Are Natives Really Better Teachers?

[Music] in this week's podcast ethan justin and i discuss whether or not natives really make better teachers there's a lot of controversy surrounding this topic called native speakerism and so we discussed the advantages of having a non-native english teacher as well as the advantages of having a native english teacher it really goes beyond just having english as a first language and we hope that this podcast will help you to make an informed decision when choosing your teacher and as always be sure to check out our instagram reallife.english for some bonus information as soon as you finish listening to this podcast ah yeah boys and girls citizens of the world this is ethan from real life english where we believe that listening to podcasts is a fun natural effective and even exceptional so download this podcast and listen to it while you're stuck in traffic teaching your puppy a new trick or even taking a sunrise walk on the beach i'm joined here in the cross atlantic studio by the man who never misspells a word if he does happen to spell something wrong then oxford simply changes the spelling justin murray that's very true and as always by the lovely andrea how's it going andrea i'm great thank you so justin do you want to quickly explain what that joke means well spell check is basically when the system for example microsoft word the program that you use to type it checks your spelling it will correct you right but in this case if i make a mistake then microsoft word will correct the english language right or oxford very very famous dictionary all over the world right yep so andrea do you want to let people know what we're going to be talking about today so today we're going to be talking about whether or not natives make the best teachers really because lots of people have a preference of wanting a native english person to be their teacher however there are so many non-native teachers out there as well that are fantastic too so we're going to be discussing this interesting topic i don't want to give too much away right now so i won't go into it too much more but if you continue listening there'll be some interesting thoughts for sure yeah i think it's definitely one of the biggest myths in the world of english as a second language so hopefully it's one that we're going to debunk in today's podcast what does debunk mean debunk means that you basically show that a myth isn't actually true so maybe there is some truth to it and some things that aren't true and hopefully will open your mind to new ways of thinking about who should be teaching you english so that said before we get ahead of ourselves as andrea pointed out let's jump into today's shout out so today's shout out comes from sauri ito from japan and it's titled no real life english no english in my life and he says hi i enjoy listening to real life podcasts every day last month i received feedback from my english exam that shows how much i've improved my listening skills in a fun way i didn't use a lot of my time to study for the exam as i am an english learner i've been taking this exam since 2015 i was struggling to reach 400 for the listening part for five years but finally i received a mark of 420 real life podcasts changing my english life dramatically my english skills have improved slowly but surely i don't find it difficult to listen to my foreign friends or neighbours now so i can continue smoothly more than before i believe strongly in improving listening skills as it improves communication skills simultaneously to me if there's no real life english there's no english in my life i can't thank you enough to ethan andrea justin and the real life english team wow oh yeah well i was right that is a very impressive shout out uh and it's really great to hear sauritu that you've been able to i think with some hard work i think you have to give yourself credit where credit is due and i'm glad that we could help you along your journey so if our podcast has helped you as well then you know please let people know by going and giving us a shout out help more people to learn with us and you can do this by heading over to apple podcast stitcher or wherever you're listening and by leaving us a five star review you're helping people from all over the world to revolutionize their english listening just like our fan here in japan so that said i think we have a pretty amazing quote to share with y'all okay so today's quote is one language sets you in a quarter for life two languages open every door along the way by frank smith so what's a corridor a corridor is a hallway right so i chose this quote because really for me it's been like that i'm a native english speaker and it's really important that i learned that i've been learning other languages because it really opened my mind to the world and so i think in the whole question of whether a teacher is better as a native or non-native i definitely think that any native teacher that's teaching you english if they've never learned a language if they've never opened their mind to the different doors in the hallway of languages then i think they're really hamstrung they're really limited in their ability to teach you so definitely if you're ever looking for a teacher a native teacher if they've learned another language it really really helps their teaching because they're going to have much more empathy they're going to have a much bigger perspective for language learning for culture and for everything else that is so true that's very similar to another quote that i love i believe it's from nelson mandela it says uh when you speak to a man in a language that he understands that goes to his head but when you speak to him in his language that goes to his heart and maybe that's like a little bit of a different message because i think it's more about you know when uh you're able to like learn another language and speak to a native speaker of that language maybe he perceives what you're saying to him in a little bit of a different way than he does if you're using maybe another language but i think that what you said about empathy is absolutely true is that like if you haven't been through that journey yourself as a teacher then it's really hard for you to actually understand what that person's going through whether it's a native teacher or a non-native teacher and i think some of the best teachers out there maybe they've even learned several languages so they're kind of open to all the different possibilities there and we talk a lot about global citizenship here on this podcast all the time actually and we say like learning english is an important master key to becoming a global citizen you can learn another language that really helps you give get that multi-dimensional perspective but for a native english speaker a lot of times i mean you always need