Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of native and non-native speaker EFL teachers

Abstract

This study was an attempt to explore the perceptions of non-native speaking pre-service teachers of English on the native speaker versus non-native speaker dichotomy in the field of ELT. Being freshman and senior students, two groups of ELT majors of a state university in Turkey participated in this study in order to reveal the different viewpoints across the grade levels and understand how the pre-service education has shaped their opinions. A questionnaire adapted from Ling and Braine’s (2007), and Lasagabaster and Sierra’s (2002) studies was used in order to study the perceptions of pre-service teachers’ on the linguistic competence, teaching skills and subject matter knowledge, knowledge of the target culture, in class communication and classroom management skills of native English speaking teachers (NESTs from now on) versus non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs from now on). The analyses of data in the form of descriptive statistics depicted that both freshman and senior students thought that NESTs are better in teaching speaking, pronunciation, and culture whereas NNESTs are better in teaching grammar and English for beginners. Apart from corroborating previous research, the findings of this study can offer certain implications for language teacher education.