In foreign language education the classification native or nonnative speaker of a language often evokes thoughts related to degrees of competence in language teaching (Braine, 2004; Davies, 2004). This comparative case study focused on Spanish teachers in a United States context. It contributes toward the literature base in research related to native and nonnative speakers of languages other than English within the local context. Using the threefold theoretical framework of role identity theory (Stryker, 1968; Stryker & Burke, 2000), teacher efficacy (Tschennen Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) and social constructivism (Schwandt, 2007), the study aimed at developing understandings about the lived experience of foreign language teachers given the native/ nonnative speaker construct. It investigated how their personal perception of their role impacted the execution of professional duties. It also explored their conceptualization of the language teacher, given their extensive observation of teachers of various languages. The questions guiding the research were: (a) How does each participant conceptualize her role identity as Spanish teacher in a predominantly English speaking setting?, (b) How viable is the native/nonnative speaker construct when teacher efficacy is considered?, and (c) how has the experience of supervising teachers of differing linguistic backgrounds in the language they teach (native/nonnative speaker teachers) influenced the participants’ understanding of the language teacher construct in the USA? Data collection was done through interviews, focus group discussions and classroom observations. The participants were four veteran Spanish teachers who had been in the department chair position for more than ten years. Two grew up speaking the language while the others learned the language in an academic setting. Findings revealed that there was great similarity in the way teachers conceptualized their role as Spanish teacher and that they gave no credence to the native/ nonnative speaker construct as an indicator of language proficiency and competence in language teaching.

This study investigates the relationship between nonnative English speaker (NNES) proficiency level and native English speaker (NES) level of comfort interacting with NNES. The purpose of this study was to discover at what proficiency level NESs feel comfortable interacting with NNES. This study also looked at how communicative task and NES demographic variables affected the proficiency expectations NNESs have for NESs. Participants included 120 NESs and 7 NNESs. The NESs listened to sound clips from the 7 NNESs and rated how comfortable they would feel (on a scale of 0-10, 10 indicating very comfortable) interacting with the speaker in a variety of communication tasks. Listeners rated intermediate and advanced level speakers significantly higher than the novice speakers. Additionally, there was not a significant difference between mean ratings for the intermediate and advanced speakers. Communication task was revealed as having a significant main effect on task. Listeners rated that they would feel least comfortable communicating with the speakers over the phone while discussing a customer service issue. They also indicated that they would feel least comfortable interacting with the speakers if they were their boss. Listener demographic variables did not have a significant main effect on overall ratings, but were significant for some tasks when task was analyzed individually. Specifically, age and frequency of interaction with NNES had an effect on some tasks; however the reliability of this result is affected by sample size. These results suggest a threshold relationship between NES comfort ratings and speaker proficiency level. Additionally, the data suggests that task may be more important than proficiency level in some interactions. A larger sample is needed to better understand the role NES demographic variables may play in level of comfort during NES and NNES interaction.

Previous studies on nonnative English speaker teachers (NNESTs) (Reyes & Medgyes, 1994; Samimy & Brutt-Griffler, 1999; Llurda, 2008; Rajagopalan, 2005) and publications in World Englishes (WEs), English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and English as an international language (EIL), have analyzed and documented how prevailing ideologies rooted in "the myth of the native speaker" (Pennycook, 1994; Canagarajah, 1999; Kramsch, 2000), "the native speaker fallacy" (Phillipson, 1992) and associated ideologies generate discrimination and affect students and teachers' sense of self-worth. By making use of telecollaboration to determine how L1 Spanish speaking Colombian EFL pre-service teachers' interactions with U.S. heritage Spanish speakers (HSSs) influence the Colombian future teachers' self-perceptions as (non) native speakers and future teachers, this study responds to scholars' concerns to diversify the scope of explorations on NNESTs (Samimy & Kurihara, 2008; Llurda, 2008). Examining the ideological side of the native vs. non-native speaker dichotomy in telecollaboration, this research seeks to reverse the tendency to study interactants' exchanges mainly as a language feedback process through which "native speakers" support those who are not native speakers. Under an overarching qualitative phenomenological case study research design, the first article's pre-assessment of participants' self-perceptions of (non) nativeness found that the myth of the native speaker, the native speaker fallacy and associated ideologies permeated participants' self-images as language speakers and prospective teachers. Nevertheless, their ongoing education and the perceived benefits of becoming skillful language users contrasted with the harmful effects of these ideologies. Based on findings in the first article, the second study determined that in adopting meaning making abilities as their center of interest in telecollaboration, most participants focused less on the achievement of idealized native speaker abilities. Their interaction with U.S. peers generated confidence in their use of English, self-criticism of their skills in Spanish and a tendency to embrace the idea that they could succeed as English teachers. The intercultural and sociocultural nature of telecollaboration as a potential resource to leverage Colombian prospective teachers' self-perceptions constitutes the core of the last manuscript. Cooperative relationships with U.S. peers provided participants affective and knowledge-based resources to build more favorable views of themselves, attitudes to confront the detrimental effects of nativespeakership ideologies, and informed judgments to dismantle them. The pedagogical implications section discusses the need to revise the current EFL perspective providing the framework for English language teaching and learning in Colombia, avenues for strengthening students' ideological literacy through telecollaborative tasks and the potential integration of telecollaboration in the language teacher education curriculum as a means to increase participants' linguistic, intercultural and pedagogical abilities, and to cultivate more favorable self-images.

