Here was I, in my pretty Ivory Tower, thinking that concerns
over who is best, native or non-native teachers, were as extinct as a tyrannosaurus rex, when a flood of
messages about a commercial by an online language school that is airing on
Brazilian television woke me up from my Sleeping Beauty slumber. The messages I
read were from concerned teachers of English, many of them second- and
additional-language users of English, but some not, who felt offended and put
down by the message of the ads. I could just post the commercial, but I decided
not to do free advertising for this company. I will instead, using a little bit
of discourse and text analysis, well, and a little sarcasm, describe what I
saw.
The commercial is based on the idea of contrasts between
online and face-to-face classes. The student taking face-to-face lessons needs
to drive to school, so he looks bored by what is in the ad an invisible traffic
jam. The online student is content, able to log on to his computer anywhere,
any time he pleases. The student in ‘traditional’ courses carries a heavy pile
of books. The online student is refreshed and freed from the weight of books;
after all, he only needs his trusty laptop to learn. Notice both are “he,” and both are young because women and
those over 25 seemingly don’t need to learn.
Then comes the worst part: the face-to-face instructor is a
woman. She looks and behaves a little disheveled (her name is Joana, a
beautiful name pronounced as if it were an insult). She wears clothes made to
look unfashionable. She is a little heavy-set, and she is waving her arms
trying to convey “chicken” to the students. We discover, and I think they want
us to feel horrified, that she is a non-native user of English. The narrator
tells us that she learned English in Buenos Aires, and at this point we, the
viewers are not sure whether the advertisers forgot to change the script to
contain a Brazilian city, don’t know that Buenos Aires is not in Brazil, or
decided to add Argentines and Porteños to the room full of people they are
trying to offend. On the other hand, the teacher you get with the online school
is blond and slim (her name is Jenny, so that should be reassurance enough that
she knows what she is doing), and she intentionally speaks Portuguese with an ‘accent,’
so apparently accents are now good, except when they are bad, and the latter is
only true, according to this view, if you are not American.
I feel sorry for the students who might fall for this kind
of positioning: in a few seconds, the aspiring ‘educators’ managed to disparage
women, ethnic groups, people whose biotype is not slim blond, non-native
teachers, Argentines, Brazilians. Phew! They must be really tired. They put so
much effort in trying to ridicule people who were just working, going about
their business, that they forgot to mention we live in a world of multiple
varieties of English, some acquired natively, others acquired as a second
language, others yet as a foreign language. They also skipped mentioning
anything about methodology, approach, techniques. Apparently the medium IS the
method. And here I was for years, doing a whole PhD to understand language,
students, methods, political concerns better. Silly me!
The student who falls for the native speaker fallacy will
have a rude awakening when they discover they have to negotiate meaning with a
multitude of users, who speak different varieties; thus, these same students
would be better served in most cases by being exposed to multiple dialects,
spoken by a multitude of people, native and non-native. They might also one day
realize that only a teacher educated to be such will be able to put together
lessons that accomplish that much and that also focus on STRATEGIES of
communication. We cannot teach students every single variety of English they
might come across, but we certainly can teach students how to negotiate meaning
once they do encounter such varieties. Native teachers can do that, non-native
can too (I’m sorry, I feel really awkward even writing down these outdated
terms!)
I am glad teachers in Brazil are taking a stand, denouncing
this kind of amateur behavior. I
am glad Braz-TESOL’s president Vinicius Nobre has written a statement that
translates the sentiments of many of us who felt unnecessarily attacked by this
kind of advertising. I hope the
momentum gathered by this event is productive and leads us to reflect not only
on TESOL as a profession but also in the ways that communities of teachers can
reiterate their commitment, professionalism and work towards ever-growing recognition
of this career path. Here is that
text by Vinicius Nobre:
As the
president of the largest association of English teachers in Brazil, I feel I
have to take a stand and express my outrage and disappointment with regards to
the TV commercial that has been broadcast on national television promoting an
online English course.
I am NOT
a native speaker of the English language, I do not have long blonde hair, I do
not live in California and I do not wear a tight T-shirt to teach my students.
In fact, I NEVER had a native speaker of English as a teacher. I never even
lived in a foreign country. I simply studied the English language in my own
developing country, and then four years of linguistics, literature, second
language acquisition, morphology, pronunciation, syntax, education, pedagogy,
methods and approaches. I have only dedicated 16 years of my life to the
personal and professional growth of thousands of students. I have not bragged
about my passport or my birthplace because I was too busy trying to understand
my students’ linguistic and affective needs. I am NOT a native speaker of the
language; hence - according to this TV commercial - I do not qualify to teach.
I probably qualify as an irresponsible and grotesque mockery of a teacher.
Like me, thousands
of hard-working, gifted, committed, passionate and under-valued educators (from
Brazil or ANY other non-English speaking country) are depicted in 30 seconds of
a despicable and desperate attempt to seduce students. I have met outstanding
teachers regardless of their nationality and many of which who were native
English speakers. The best English speaking educators I have met, however, were
always dignified enough to acknowledge the qualities of a non-native speaker
colleague.
Foreign
language education has developed tremendously so as to guarantee the fairness
and respect that all serious language professionals deserve (native speakers or
not). At least among ourselves. If students still insist that a native speaker
is better, we should at least rest assured that in our own profession we can
find the respect and the recognition that a committed and qualified
professional needs to have. It is sad, however, to be ridiculed by another
(so-called) educational centre.
As the president of BRAZ-TESOL, as a non-native
speaker of the English language, as an admirer of teachers regardless of their
nationality, I resent such an irresponsible joke. But then again, who am I to
even think about saying anything about the learning and the teaching of
English? I am not Jenny from California - the utmost example of a foreign
language educator.
AN UPDATE: Dr. Francisco Gomes de Matos,
Emeritus Professor from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and an international
authority on language rights and peace linguistics has shared the following
statement:
"The commercial is
a reminder to the LANGUAGE EDUCATION profession that reflection on MARKETING
LANGUAGE LEARNING-TEACHING is conspicuously absent, a serious gap to be
filled as urgently as possible. The commercial is a violation of
educational-cultural dignity and a shameful instance of discrimination. Could
say more, but... let's move on and be constructive, by creating conditions
for a serious MARKETING LANGUAGE EDUCATION tradition to be built
universally."
Sunniest abraço,
Francisco
