Language Instructors: Native-Speakers versus Non-Native-Speakers?

General discussion about learning languages
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MorkTheFiddle
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
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Re: Language Instructors: Native-Speakers versus Non-Native-Speakers?

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Sep 15, 2017 1:21 pm

Speakeasy wrote:I searched both this forum and the HTLAL for discussion threads covering the following question, but could not find any...

Subsequent Clarification:
It is more than possible that the question, as I formulated it, lacked clarity. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about the teaching of foreign languages in a formal classroom situation in a large institutional setting such as a High School, a College, or a University and I was wondering to what extent the instructor's native language mattered, or should matter, amongst the many other elements that might influence his/her performance.

For two years of high school Spanish, 4 semesters of college German, and 6 semesters of college French, there were 11 instructors, four of whom were not native speakers. Most pertinently, two of them were my first instructors in the language, Spanish and French, and one of those my first instructor in any language, Spanish. Not to make a joke, there were also two Latin instructors, who were not native speakers. I am self-taught in Ancient Greek. More on that in a second.

Judging from the fact that no Mexican or Spanish or French French person wanted to switch to English on me, and that except for the staff of the hotel where I stayed in Munich, no German speaker tried to switch on me (the hotel staff were fluent in English, but I was not fluent by any means in German). And there was a French Canadian police officer who switched, but it took him a sec to realize I was not understanding his French. Judging from these facts, as I say, my accent must be acceptable, though I am absolutely certain it is not by any means perfect.

What to make of all this? I don't know what to make of it. I was a diligent student, though hardly outstanding, and I always did my homework. For Spanish, soon after college I lived three years near the Mexican border, where although I did not speak a lot of Spanish, I did hear it a lot. Also for Spanish and French there were the Living Language courses (I think that was the name of the software) to which I devoted an intense if not lengthy amount of time memorizing (and bits and pieces of it I still remember 20-30 years later: "ha sido un viaje largo y cansado.") All of that was beneficial to my accent, I suppose.

As for the Ancient Greek. A friend whose heritage language is Modern Greek, in which he is fluent, once read for me a passage from Homer. Using restored pronunciation but modern intonation, he was the first I ever heard speak Ancient Greek and not make it sound painful. Accent matters, but so does intonation, I think.

Although there was for me a mix of native speakers and non-native speakers, and there was that course in Old French that was only slightly worse than being flayed alive, there is no way I can believe that the non-native instructors did anything but help my language learning.
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tarvos
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Re: Language Instructors: Native-Speakers versus Non-Native-Speakers?

Postby tarvos » Fri Sep 15, 2017 1:43 pm

Speakeasy wrote:
tarvos wrote:I agree. But it is a given for the rest of the discussion.
If you read carefully all of the comments up to and including your own on page 2, date-time-stamped Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:13 am, you will notice that they all respond directly to the original question and conform to what I subsequently qualified as “from a reading of the comments to date, many of which are lengthy, thoughtful, well-reasoned expressions of a member’s individual preferences, perceptions and real-life experiences, it would appear that the picture is more nuanced than one might have originally thought.” The discussions, including the participation of other members who have not yet commented, could very easily continue in the same sense. There is absolutely no requirement for this discussion to take on a political hue; viz., “it is a given for the rest of the discussion.” I will not debate the matter any further.


It won't, because it's simply stipulated in the job offers for Korean and Japanese TEFL vacancies. It would take one look at the job offers to figure out what employers' policy line on that is. A political discussion would only focus on whether that is racially motivated or not; but we're not discussing that. It is clear that in the job market, natives are preferred although non-natives are sometimes also hired.
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