Font Size: 

Studies of how native speakerism deeply influences many facets of English Language Teaching (ELT) have been conducted for more than 20 years. As one of the entrenched ideologies unconsciously held by many ELT practitioners, especially in Indonesia, the distinction of native/non-native English teacher is often prevalent in everyday academic life. For example, many English classes that depend on speaking natural English would most likely employ native English speakers, instead of local English teachers with the same qualification. Only few studies have examined this phenomenon, especially in Indonesia’s academic context, on how this deeply-held native speaker-ism influences the self-perceived credibility of non-native English speaking English language teachers (NNEST). In this study, the author investigated how the NNEST perceive themselves as a “non-native” compared to a “native” English teacher. The study employed semi-structured interviews and followed by questionnaires to gain insightful data to three NNEST lecturers. The study showed that all three non-native English teachers were not really influenced by the native-speaker-ism, especially in their self-perceived credibility, and they produce various results based on the questionnaires, contradicting several studies that show that many non-native English teachers indeed are influenced by native speakerism.

native speakerism; non-native English language teachers; self-perceived credibility