A webinar on ‘Native speakerism’, identity and ELT

A webinar was presented and hosted by intellicual, keen,and resourceful smart trainers like Neenaz Ichaporia, Manisha Dak and Chia Suan Chong. There was a 1-hour online discussion forum for teachers, teacher educators and school leaders.

Firstly Neenaz, Manisha and Chia mam shared their journey of learning English language. It was extremely noteworthy.It was not only discussion but also debate as I have never ever faced before. It was an amazing webinar.

*The Value points of the webinar….*
✍️In the discussion forum presenters focused on issues around native speakerism in English Language Teaching.

✍️In the webinar we had a discussion on number of questions, such as ‘who is a native speaker and to what extent does being a native speaker matter?’

✍️The presenters explored different definitions of ‘native speakerism’ and also the concept of ‘inner’, ‘outer’ and ‘expanding’ circle countries, discussing implications for speakers of English from ‘outer’ or ‘expanding’ circles.

✍️We talked about how labels such as native and non-native speaker impact on identity.

✍️We had a healthy discussion on the impact of and non-native speaker on ELT professionals, particularly in the area of employability.

✍️Finally, the discussion looks at concepts such as ‘imposter syndrome where some 'non-native' speaker teachers feel their English level is not sufficient enough to teach the language.

✍️“Native speakerism is a pervasive ideologywithin ELT, Characterized by the belief that ‘native speaker’ represent a ‘western culture’ from which spring the ideals both of the English language and English language teaching methodology” *– Halliday(2005)*

✍️A native speaker of a language is someone who speaks that language as their first language rather than having learned it as a foreign language.- Collins dictionary.

✍️Native speaker is someone who has spoken a particular language since they were a baby, rather than having learned it as a child or adult.

✍️Language is related to community not to the geographic location.

✍️Nativeness is not the same thing as Nationality, because language borders are not consistent with linguistic one.

✍️Neenaz mam introduced Kachru’s ‘three circles’ (1985) where the inner circle represented those countries i.e USA,UK, Australia, New Zealand in which English was traditionally the first language of the majority of the speakers.

✍️The outer circle represented countries i.e. India, Nigeria, Singapore where English played an official or institutional role,and which typically had a history of colonization.

✍️The Expanding circle represents the countries i.e. China, Brazil, Russia where English was used mainly in EFL contexts with no institutional or official role.

✍️Native speaker is not equal to ability to teach or speak.

✍️Culture isn’t a monolithic thing.

✍️The terms native speaker and non-native speaker suggest a clear-cut distinction that doesn’t really exist. Instead it can be seen as a continuum ,with someone who has complete control of language in question at one end,to the beginner at the other,with an infinite range of proficiencies to be found in between.

✍️Employees are struggling with Native and NON- Native speakers issues . In most of the institutions they preferred only Native speakers.

✍️One advantage of Non-native speaker/teacher has got his/her own experience of learning L2.

✍️Language is not just words and sentence.. it entails culture, different antonation, and different way of thinking

✍️There is a greater emphasis on communicativeness and intelligibility rather than ‘sounding’ native.

✍️you don't need to teach the learners British or American accents etc, but you do need to help them to understand those different accents, grammar and vocabulary and that is a factor for all teachers, whatever their own accent may be.

✍️one thing I found is that learners struggle to see the difference between pronunciation and accent. clarifying it for them and exposing them to models of native speakers

✍️We have to move away from Native Speakers to Multilingualism.

Personally I got the gist of the webinar that is Native or non-native....competency is the ONLY the decisive factor.

**Kalpana Bansod*
*SARP*
*Chandrapur*.*