The unprecedented rise of English to become a global lingua franca has sparked a growing academic interest with numerous research publications on global Englishes, English as a lingua franca, and English as an international language. Although this research has led to numerous informative findings concerning pronunciation, pragmatics, and intercultural communicative skills, many course books still present English as if it was primarily used to communicate with ‘native speakers’. In addition, native speakerism, or the belief that ‘native speakers’ are not only better models but also better teachers of the language, is still widespread in ELT. As a result, this article aims to bridge the gap between the research and materials writing practice by suggesting seven research-based principles which can help materials writers not only write materials that are truly global and authentic, but also contribute to tackling native speakerism by addressing some of the discourses that support it.
Since the native speaker fallacy, or the view that native English speakers (NS) are the ideal teachers, vastly superior to non‐native speakers (NNS) appeared in the research, many studies have shown that students do not necessarily value teachers based on their mother tongue, and that both NSs and NNSs have strengths and weaknesses in their individual contexts when it comes to teaching English. This entry will summarize how the NS fallacy legitimizes discriminatory practices against both native English‐speaking teachers (NESTs) and non‐native English‐speaking teachers (NNESTs), discuss its implications, and suggest what can be done to achieve a greater equality in the TESOL profession.
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