to travel open your mind to different cultures in different worlds totally so i think that's the perfect springboard into today's main conversation [Music] so andrea what is native speakerism that's what we're talking about today right and i think that's maybe a technical term people some people in the field of english as a second language give to this topic yeah so basically it's all about native teachers being in high demand like for example in the european union advertisements for native speakers are actually illegal because they're quite discriminatory when you think about it so technically if you're looking for a job as a teacher if you're reading an ad it shouldn't really specify that native speakers are wanted because of course that's discriminatory however there is this feeling at the moment and this demand for native teachers and we're here to talk about maybe why that is discriminatory why you don't necessarily need a native teacher and you know why also why do people want native teachers what's the reasoning behind it it's really interesting that both those points that you you brought up and that's definitely what we're going to be talking all about but i kind of had to also point out something there are a couple of words that you've said very different than i think justin i would say it so the full word of ad how would you say that advertisement so an american would say that advertisement yes you'd say it the same way right justin yep and i believe you guys shorten it a different way as well sometimes right you'll say like an advert we do yeah we would we would usually call it an advert would you just say add just add yeah yeah so that's one of the ones that was really interesting and then there i already knew that one but i didn't actually know the other one until you just said it so i would say discriminatory how would you say that oh discriminatory there you go so it's like completely different emphasis right yeah totally i didn't know that one either i didn't even realize it i didn't know i was going to be tested so that's just kind of like a little a little side note there for anyone if you're listening and you're wanting to learn more about british or american english maybe those are two pronunciation notes for you but that's a bit of a tangent so kind of jumping back into the main topic i think that definitely like we talked about at the start that this is kind of like a myth and i think there are times when it is better to have a native speaker i think depending maybe on your objectives in your learning that can definitely be what you're going to need but i think that it is a myth and like you know everyone kind of like always searching for a native are always thinking that neighbors are better or should get paid more it's certainly not always getting at the actual truth of the matter right one thing i would argue though on one end of the spectrum people believe that natives are a magic bullet that they're gonna solve all their problems that you hire a native speaker and they're gonna if they're gonna give you the english language spoon fed but that's just really not true on the other end of the spectrum there are a lot of people that say there's no difference it's exactly the same and i disagree with that definitely a lot of people actually use the term native speakerism the associated with racism and i don't really agree with a lot of that i think there is differences they're important differences and i think we should respect the the ways that that non-native speakers are better and the way that native speakers are better too that's my opinion so the final point on this i believe and i think this is pretty self-evident is that it doesn't matter if you're native or non-native you must be a great teacher and i think really coming back to the whole idea of like what makes a great teacher so just really quickly what would you guys say are the most important things for a great teacher native or non-native i mean i think it again it depends on your goals maybe which we can talk more about those differences but obviously it's like kind of the actually having put in the experience and the work i think a big part of it that maybe non-natives you might find more people who this is true of is the actual passion behind it because i think with native speakers the thing that happens a lot is it's kind of like a means to an end which by that i mean that it's a way that's very simple which might be for a lot of us like the reason we first got into teaching um is like it's a really great way to be able to travel and it's like you can you know go to different places and you can work teaching english and many people do this and not all of them necessarily will actually enjoy teaching english not all of them will actually invest themselves in becoming a great teacher so i think that you definitely need to take with a grain of salt that a person is a native and see if they've actually if are they actually passionate about it and have they actually put that work in i definitely agree especially with someone you want someone that's passionate about what they're teaching and i also think experience is is really important as well especially with learning a language and you mentioned earlier as well that empathy is important so you know if you do have a teacher that is a language learner themselves then they're really going to be able to empathize more with you and you know they'll probably be able to teach you in different ways and explain things in different ways as well so that you'll really get more out of it wouldn't it be great if there was some way to understand real english without getting lost and without getting bored well now there is with our real life native immersion course we will take you on a 41 week real life adventure of the english language each week exploring a different topic connected to our goal to help you understand and use real native english and make it a permanent part of your life in a way that is fun natural and convenient the best part is you can try it for free with our three-part power learning series we will send it to your email just go to reallifeglobal.com pod that's p-o-d to sign up now let's get back to today's podcast lesson if you're a teacher of your language too i think that can be really important because you can get some of the advantages of having a non-native teacher teach you from your country because they understand exactly what you're thinking the roadblocks that you can run into and really teach from where you're at yeah especially if you see that they've been really successful because i don't know you just think for example me with pronunciation maybe there's some sound in english from your language it's really difficult because it doesn't exist in your language but if you have like a really great non-native teacher who comes from