Despite unsubstantiated claims of best practice, the division of language-teaching professionals on the basis of their categorization as ‘native-speakers’ or ‘non-native speakers’ continues to cascade throughout the academic literature. It has become normative, under the rhetorical guise of acting to correct prejudice and/or discrimination, to see native-speakerism as having a single beneficiary – the ‘native-speaker’ – and a single victim – the ‘non-native’ speaker. However, this unidirectional perspective fails to deal with the more veiled systems through which those labeled as native-speakers and non-native speakers are both cast as casualties of this questionable bifurcation. This volume documents such complexities and aims to fill the void currently observable within mainstream academic literature in the teaching of both English, and Japanese, foreign language education. By identifying how the construct of Japanese native-speaker mirrors that of the ‘native-speaker’ of English, the volume presents a revealing insight into language teaching in Japan. Further, taking a problem-solving approach, this volume explores possible grounds on which language teachers could be employed if native-speakerism is rejected according to experts in the fields of intercultural communicative competence, English as a Lingua Franca and World Englishes, all of which aim to replace the ‘native-speaker’ model with something new.

"Despite unsubstantiated claims of best practice, the division of language-teaching professionals on the basis of their categorization as 'native-speakers' or 'non-native speakers' continues to cascade throughout the academic literature. It has become normative, under the rhetorical guise of acting to correct prejudice and/or discrimination, to see native-speakerism as having a single beneficiary - the 'native-speaker' - and a single victim - the 'non-native' speaker. However, this unidirectional perspective fails to deal with the more veiled systems through which those labeled as native-speakers and non-native speakers are both cast as casualties of this questionable bifurcation. This volume documents such complexities and aims to fill the void currently observable within mainstream academic literature in the teaching of both English, and Japanese, foreign language education. By identifying how the construct of Japanese native-speaker mirrors that of the 'native-speaker' of English, the volume presents a revealing insight into language teaching in Japan. Further, taking a problem-solving approach, this volume explores possible grounds on which the language teachers could be employed if native-speakerism is rejected according to experts in the fields of intercultural communicative competence, English as a Lingua Franca and World Englishes, all of which aim to replace the 'native-speaker' model with something new"--

The book addresses the issue of native-speakerism, an ideology based on the assumption that 'native speakers' of English have a special claim to the language itself, through critical qualitative studies of the lived experiences of practising teachers and students in a range of scenarios.

This book probes for a post-native-speakerist future. It explores the nature of (English and Japanese) native-speakerism in the Japanese context, and possible grounds on which language teachers could be employed if native-speakerism is rejected (i.e., what are the language teachers of the future expected to do, and be, in practice?). It reveals the problems presented by the native-speaker model in foreign language education by exploring individual teacher-researcher narratives related to workplace experience and language-based inclusion/exclusion, as well as Japanese native-speakerism in the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language. It then seeks solutions to the problems by examining the concept of post-native-speakerism in relation to multilingual perspectives and globalisation generally, with a specific focus on education.

The relative status of native and non-native speaker language teachers within educational institutions has long been an issue worldwide but until recently, the voices of teachers articulating their own concerns have been rare. This innovative volume explores language-based forms of prejudice against native-speaker teachers.

Despite being highly debated in applied linguistics and L2 teaching literature, the controversial issue of (non)nativeness still remains unresolved. Contemporary critical research has questioned the theoretical foundations of the nativeness paradigm, which still exerts a strong influence in the language teaching profession. Written by well-known researchers and teacher educators from all over the world, both NSs and NNSs, the selected contributions of this volume cover a great variety of aspects related to the professional role and status of both NS and NNS teachers in terms of both perceived differences and professional concerns and challenges. The strongest aspects of this volume are the global perspectives and the implications for future research and teacher education. It is precisely this international perspective which makes this volume illustrative of different realities with a similar objective in mind: the improvement of second language teaching and teacher education. In today's world, being a NS or NNS should not really matter but rather teachers' professional competences. This publication thus provides a forum of reflection and discussion for all L2 educators who need to be aware of how much they might offer to their future students.

This book probes for a post-native-speakerist future. It explores the nature of (English and Japanese) native-speakerism in the Japanese context, and possible grounds on which language teachers could be employed if native-speakerism is rejected (i.e., what are the language teachers of the future expected to do, and be, in practice?). It reveals the problems presented by the native-speaker model in foreign language education by exploring individual teacher-researcher narratives related to workplace experience and language-based inclusion/exclusion, as well as Japanese native-speakerism in the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language. It then seeks solutions to the problems by examining the concept of post-native-speakerism in relation to multilingual perspectives and globalisation generally, with a specific focus on education.