Native Speakerism in English Language Teaching: Voices From Poland

In recent decades, a widespread and deeply-rooted bias against ‘non-native speaker’ teachers which exists in English Language Teaching (ELT) has been documented. This prejudice together with the discourses that support and normalise it has been recently described as the ideology of native speakerism. This study examines the presence and the effects of native speakerism on ELT in Poland. It also aims to provide suggestions how the ELT profession can move forward beyond the ideology of native speakerism, towards an English as a Lingua Franca perspective on teaching English. More specifically, a mixed methods research design was used to answer five research questions; namely, (1) how students, teachers and recruiters in private Polish language schools understand the concept of a ‘native speaker’, (2) to what extent they prefer ‘native speaker’ teachers and (3) what the possible reasons for such preference might be, (4) what skills and qualities the three cohorts value highly in effective English teachers, and (5) how important is the teacher’s ‘nativeness’ in comparison. Focus groups, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to gather data on these research questions. Results show that native speakerism is still deeply embedded in ELT in Poland with many participants preferring ‘native speaker’ teachers. Nevertheless, the findings also indicate that the participants are aware of the global nature of English and that they do not see ‘native speakers’ as the only correct models of the English language. In addition, the teacher’s ‘nativeness’ seems to be the least important quality of an effective English teacher according to the three cohorts. Several practical implications of these results for classroom practice, materials writing and teacher training are suggested.