Recruitment and Salary Disparity between Monolingual and Bilingual EFL Teachers in Oman

Abstract

Literature in the field of TESOL recruitment practices suggests that the myth of monolingual speakerism has impacted the employment methods in various countries in the world. The monolingual (native) speaker has a privileged position in English language teaching, representing both the model speaker and the ideal teacher. Bilingual teachers of English are often perceived as less competent than their monolingual counterparts in Oman. The aim of the study was to critically explore and problematize the recruitment practices that discriminate the bilingual English teachers in Oman. This article reports the findings of a small-scale qualitative study conducted at an English Language Center (ELC) at one of the colleges of technology in Oman (CoTs) through obtaining data from bilingual teachers of English. The results demonstrated that the native (monolingual) speakers’ fallacy is “alive and kicking” in Oman. All the recruiting agencies prefer to recruit monolingual speakers justifying this stance on the pretext that bilinguals are viewed as incompetent imitators of English. There is also a huge discrimination based on salary range between monolingual and bilingual teachers, despite doing same job. Colonial impact is another reason behind monolingual speakers’ preference. The impact of discrimination is that bilingual teachers of English are left feeling inferior. Hence, it is essential to adopt policies, which install greater sense of job security to enhance motivation and innovation. The study suggests that there is an urgent need to review the recruitment practices in Oman to establish equality and to create a healthy working environment.

The Conundrum of Identity in the Omani Higher Education: A Case Study of an English Language Teaching (ELT) Context

“…Whereas there was no evidence of a policy supporting the recruitment of NESTs within the documents reviewed for this study, such a condition was stated clearly in a later recruitment contract between the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and the recruiting agency. This finding asserts the findings of Said and Orabah (2022) in higher education ELT context in Oman. In fact, the tendency to recruit NESTs as typical English teachers is not specific to Omani higher education.…”

“…Codó (2018) similarly states that teaching positions in the field of ELT are seen as easily obtainable by NESTs even when they have the least training or experience. The assumption that speakers of English are able to teach it in academic context is widely held, as they seem to represent the prototype of competent English teacher (Kiczkowiak, 2020; Said & Orabah, 2022; Yarahmadi & Magd, 2016), as opposed to the non-NESTs who are seen as an inferior category that lacks the necessary command over English in terms of pronunciation, accent, and selection of expressions(Kumaravadivelu, 2016; Song & Castillo, 2015).…”