This paper investigates foreign born teachers working as EFL educators and their attitudes towards teaching as well as their roles in teaching the English language. The purpose of this study is to examine what motivates EFL teachers to work abroad and to explore why they are highly valued in non-English speaking countries. Through qualitative interviews with four (4) Filipino teachers working overseas as EFL educators their strengths and weaknesses are explored. My investigation shows that the Filipino teachers’ primary role is to teach communication and literacy skills. In addition, the reasons why these four teachers have chosen to work abroad are higher salary rates and better working conditions. However, their lack of knowledge of the local language and culture are their weaknesses. Finally, findings show that the respondents’ positive attitude towards teaching English abroad shows the importance of English in globalization.

This essay aims to explore how Swedish teachers of English view the shift from a Native Speaker ideal to English as a Global Language in connection to pronunciation teaching. The essay also aims to explore how the teachers teach this in practice. By interviewing five professional teachers, the results of the study showed that most of the teachers did not teach pronunciation explicitly and believed that pronunciation teaching should be integrated into other parts of language learning. None of the teachers claimed to expect their students to be able to speak with a native accent but believed that the previous views on pronunciation teaching, to some extent, still lingers on. Furthermore, all teachers did use American English or British English when teaching pronunciation but did not expect their students to use these dialects when speaking English. The teachers believed that their students mainly spoke with a dialect influenced by American English since this dialect is what the students mostly hear outside the classroom.This essay is primarily relevant to Swedish EFL teachers and students who are becoming teachers of English, but this study may also contribute to global research within pronunciation teaching. Because of the lack of guidelines regarding pronunciation teaching in the syllabus, the insight in the views and teaching methods of pronunciation teaching can function as a guideline and inspiration for how to teach pronunciation in a continuously globalized world where the views on the English language continually changes.

This study explores how upper secondary school English teachers in Sweden view English pronunciation in the classroom, particularly in the context of English as a global language and the native speaker ideal. The results are analysed from a sociocultural perspective, highlighting contextual and cultural aspects of pronunciation teaching. Despite its importance for effective communication in a global context, the current English syllabi provide limited directives on teaching the productive skill of pronunciation. The study is based on eight semi-structured interviews with Swedish upper secondary school English teachers. Three research questions were formulated and addressed in the results section concerning the teachers’ perspectives on English pronunciation, their methods and strategies, and attitudes toward language varieties and the native speaker ideal. Furthermore, thematic analysis was utilised to identify themes that corresponded to the aim of the study. The findings indicate that pronunciation is primarily addressed alongside receptive skills, and the teachers prioritise communicative ability over adherence to a specific pronunciation norm. Teachers’ emphasis on pronunciation varies according to their pupils’ needs. While the teachers recognise the importance of exposing pupils to diverse English varieties, 60% give inner-circle forms as examples. Furthermore, the teachers perceive that pupils often aspire to sound native, yet the teachers accept different English varieties in the classroom. The study discusses the use of a Swedish variety of English as both an opportunity and a challenge. Moreover, various teaching strategies are reported, with reading aloud being employed by half of the teachers and a phonetic approach by two. The findings suggest that pronunciation teaching is a context-sensitive practice influenced by ongoing negotiations between teachers and pupils in the specific classroom.

This paper aims at investigating how upper secondary school teachers of English in Malmö, Sweden abide by the curriculum criteria of having their learners develop correctness in speech, as well as what support English teachers receive with regard to pronunciation teaching from official steering documents. Furthermore, this paper attempts to critically evaluate and discuss potential options for pronunciation models or standards in education which hold sway in contemporary research. Through qualitative interviews with four upper secondary school teachers of English, the findings of this study indicate a discrepancy between the participants’ views on how ‘correctness’ should be interpreted as well as their methods for teaching and assessing pronunciation. In addition, none of the participants explicitly expressed a subscription to any particular pronunciation model or standard, but rather that they focused on intelligibility over native speaker accent accuracy. Through personal communications with the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) and a university professor of English at a teacher education programme, tendencies are observable of attempts at shifting responsibility for interpreting, understanding, and applying the syllabi, ultimately leaving individual teachers to uphold the demand of an equitable education through subjective interpretations of pronunciation teaching.  The implications of this study suggest that the field of pronunciation teaching in both Swedish and international context is still underdeveloped and in desperate need of further research. Whilst this study may have limited reach or impact on the field as such, it may serve as an indicator for the problem at large for teachers, researchers and educational agencies as well as promoting an awareness of issues in the equitability of pronunciation teaching. This paper may also serve as a basis for discussion in teacher teams or other educational opportunities for teachers on the development of coherent pronunciation constructs.