ABEL for Equality

Discrimination in Language Teaching

Of the various causes which are contained in the ABEL's 5 Core Principles, the ones which most directly affect the language teaching profession are preventing discrimination and promoting equal opportunities. In a positive light, it could be argued that modern language teaching has brought people from all over the world together as students and teachers. In the last few decades, through official teacher training courses and official examinations, the industry has also become more professionalised and, as a result, there have undoubtedly been improvements in the quality of language teaching.

Learners, quite rightly, want the best teachers. While there are many important qualities to being an excellent language teacher, one of them is obviously that you have a thorough knowledge of the language you are teaching — that you are proficient. Unfortunately however, proficiency has become conflated with the idea that the teacher is a “native speaker”. In terms of an English “native speaker”, this could be defined as someone who was born and/or raised in a country where English is spoken as a first language. England seems like the most obvious example, but of course there are so many others, from the United States and Australia, to Kenya and the Philippines. In fact, wikipedia suggests there are well over 50 countries where English is the “de facto” official language. Already there are several points to consider with this problematic definition:

• What if you were born in a country where English is spoken as a first language, but not raised there, or vice-versa? It’s easy to think of case studies, or maybe even real examples from your own life, where these lines are blurred. 

• To what extent does a passport, or time spent in an English-speaking country actually guarantee proficiency? Are these things which can also be affected by education and background? Are there other qualities which might take precedent over proficiency? 

• Given that the majority of people from a country like the United Kingdom are white, does that mean there is an expectation that an English teacher should be white too? This would not only have an impact on non-white UK teachers, but also countries like Kenya, where only a fraction of its demographic is white. 

The unfortunate reality is that there has been widespread discrimination over the years in the English language teaching industry regarding so-called “non-native speakers” and non-white “native speakers”. Clearly there has been some mix of marketing, students’ expectations, and poor hiring practices to blame for this, but thankfully, in recent years, a movement started by Marek Kiczkowiak, TEFL Equity Advocates has been making a real difference in this area. 

ABEL’s directors not only support this movement, but know from their own personal experiences from training and hiring that what makes a good language teacher has nothing to do with their passport or where they were raised, but a variety of key skills, of which language proficiency is only one. In fact, they have been improving their Spanish with Mark, the Scottish (and polyglot) CEO of Coffee Break Languages.

As far as ABEL is concerned, There is only one scale, and at one end, there’s that teacher who used to put on a video and go for a nap, and at the other end there is the world’s best teacher (apparently, this guy!).

ABEL is against discrimination of any kind, and that includes someone’s first language or ethnicity. For that reason, we have employed several measures to ensure that our consultants are valued only for their expertise.

We use the term proficient speaker

We agree with TEFL Equity Advocates and others who have questioned not only the term “native speaker”, but the idea of identifying “non-native speakers” too. As we’ve said, in terms of language ability, all we care about is proficiency, so for us, it makes sense to talk only about “proficient speakers”. Hiring on the basis of someone’s first language (or ethnicity) is unethical and unlawful according to bodies such as the EU. 

In any other industry, it would be absurd to refuse to hire someone on such a basis. An interviewer should only be concerned with your proficiency, i.e. how skilled you are for a certain job. At ABEL, our consultants are not only proficient in English, but proficient in all the other important areas related to being an ABEL consultant.