Native-speakerism and the complexity of personal experience: A duoethnographic study

Abstract

This paper presents a duoethnographic study into the effects of native-speakerism on the professional lives of two English language teachers, one “native”, and one “non-native speaker” of English. The goal of the study was to build on and extend existing research on the topic of native-speakerism by investigating, through dialogic interaction, the complex ways in which this ideology can influence the lives and career trajectories of individual language teachers. We show that the effects of native-speakerism can vary greatly from person to person based on not only their “native” or “non-native” positioning, but also on geography, teaching context and personal disposition.

Keywords

• native-speakerism
• duoethnography
• native speaker
• non-native speaker
• english language teaching
• critical applied linguistics
• enthography