communica-
tion is not necessarily (or even principally) achieved by simply conforming to a set of norms
and that intelligibility is achieved through collaborative negotiation. These assumptions can
lead to a misinformed perspective on what kind of English should be taught, whose English it
is being modelled and what kind of teacher is best placed to provide that model.

In conclusion
English is a globally diffuse language, with elevated status and prestige in a huge range of
language learning and speaking contexts worldwide. English represents substantial cultural
capital, and its learning and teaching are massively invested in both publicly and privately.
But the kind of English that is valued has already changed in many settings, and it continues
to change globally. Whenever it is spoken and written, English becomes locally enacted to
suit the particular purposes it needs to serve. Historically, localization occurred within spe-
cific speech communities, resulting first in relatively stable varieties in a relatively limited
number of contexts. Since the emergence of World Englishes, the number of stabilizing
nativized varieties has increased dramatically. In addition, contemporary communication is
unbounded, producing greater hybridity within a wider context of ‘superdiversity’, which
as Blommaert and Backus (2011: 22) observe, ‘compels us to abandon the presumption of
stability of communities, and replace them with a more fluid view of networks, knowledge
communities and communities of practice – all of them dynamic’. As a result, it is essential
that we re-evaluate the prestige customarily associated with NESTs and critically re-examine
longstanding assumptions about the role of NSE as a pedagogic model and as a means of
determining language proficiency.
In recent years, discourse in sociolinguistics has increasingly critiqued the traditional
structural concept of languages, questioning the extent to which the rather messy reality
of language in use can be accounted for by conceptualizing languages as separate bounded
systems of specific linguistic features (see e.g. Makoni & Pennycook 2006). ELT discourse
has not taken up this debate particularly well, and it continues to frame languages as dis-
crete systems, which in turn continues to influence the way we see language knowledge and
pedagogic knowledge in language teacher education. To move beyond this requires a very
different orientation to language and communication than has been promoted in the past. In
addressing the question of pedagogic perspective on Global Englishes, (Jenkins (2006: 173)
teachers (and their learners) ‘need to learn not (a variety of) English, but about Englishes,
their similarities and differences, issues involved in intelligibility, the strong link between
language and identity, and so on’.

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Martin Dewey

Yet despite longstanding critical discussion of language teacher identities and a good deal
of myth debunking with regard to language ideologies, in ELT, we continue to dispropor-
tionately privilege NESTs and disadvantage NNESTs, despite the latter comprising the vast
majority of English language teachers worldwide. The more suitable knowledge base and
expertise of the NNEST is still sometimes undermined in the profession by native-speak-
erism and an outmoded, idealized notion of NES ‘competence’. NESTs continue in some
professional discourse, and therefore in many contexts, to be reified for their apparent (often
assumed to be unconscious) knowledge of language rules, their ‘intuitive’ grasp of meaning,
their ability (i.e. permission) to use language creatively and their ability to pass judgment
on the acceptability of a linguistic form. Conversely, and totally unreasonably, NNESTs are
still sometimes seen as having to defer to NESs for models and norms; they are not regarded
as reliable judges of acceptability; are assumed to be lacking in knowledge of rules, systems
and idiomaticity and as a result can continue to be professionally marginalized.
We can no longer continue to assume that NESs (as traditionally and therefore narrowly
defined) are necessarily good models of English language use simply because they speak a
particular variety in a particular way. Being multilingual is far more important than being a
monolingual NES. The preferred teacher is therefore multilingual and, as Kirkpatrick (2018)
comments, in an ELF-informed approach to English in language learning and teaching,
NESs ought to be replaced by multilingual English speakers (MESs) with local knowledge.
Local multilinguals are far more likely to be able to relate to the experiences and needs of
their learners and so are undoubtedly able to provide more suitable models of English and
communication than NESs. Similarly, and in line with Blair (2015: 99), in my view, ‘ideal
teachers of English are well-trained, multilingual, ELF-aware, pragmatically and intercul-
turally competent’ (see also Baker 2015 on the concept of inter/transcultural competence).
To return to the issues addressed in the first section of this chapter, I will say, in summary,
that nativeness really can matter but not in the way we used to think it did.
It can still be relevant and helpful to identify teachers in relation to nativeness, provided
we do not reduce the notion to a simplistic dichotomy – in short, that we extend the use of the
term to encompass speakers of all varieties, acknowledge that there are degrees to which a
speaker identifies (and is identified) with a particular native/ized variety and understand the
term more in relation to expertise than whether a language was acquired in infancy or not. In
terms of identity and identification, what is key here is a teacher’s readiness and capacity to
identify with learners’ experience with English, their motives for learning and their contex-
tual language needs. In summary, a native speaker of British English or American English
is unlikely to be as well equipped to identify with, say, learners of Indian English and their
local experience and learning needs. A native speaker of Indian English is much more likely
to be in a position to do this. Finally, any multilingual speaker of English, preferably one
who has received formal teacher education in a related context, is much better placed than a
monolingual speaker of English to provide an effective model for language development and
is much better placed to advise on communicative strategies in order to enhance a learner’s
communicative capability.

Notes
1 In line with Jenkins (2015), I use ‘Global Englishes’ as an inclusive, umbrella term intended to
encompass both the World Englishes paradigm, where attention is predominantly on nationally
defined varieties of English as these emerge through processes of nativization, and English as a
lingua franca paradigm, where the focus is on the function and nature of English as used as a global
contact language, or lingua franca.

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2 These awards are respectively CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Lan-
guages) and DELTA (Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). For more
information on these awards, see https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-english/teaching-
qualifications.

Suggestions for further reading.

Bayyurt, Y. & S. Akcan (eds) (2015) Current Perspectives on Pedagogy for English as a Lingua
Franca, 121–134. Berlin: DeGruyter.
Jenkins, J., W. Baker & M. Dewey (eds) (2018) The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua
Franca. Abingdon: Routledge.
Moussu, L. & E. Llurda (2008) Non-native English-speaking English language teachers: History and
research. Language Teaching 41/3: 315–348.
Mauranen, A. (2013) Exploring ELF. Academic English Shaped by Non-Native Speakers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

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