Are Native and Non‐Native English Speaking Tutors Equally Effective?

Abstract

Many studies find a negative effect of nonnative English speaking instructors on students' performance in universities where the language of instruction is English. However, the negative effect observed in the existing literature is not found in the study by Fleisher, Hashimoto and Weinberg (2002), which uses the sample of instructors who received training in the Ohio State University's PhD programme. In many economics departments in Australia, mainly because their PhD programmes are not large enough, it is unrealistic to have all the tutors trained in the methods recommended in Fleisher, Hashimoto and Weinberg (2002). This gives rise to a potential negative impact of non-native English speaking tutors on students' performance. Nevertheless, by analysing the panel data drawn from first-year quantitative methods, microeconomics and macroeconomics courses in an Australian university, we find no statistically significant difference in the effectiveness of small class teaching between native and non-native English speaking tutors.

Language lesson learned—foreign-origin teachers and their effect on students’ language skills

“…Otherwise, students who experience a switch in the origin of teachers are not different from those who do not experience a switch (Table 4). While the identifying variation relies on a small subsample, this subsample is larger than in previous studies (c.f., Borjas 2000; Fleisher et al 2002;Asano 2008) and comparable to that of Seah (2018). Second, I formally test for selective sample attrition by regressing the test participation on a foreign-origin teacher dummy as the main explanatory variable along with the set of student characteristics in Table 5.…”

“…A small but growing strand of the literature discusses the language skills of teachers. Early studies analyze the effect of foreign teaching assistants on the academic achievements of undergraduate students in university (Borjas 2000;Asano 2008). The contradictory effects found by these studies can be explained by the nonrandom assignment of teaching assistants to students.…”

Do you speak my language? The effect of sharing a teacher's native language on student achievement

“…immigrant) teachers matters for the academic achievement of native students. Findings from this strand of literature have varied considerably, from studies which find that non-native teachers have a positive effect on native student achievement (Fleisher et al, 2002) to those which find either neutral (Asano, 2008;Seah, 2018), or negative effects (Borjas, 2000). The overwhelming majority of these studies have examined student experience at the undergraduate level.…”

Immigrant Educators and Students' Academic Achievement

“…Mixed results have been found at the undergraduate level. While a number of studies have found evidence suggesting that immigrant Teaching Assistants and Associates impact the academic performance of undergraduates adversely (Watts and Lynch, 1989;Borjas, 2000;Marvasti, 2007;Becker and Powers, 2001), an equally large number of studies, some of which have recently emerged, report quite the opposite effectssuggesting that immigrant educators can be as (Jacobs and Friedman, 1988;Saunders, 2001;Asano, 2008), if not more (Norris, 1991;Fleisher et al, 2002) effective in classroom instruction than their native counterparts. The inconsistency in evidence is possibly due to the fact that each study's data come from a different university.…”

“…The literature has advanced a number of reasons to explain why immigrant educators may not be as effective as their native counterparts in classroom instruction. These include the lack of English language proficiency (Jacobs and Friedman, 1988;Watts and Lynch, 1989;Norris, 1991;Borjas, 2000;Fleisher et al, 2002), differences in teaching cultures (Jacobs and Friedman, 1988;Watts and Lynch, 1989;Fleisher et al, 2002;Liu et al, 2006;Asano, 2008;Alberts, 2008), and/or a lack of insights into local situations which might otherwise aid in the presentation of concepts and ideas (Watts and Lynch, 1989;Fleisher et al, 2002;Asano, 2008). These factors potentially prevent effective instruction and inhibit students' learning processes.…”