The battle of non-natives

English teaching. It seems to be a world full of traps, deceits, sugar coated nonsense and trying to outsmart rather than to be outsmarted – and all this to endure before you even set a foot in a classroom or sign a teaching contract!

I'm talking about us ”traveling” teachers: people who are looking to get employed abroad rather than staying at home. Back at home you know the rules and they seem straightforward, ie. certain qualifications that are needed to be employed as a teacher. I for one never imagined that it could be such a twisted world of pretense trying to get a decent teaching job abroad. Especially after I paid nearly 3000€ for my CELTA teaching certificate, which is supposed to be the most recognized piece of paper you can have in the teaching world.

But more precisely I'm talking about the fact that many companies prefer native English speakers instead of non-natives. In fact that is not putting it quite correctly: they do not ”prefer”, they actually require. Many times non-natives are told not to even bother applying for teaching jobs.

As a non-native whose English is on the level of most native speakers, this obviously is very frustrating for me.

And for what reason are us non-natives discriminated? Many companies argue that they want the ”authentic accent” or ”knowledge of the preferred culture”, but I buy none of that for a second. As I've lived in China for a year now I have seen what it's like: hiring managers are perfectly happy offering you a job if you are a) white and b) sound like you come from an English speaking country. That's it. As I fill these requirements I've been offered jobs constantly. I have not accepted any of the offers since they were not my cup of tea nor have I let the people offering them know that I am actually not a native speaker; that in fact I fooled them with my accent and they mistook me for a native speaker. Though lately I've wondered why haven't I revealed to them that I'm not a native speaker? I guess my reasoning is that it would most likely make them think less of me and my language abilities – which is insane because my grasp of both written and spoken English is better than some of my native speaking friends. But none the less this is the reality for a non-native English speaker who wants to find a teaching job: we are simply tossed to a pile of unwanted material.

Every so often I spend a bit of time online searching for the next job opportunity. Time and time again I find that as a non-native English teacher my options are quite limited, especially because I don't yet have the 2+ years of teaching experience which would make it marginally easier for me to get employed.

It's obvious that people who are hiring and making these rules of non-native speakers have either no clue that being a native speaker doesn't mean you automatically are a good teacher or they are only interested in having a ”trophy” teacher, someone who is not required to really teach. In all fairness this is exactly what I've been doing for the past year: my school obviously knows my origin but the managers decided to lie to all the staff and the students' parents because ”they would prefer a native speaker”. It was my first week here in China when my manager told me that they have informed everyone that I come from the UK, so they suggested that I think of a story: what city I come from, where I went to school, etc. I was gobsmacked and must say I did not have very nice thoughts of them at that point. In a way it's like living in a constant lie, having to undermine my true nationality.

What I have come to realize working in China is that one of the reasons they want a native speaker to teach them English is because they feel like they can just be in my presence and ”absorb” the language... Yes, it sounds ridiculous and it certainly is just that. But I have been told by the staff in my school that even though they speak barely a word of English now, they're convinced that they'll learn just by listening to me speak – without even interacting with me. So there definitely is a magical X factor there that they're hoping to catch... I wonder how deceived they would feel if they found out I was in fact not a native speaker at all. Would the ”magic” be lost?

So what do to with this pickle? I know for a fact that I'm not alone with this issue of discrimination towards non-native teachers. I know there are companies that are smart about hiring teachers: they require that your level is high and you're a professional – which is exactly how it should be everywhere. I also know there is more and more talk about this unfair factor in the job market and hence I believe the more discussion there is the better chance there is to make a right out of this wrong.

In the meantime I will try to get away with what my English professor told me as a piece of advice if asked in a job interview whether I'm a native speaker: "just say 'yes'."

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