Going Native? Should English Schools Discriminate in favor of Native Speakers?
Interesting questions raised over at the Becoming a Better EFL Teacher blog: Do EFL English Schools Really Need Native English Speaking Teachers?
My opinion: Nope, they sure don’t. Speaking as a teacher trainer, without reservation I’d hire a well trained non-native speaker any day. In most cases, Non-natives have mastered the grammar, and know how to explain it far better than their Native counterparts.
They also have first hand experience at learning English as a second language. They know the pain. They know the frustration. They know the pitfalls, and the common errors that can be fallen into.
Most of the non-native English teachers that I work with are way more patient and understanding of their students, and have the ability to effortlessly jump back and forth between Spanish (mother tongue here in Mexico) and English in order to explain a concept on a deeper level.
While our company is very careful about who we select in that we only recruit those with previous training, and strong fluency with the language, we do have an active "We hire native and non-native English teachers" policy.
