Revisiting Native Speakerism in ELT: Viewpoints of Chinese EFL Program Administrators on the Recruitment and Workplace Situations of Foreign English Teachers

Abstract

This article reports on a case study that explores the views of four EFL program administrators of a university located in central China about the hiring and workplace situations of foreign English teachers. It was found that the administrators as a whole buy into the conventional pro-nativeness ideology with regard to hiring foreign English teachers, though one of them displays critical awareness to some extent. The four administrators, except one, consider it natural and reasonable to grant more favor to foreign English teachers in payment and workload, and fail to see an academic apartheid for foreign teachers in relation to teaching task allocation and engagement in academic activities. All these findings suggest the continuity and tenacity of native speakerism among most ELT administrators, in addition to critical awareness on the part of some administrators. Moreover, this study proposes that native speakerism should be seen as an ideology against both NESTs and NNESTs, though the former still enjoy more privileges.