Lernprojekte

        “Native speakers or bilingual teachers are preferably employed in language classes” (“Immersion.”), “native speaking only” (“English Teaching”)–considering those extracts from a school program and a job advertisement, native speakers are often considered to be better language teachers than their non-native colleagues. As claimed by Walkinshaw and Oanh (1), supporters of this thesis argue that native speakers of English embody the “ideal model for language production” and their use of the language is “held up as the gold standard of grammatical correctness and perfect pronunciation.” Non-native speakers, on the contrary, are characterized as “deficient speakers of the language, with imperfect grammatical and pragmatic knowledge, poor pronunciation, and inferior knowledge about foreign cultures.” However, against the background of global language developments and numerous advantages of non-native language teachers such rigid perceptions appear to be deprecated.
        According to research findings in the field of World Englishes, the dichotomy between native and non-native speakers turns out to be questionable as varieties of English are spoken all over the world and linguistic boundaries become increasingly blurry. Moussu and Llurda (317) argue that assigning higher value to native speakers of American or British English over speakers of other varieties of English is an unfair argument of outdated anglo-centrism and linguistic imperialism. Instead of sticking to strict models of distinction, hybrid forms of English should be acknowledged as a means of expressing valuable multiculturality. Relating the dichotomy to an educational frame, Moussu and Llurda (317) furthermore criticize a “lack of contextualization.” In order to determine essential skills of a language teacher, one should consider “the interdependence between language teaching and the local context.” Thus, assumptions about nativism and non-nativism might become misleading in judging pedagogical and communicative competences of language teachers.
        Although the perception of native speakers as being more proficient in imparting knowledge in second language acquisition is tenacious, non-native speakers have a plethora of teaching advantages at their commands. Moussu and Llurda (322) emphasize that teachers, who have once gone through a similar learning process as their students, can provide inspiring role models. Being able to relate complex linguistic issues to phenomena of a shared mother tongue and to code-switch if required enhances understandability on the student side (Walkinshaw and Oanh 7). Furthermore, non-native teachers are in the beneficial position to empathize with their students and predict language-related difficulties and possible sources of error. If teaching units are designed accordingly, mistakes can be avoided from the onset (Moussu and Llurda 322). Walkinshaw and Oanh (6) also point to socio-pragmatic advantages. If teachers and students share the same cultural background, miscommunication is less likely to appear as interlocutors are used to the same communication patterns and classroom habits. Research on student perceptions shows that learners of a second language generally assign higher value to their teacher’s pedagogical and communicative skills than to their linguistic background (Walkinshaw and Oanh 1). Consequently, in case a comparable level of language proficiency is achieved, non-native language teachers might even be more successful than their native colleagues.