Employment of English Language Teachers in an EFL Context: Perspectives From School Administrators

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the employment criteria used by school administrators and their views on the strengths and weaknesses of local teachers and expatriate teachers. This study aimed to provide a perspective on the issue from an English as a foreign language context. Questionnaires collected from administrators of 94 private primary and high schools in Istanbul were analyzed. Although being a native speaker of English ranked seventh out of the eight criteria, the presence of expatriate teachers in a school was considered important. In addition, participants from schools that employed both expatriate and local teachers attributed more importance to the native-speakerness criterion. Finally, administrators found local teachers more knowledgeable in teaching methods, whereas expatriate teachers were perceived as better in language use.

Thai School Directors’ Lived Experiences and Attitudes Towards Global Englishes: Do They Impact Hiring Foreign National Teachers?

“…Regarding hiring practices, prior research has pointed out that NNES teachers were treated inferior to NES teachers (Kiczkowiak, 2020;Ruecker & Ives, 2015;Tatar, 2019). This unfair treatment resulted from the widespread 'native speaker' fallacy (Philipson, 1992) and native speakerism ideology (Holiday, 2006), which leads to "discrimination against NNES and undervalues their professional status" (Tatar, 2019, p. 47).…”

“…As a result, scholars have proposed new terms to replace the dichotomy between NES and NNES, such as the proficient user (Paikeday, 1985), L2 user (Cook, 1999), LX user (Dewaele, 2018), and global speakers/ teachers of English (Hiratsuka et al, 2023). We are aware of the extant debates against these terms; thus, when referring to 'non-Thai' English teachers, we adopted the term 'foreign national teacher' articulated by Tatar (2019) since the term matches the translation of how these teachers are called in Thai schools.…”

“…While previous studies have explored attitudes toward Global Englishes from teachers' and learners' perspectives, limited research has focused on school directors' attitudes. School directors are under-researched, especially in the ELT profession (Tatar, 2019). They are an essential group because every vital change in school is usually made by the directors.…”

Representations of foreign English teachers in Colombian newspapers: A critical discourse analysis

“…In terms of pedagogy, for example, they are seen as more prompt to using innovative teaching strategies and to preparing students for independent learning, and as more capable of providing a relaxed learning environment (Alseweed, 2012). Also, they are considered to be more reluctant to spend time on grammar (Lipovsky & Mahboob, 2010), and more motivating for students to learn English (Tatar, 2019). Besides, they are believed to be better in areas connected to oral production such as pronunciation or oral exercises (Coskun, 2013;Rámila-Díaz, 2015), speaking, vocabulary, target language culture and civilization (Gutiérrez, 2014).…”

A Scoping Review of the “Nest/Nnest Studies” in Turkey: A Country in Focus

“…Furthermore, a number of studies set cross-contextual examples of collaboration in this area such as focusing on Poland, Portugal and Turkey; Levis et al (2017) focusing on the U.S. and Turkey; Tajeddin and Adeh (2016) focusing on Iran and Turkey, and finally, Karakaş and Boonsuk (2020) focusing on Thailand and Turkey. Alongside a great majority of studies focusing on "NNESTs" or "NESTs and NNESTs" in a comparative manner, a growing line of scholarship focuses on "NESTs" alone (e.g., Demir, 2018;Kocabaş Gedik, 2016;Sarıgül, 2013;Yaman, 2019) and other understudied stakeholders such as administrators (Tatar, 2019b). Furthermore, we also see a unique example of how a shift in role and status from a "non-native" (teacher of English) to a "native" (teacher of Turkish) affects teachers' professional identity negotiation (Mutlu, 2015).…”