Research on native and non-native English-speaking teachers: Past developments, current status, and future directions

Abstract

Recently, we have been witnessing the emergence of scholarly interest and professional advocacy efforts centering on systemic, intersectional, fluid, and contextualized inequalities and dynamic hierarchies constructed by essentialized and idealized (non)native speakerhood (speakerism/speakering) and its personal and professional implications for English language teaching (ELT) profession(als). This critical literature review aims to portray, examine, and guide the existing scholarship focusing on a myriad of issues related to ELT professionals traditionally conceptualized as native and non-native English-speaking teachers. We come to a working conclusion that (non)native speaker/teacherhood is an epistemologically hegemonic, historically colonial, contextually enacted (perceived and/or ascribed), and dynamically experienced socio-professional phenomenon intersecting with other categories of identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, country of origin, gender, religion, sexuality/sexual orientation, social class, schooling, passport/visa status, and physical appearance, among others) in making a priori connections and assertions about individuals as language users and teachers and thereby forming discourses and practices of (in)equity, privilege, marginalization, and discrimination in ELT.