Teachers’ identities as ‘non-native’ speakers: Do they matter in english as a lingua franca interactions?

Abstract

This study closely examines sequences in which a so-called nonnative English teacher resolves miscommunication with students in a multilingual writing classroom at a U.S. university, and investigates how an identity as a nonnative-English-speaker teacher (NNEST) might affect English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions. Recent studies on ELF academic discourse (e.g., Björkman (2013) have demonstrated ELF speakers’ skillful communicative strategies for dealing with complex intercultural communication. Combining sequential analysis with ethnographic information, this study examines such ELF academic interactions, highlighting the practice and identity of an instructor. The data analysis exhibits that pre-given categories (NNESTs and ‘nonnative’ students) are neither interactionally relevant, nor treated as important by interactants in this context. Rather, the instructor’s identities as a multilingual teacher, who works hard to resolve miscommunication with students, have been achieved through ongoing classroom interactions rather than being predetermined. I contend we need more research exhibiting the fluid nature of multilingual teacher practice and process of identity construction in real-time instructional contexts.