In
this Foreign Language Annals article,
Amy Thompson and Amy Fioramonte (University of South Florida) report on their interviews
with teachers of Spanish who are not native speakers. These teachers are often
treated as second-class citizens by colleagues and students. Thompson and
Fioramonte interviewed a number of university teaching assistants, hoping they
would “reveal their experiences as both language learners and teachers by
reflecting on their past and present experiences and imagining their future
selves as teachers.” This article focuses on three of the interviewees who taught
Spanish and had diverse language backgrounds; one was Russian, one Thai (with
Chinese parents), and one English (she grew up in Canada and the U.S.). These
themes emerged from the interviews:
•
Everyone makes mistakes – “Interestingly,
all of the participants commented that making mistakes was acceptable, whether
on the part of the student or on the part of the teacher,” say Thompson and
Fioramonte. One of them said, “I don’t have to know everything. It’s not my job
as a teacher [laugh] to know everything. It’s my job as a teacher to direct
them to the information that they need to get.”
•
Pronunciation – The interviewees said
that speaking like a native was important to them and to their students, and
speaking with a thick non-native accent makes a teacher of Spanish less credible
and effective. But is pronunciation the most important indicator of a teacher’s
competence? ask Thompson and Fioramonte. They believe it’s superficial compared
to knowledge of the language and culture and teaching skill. In addition,
native speakers also make mistakes and some speak with non-normative accents.
•
Teaching advanced classes – All the
interviewees said they were reluctant to teach upper-level Spanish courses
because of their perceived inadequacies. That’s a shame, say Thompson and
Fioramonte: “It is probable that these three participants would, in fact, be
able to teach higher levels of Spanish, but their self-perceived limitations
are preventing them from doing so… Thus, the theme of not being able to teach
higher levels of Spanish potentially comes from a combination of three factors:
self-deprecation or lack of self-confidence, prior language learning
experiences, and the expectations of the students and supervisors in their current
teaching positions.”
What
conclusions flow from these interviews? Thompson and Fioramonte believe the
field needs to move beyond negative stereotypes of non-native speakers and
focus on the more important issues of knowledge of the language and teaching
competence. “Language students should strive to be competent users of the
language, rather than try to achieve the unattainable ‘native-speaker’ status,”
they say. Non-native speakers can be excellent role models in that process. Thompson
and Fioramonte conclude by saying that “bilingualism and multilingualism of
language teachers should be highly valued and emphasized, as bilingual and
multilingual individuals have a heightened metalinguistic awareness when
compared to monolingual teachers…”
I think we as teachers must take into account both language learning, there is a part that says I found it interesting that a teacher is not one who knows everything, if not help them find the information they need.
ReplyDeleteAs for pronunciation, I believe that there are teachers in Mexico and are dedicated to bilingual education 100% do not speak the language, as well as elsewhere who do not speak fluent Spanish.
I really like how these people handled the issues, I think what really matters is what you want to transmited.
Yes Iraida, it is very important what you want to transmit. If you are committed to your teaching your students will feel it.
DeleteWell, with this article I remember some quote that talk about wear your learning like a pocket watch, I mean, the teachers who were interviewed are right, the important isn't know everything, nobody knows everything so it's ok to make mistakes and learn.
ReplyDeletePronunciation? It's common people laugh if somebody has a bad pronunciation, for this reason people o students think teachers are native speakers are better, but I don´t think so even I had a teacher who speak with a good pronunciation and he isn't native speaker.
Nobody knows everything, we just need to be the best we can.
DeleteAs the article stated, bad pronunciation and committing errors, aren't quite all the things we should focus in when we talk about a person who is bilingual. We should always remember that even do the most perfect person make mistakes.
ReplyDeleteAs teachers we should be flexible with our students. As a personal recommendation I should say that its important that we should first understand the complete meaning of the word "flexible", cause then, we tend it to convert it to "liberal education". Lets try also to focus more on the cognitive or knowledge part of each human being instead of just the "superficial" things.
The article is very interesting because, us, as future mothers, teachers, wife's, directors, coordinators, etc., etc.; we need to be reflexive and consciousness about what teaching a second language means.
Right Betty, being flexible means being open to others opinions. Like we saw in today's quote, being able to listen without losing our temper and self-confidence.
DeleteI like this article because, it emphasize the mistakes or errors that teachers can have, and remind us that we are not perfect and we as a teachers are always learning.
ReplyDeleteInstead of feeling bad because you don't have an excellent pronunciation, we should care about the correct use of the new language, the pronunciation can be better in time.
Finally I think we can make an effort and trying to improve our skills for teaching a new language, even if we are native or not.
What is really important is to always try to be better. We can always try to improve our skills as you mention. Sometimes non native speakers are better teachers.
DeleteI like the title of the article, because it’s a interesting question. Can Non-Native Speakers Teach a Foreign Language Well?
ReplyDeleteAs the article said about the interviews, some of the answers were: make mistakes, this things usually happens to us, because its part of ourselves to get wrong, about sometimes has good things, because you learn more.
And if we are talking about languages I think is normal, because you are still learning.
Another thing: pronunciation; this part sometimes gets difficult, because every word has a special pronunciation, and I think with the practice they can be better.
And the last one: teaching advanced classes, no one said it were easy, but at the time they are teaching, they can improve new skills and strategies to teach and learn.
Good for the article, because it shows to us another perspective of teaching, that we also have to learn.
Make mistakes and don't feel bad but correct your self for next time, right? We are always learning, we are always growing and improving ourselves.
DeleteSo interesting article, I think most of the time we judge the teachers that teach some language, in the interview they took important points to analize and reflect, for example, the mistakes, i´m agree with that, because none is perfect, and is comun that the teachers learn about the students experiences too.
ReplyDeleteIn the other hand, the pronunciation and the advanced classes have a lot of stereotypes, I think its important that in the classroom they promote respect and colaboration, it´s no problem if the teacher or the students have doubts or they make mistakes, we are humans, and the important it´s to be prepare frecuently and not be conformists.
When we are prepared to make mistakes and correct ourselves without feeling bad in front of our students, it will be easier for us to improve.
DeleteThe main idea in this article is to show that we cant treat a teacher lower than us in this case the spanish teacher they are bilingual persons searching for the benefit of the students and their life a competence in a teacher cant be measure in accent, native language, and behavior it should be measure in effectiveness and good results of students but they only can do this if they stop auto flagellation themselves for their own good and their students
ReplyDeleteYou are completely right Mariana, we non-native speakers should be measured in effectiveness and results. How proficient are our students getting as time goes by.
DeleteI think that it doesn't matter if a teacher's language have that idiom learned or is him/her native language because every person can develop skills that make us have competences well adquired in a correct way.. of course that everybody have mistakes but we have to learn about them and try to be better.
ReplyDeleteYes, we can all acquire these abilities, and we have to try to be the best we can.
ReplyDelete