your same language they've had to overcome that and they've been able to maybe master that bit of pronunciation then they can kind of show you the way to do that and everything whereas a native might not actually have been through that journey himself and he might have a lot more trouble actually helping you to overcome that barrier okay so summarizing the the previous point being a native doesn't really make you a good teacher it takes you passion dedication learning motivation and experience to really be a great teacher that said what would you say are some of the advantages of uh that we haven't already mentioned yet what are some of the advantages of being a non-native i'd say besides what we already said like professional development is one you know most non-native teachers that i know they've actually really studied and spent a lot of time developing their craft as teachers besides their own language learning really good teachers they go to conferences they get certificates they spend time teaching being mentored by people and there's no replacement for that i think too like a lot of those like the same a lot of the really great non-native teachers i've met they've done a lot of the work of like getting their elbows dirty which by that i mean that they've actually like experimented they've been very curious like they've um i've met so many of them that maybe have like watched different tv series and they've you know we we teach their tv series but like just kind of like they were interested in being able to watch some tv series and they kind of like found the way to be able to like understand them and to learn with it and improve in that way or maybe um one of the guys who works with us actually max is i know like he kind of like started his journey that he was really interested in rap and i know that was like a big assistance to him in learning and now um he's he's done a lot of work since then but i think like kind of that foundation came from just like a place of passion and everything has made him a really excellent teacher yeah i think many will just have a lot of different creative ways of learning the language as well that can really help not that native teachers don't but when we speak a little bit more about this as well we'll just see how definitely you know if you're learning the language yourself or you're interested in languages you definitely develop these creative ways of teaching as well i think another aspect that's really important for non-native teachers when you're teaching people in your native language for example beginners or people lower level learners you can really connect with them and motivate them from that cultural perspective as well because a lot of the lower level classes you're you're going to be teaching from the learner's first language right so really be able to connect with them build that rapport what's rapport rapport is like ultimately the connection the synergy that two people have that feeling of liking each other and getting along so a teacher teaching beginners being able to build that rapport it's much easier in that in that native language a lot of times so if the teacher can speak that native language and speak that native culture then that can really help pass the the vision and the motivation for that language i think that there are times though whether you're talking about like a native or a non-native um it's like again it kind of comes down to what's the work that they put in because obviously this isn't saying that a non-native teacher will always be able to like play that role that we're talking about if they haven't put that work in i mean i've seen a lot of non-native teachers that you know maybe it's just like a job for them and they don't actually have like the really good experience and and maybe in some sense it's kind of like they're just giving a model of mediocrity and maybe that's something that kind of like sours people to learning with non-natives i know a lot of people here for example who that was kind of like their experience maybe in high school is that their teacher was a non-native and it wasn't someone who really knew how to speak the language um and they spoke with like a very strong accent so maybe it just put this idea in their head that's like oh i need a native because you know these non-natives they're not good enough but when you're actually able to find a great teacher whether it's a non-native or native i think it's kind of up to you to do that work to like you know vet that person but if you actually do do that and you find a really great teacher then you know i think a non-native it's going to be able to offer you a lot of things that we've been talking about what does that mean to vet it's like maybe if you're hiring someone for example you're kind of like checking your references you're checking to make sure that they actually have the credentials they actually have the experience that they say that they do another important thing about that is i found a lot of language learners and the languages that they're learning they kind of get this attachment to the theoretical part of the language so they might be like overly critical of mistakes like i've seen people like stand on the outside watching somebody else speak and be like ha ha that person made that mistake or you know they're kind of criticizing them in a way about mistakes aren't really that important whereas a native speaker even that same teacher listening to somebody speak their native language to them as a second language they might be more accepting of that person's mistakes so it's really important a native speaker oftentimes is it more accepting because they're like well the person's communicating that's the most important thing the mistakes are kind of secondary most certainly that's true that's a really good point and i think that's something that certain people focus on but like you said it's it's not like what's important the most important is to to try and communicate and you know mistakes are part of learning another thing which i think non-natives oftentimes aren't as good is i mean pronunciation some people say that's a myth and there are like really a small percentage of learners who master english language at a native like level and can teach pronunciation really really well and they model the culture and everything but that's very very rare and a native speaker is a walking model of pronunciation is a walking model of vocabulary and culture so definitely for advanced students that can be kind of hard to replace unless you have a really good non-native speaker teacher yeah i think like like i said before i think in some sense sometimes maybe a non-native if they do have that really good pronunciation maybe they can be a better teacher because they've been able to develop that from the same language and they'll know