“I Didn't Get Jobs Because of the Way I Spoke, and Because of Where I Came from”: How English ‘Native Speaker’ Teachers’ Accents Affect Their Employment Opportunities

Abstract

This article highlights the interrelationship between native-speakerism and langlism, where both concepts entail discriminatory recruitment practices against a large cohort of teachers. Given its greater concern with the accents of English teachers than with their status as ‘native’ speakers of English and their teaching competence, langlism negatively affects many English language teachers because of their ‘non-standard accents.’ In order to tackle the issue in more depth, a focus-group interview was conducted with seven English language teachers who were hired on the basis that they were ‘native speakers.’ The findings show that langlism affects not only ‘non-native speaker’ teachers of English but also pertains to ‘native speaker’ teachers who do not have the accent required by recruiters. The study concludes that native-speakerism has more discriminatory implications and that these go beyond the conventional ‘native’ versus ‘non-native’ speaker dichotomy by reaching into a teacher’s accent, regardless of his or her ‘native’ status.