how to help you to do that whereas maybe a native maybe if they've learned your native language maybe they they know more where you're coming from but it might be more difficult um but i i do think at the same time kind of like saying that a native is like a walking example pronunciation it's like okay but where's this person from because like maybe depending where you come from the pronunciation can be very different and like even just saying parts of the same country we've kind of andrea and i have talked about this a lot that uh you know you go 20 minutes in your car somewhere in england and you're like a completely new accent and like they might say like different vowels in different ways or things like this and i think like the base of english obviously is the same so like having that schwa is like the most important sound i think in probably virtually every accent of english so you know any native will be able to teach you that but thinking that they're always going to be able to teach you better pronunciation maybe it's not necessarily true i mean it's again it kind of comes down to what are your goals like if it's you really want to go live specifically in new york city maybe it's good to have a teacher from new york city who can you know teach you how people speak there and they prepare you for that but if you just want it because you need to speak in your job to people from brazil and germany and taiwan then you know maybe a non-native will suit you just fine as long as you're able to kind of like communicate in a way that's clear and easily understood and i would go back to just mentioning we talked about earlier most native speakers aren't teaching english as their life passion so you might find some of them that are really passionate about and i think we are but in general i think a lot of native teachers only do it because they have to or because it's to fill a gap in their life when they're traveling or something but that's important to take into account because somebody who's learned and trained and really made it their craft can do all these things we're talking about at a really high level and it's probably better so out of curiosity ethan what do you think you should be looking for when you are deciding who you want your teacher to be or what you're looking for in a teacher well i think that uh definitely if you're searching for a teacher we've talked about a lot of the things that are important but maybe those are not so they're easier said than like actually found but i think that's something that's like really important is like actually maybe asking them about their journey you know like their their teaching journey what their experience has been like and just seeing like how do they tell that like do they kind of like light up when they're telling that story can you just like kind of tell their their passion behind that or is it like just the story that's like you know like oh well it's really great for like traveling or something like that then you don't really see them like lighting up or you don't really see the actual like passion about the language or them seeing it as being something that they'll be doing into the future then maybe you could say okay maybe i'm going to continue my search i think also it can be really good at some different websites if you are going that route to find a teacher uh especially nowadays with covet happening and everything maybe more and more people are taking their learning online so if you're getting like an online teacher then a lot of these different platforms will allow you to actually like take a trial class so you could even potentially it's something i've done in the past is like found a few different teachers and done a few trial classes and then decided on the one that uh as justin was saying that i had like the best rapport with and it also just seemed like they were really like passionate about it and that they would be really able to help me with my goals i think it really boils down to what you want to achieve what your goals are and what's important to you in that moment when you're looking for a teacher and you know if experience is really important to you then you know you can look for that in your teacher you can kind of ask them how they would help you with the particular problem or goal that you have and then there are many people that just want to practice conversation so maybe for them it's not important if their teacher is highly qualified maybe also they they don't mind who they're speaking to so they don't mind if it's a native or a non-native and it i think it just depends on the person right a lot of times i think it's just important to just have conversations right you just want conversational classes and oftentimes maybe you don't even want like a teacher to be like a long-term teacher like cambly for example is a website where you can go and i don't think the teachers are so well trained on that website but maybe it might make sense for you to have a conversation and tell your story many times it'd be great for your confidence at the very least and and justin like first of all how would you recommend someone kind of like figure out you know what should be their goals for learning what's the best way to kind of like identify their their purpose and then based on that how do they decide if they want a non-native or native teacher oh that's a really big question i think it kind of goes back to like you know starting with why you know why you're learning english you know just doing a brainstorm there if it's for a job where you at where you're at in your own english learning journey right so are you a beginner intermediate advanced and just looking at your options going around talking to people i think knowing what's available having a base of experience to compare i think that's really important so definitely i think having a native speaker teacher can oftentimes be good because i don't know why this happens but compared to somebody from your own native language it can often kind of be the psychological trigger in your mind when you're around somebody from that language it's just causes you to kind of be in the in the orbit of that culture almost and you're able to speak more confidently i don't know if it's because sometimes when you're when you're speaking a second language of somebody from your own language from your own native language there's this this is gravity pulling you back to speak your native language but when you're with somebody who doesn't speak your language who is from a different culture you kind of are motivated to speak that language so if you're an advanced learner that could be a good reason for that although on the flip side of that i think i've heard some people say that maybe they feel more timid or they get like more scared to speak to a native even if it's like a native teacher who has experience and like they make you feel comfortable and stuff i know like a lot of people they'll be more self-conscious for example about making a mistake than they might be with someone who speaks their own language well then i would ask at that point is that a barrier you need to get over but with more practice or do you just need to practice more and just feel comfortable yeah it might be a good reason to choose the native if that's your case because it's probably like a fear that you should work on overcoming but do you think that like if someone's goal isn't actually to go live in the united states or the uk or to be working in a company where they'll be having like meetings with people from those countries do you think that it's still valuable to be learning with a native and if so then what is that value i would say yeah definitely there is value i mean because you're probably practicing your i mean there's there's this idea that native speakers are more difficult to understand and if that's true which i think it is in some cases then that's you're also practicing your listening while you're practicing your speaking at the same time you can practice your listening with podcasts with tv shows with lots of other audio materials but you can have that direct feedback from a native speaker and of course it depends on the level of the non-native speaker that you're you're with because usually native speakers generally have technically have better english as far as grammar and so they can give you better feedback depending on of course who you're compared comparing this to yeah depending how good they are to actually like explain that things because i think like most native speakers have no idea how to talk about grammar or anything it's probably you can just think about your own language whatever your mother tongue is and if you were talking to someone who's learning that and they asked you a grammatical question then you probably would kind of feel like you don't really know how to explain that so that's the case for most english speakers so you have to have someone who really knows what they're talking about but something you just said justin um that we didn't touch on about like a non-native english teacher or even just like get making friends who are non-natives and like practicing with them you said kind of like about having the input and the output so i think like a lot of people think that by having conversations with people who aren't natives it's going to like toxify their their pronunciation or their their speaking maybe they'll make more mistakes so do you think that that's true or what can people do to balance that out well if you're not practicing very much if you're not practicing listening very much and the only contact you're getting with native speech is through speaking with natives you're going to pay a lot of money really to get to the listening level that you want to have that level of contact when really there's so much native audio out there that you can just practice in your own free time with podcasts with tv shows with movies and music and all this stuff improve your listening and speaking speaking with the non-native to practice your speaking to become more confident more fluent in your thinking is far better to practice with a non-native than nobody of course if you have access to native speakers lots of native speakers to really get the practice you need for speaking then do that of course it's great yeah i think the most important is just to be practicing speaking so whichever way you can do that that's really important and then you can supplement that in many other ways like you mentioned justin there's so much out there that you can consume that's native english so especially your listening can be can be that and that's really going to help you even with your speaking so what you're consuming when you're listening you can then go off and practice with a non-native english speaker and just build up your confidence with with that and study in different ways as well it's like you said it's better than nothing it's just important to be practicing and actually speaking it's way better than nothing and i would come back to our mission the mission of real life english is to guide learners beyond the classroom to live and learn and speak english in the real world and real world fluency for us means that you can understand natives means that you can communicate effectively with anyone not just natives but the three times as many non-native speakers in the world and to connect to the world not just native countries but the world and if you can do that if you can connect across cultures and communicate with people and understand natives then you have real world fluency i think like having a great native teacher or non-native teacher is going to help you to get there so so as always thanks for joining us here on the really fingers podcast and we look forward to seeing you for another amazing conversation next week [Music] don't be a stranger you can find all the notes like vocabulary links and more for this lesson on our blog at reallifeglobal.com and connect with us and on instagram at reallife.english for even more fun english recommendations do you want to continue your learning and get confident fluent english then i have a couple great recommendations for you first of all check out our youtube channel learn english with tv series where you can have fun learning to understand fast speaking natives with your favorite movies series and more without getting lost without missing the jokes and without subtitles second if you like our podcast then our real life native immersion course is perfect for you it is the next best thing to studying abroad in an english-speaking country try it for free with our three-part power learning series just go to reallifeglobal.com pod to sign up finally if you are enjoying our podcast then please assist us in helping more people go beyond the classroom and live their english you can do this by sending a link to this podcast to a friend or by leaving us a five star review wherever you are listening we might even shout you out on the podcast stay healthy and safe and i look forward to seeing you next week ah yeah [Music] you

Channel: RealLife English

Views: 17,128

Keywords: native vs non native english teachers, native vs non-native, native english teachers, non native english teacher, esl for non native english speaking teachers, native english teacher, english grammar, english podcast, english podcast beginner, english podcast conversation, english podcast intermediate, english podcasts advanced, english teacher, native speaker english, native speakerism, learn english, learn english podcast, real life english, real life english podcast

Id: evxp6TxNtJA

Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020