Este trabalho tem como principal objetivo analisar as representações do falante nativo e do falante não-nativo de inglês construídas sob o ponto de vista do aluno brasileiro, e as implicações dessas representações no processo de constituição da identidade desse aluno, que tem o português como primeira língua e aprende inglês como língua estrangeira. Nossa hipótese é que a diferença significativa que se observa na relação entre o aluno brasileiro e falantes nativos, de um lado, e entre o mesmo aluno e falantes não-nativos, de outro, afeta as representações construídas pelo aprendiz, podendo resultar numa tentativa de resistência ao lugar aparentemente fixo ocupado pelo brasileiro enquanto falante não-nativo de inglês. A análise dessas representações baseia-se num corpus constituído por dez entrevistas com alunos brasileiros de inglês de uma escola de idiomas de São Paulo. Nossa pesquisa é embasada nos preceitos teóricos da Análise do Discurso, assim como em conceitos dos Estudos Culturais e da perspectiva psicanalista. Com base na análise da materialidade lingüística do corpus, destacamos representações sustentadas por oposições binárias que, se por um lado, parecem imobilizar o sujeito-aluno na relação com o falante nativo, pelo fato de o aluno brasileiro ser sempre representado como o polo negativo da oposição, por outro, permitem, na relação com o falante não-nativo, vislumbrar a possibilidade de um deslocamento dessas representações associadas ao aprendiz brasileiro. Porém, observamos que esse deslocamento é sempre adiado e não se concretiza devido à força que o falante nativo ainda exerce sobre o aluno brasileiro/falante não-nativo. Concluímos que essas representações fixistas, baseadas em oposições binárias, dificultam a prática de ensino de língua inglesa como um lugar de produção de novos sentidos. Com base nessa conclusão, ressaltamos a importância de uma prática pedagógica que vá além do ensino de inglês como mero instrumento de comunicação, permitindo desconstruir as oposições binárias e contribuir para uma ressignificação do lugar do aprendiz brasileiro/falante não-nativo de inglês em relação ao falante nativo e à língua inglesa. / This work aims at analyzing the representations of native and non-native speakers of English built by Brazilian students, and the implications of these representations to students identity as Portuguese native speakers and learners of English as a foreign language. Our hypothesis is that the significative difference noticed in the relationship between Brazilian students and native speakers of English, on the one hand, and between these students and other non-native speakers, on the other, affects the way Brazilian students represent themselves and other speakers, and may result in an attempt to resist the apparently fixed place occupied by Brazilians as non-native speakers of English. The analysis of these representations is based on a corpus containing ten interviews with Brazilian students of English from a language school in São Paulo. Our work is based upon the theoretical tenets of Discourse Analysis, as well as on concepts from the Cultural Studies and Psychoanalysis. The analysis of the linguistic materiality of the corpus showed representations that were sustained by binary oppositions, which seemed to immobilize the learners in the interaction with native speakers, since the Brazilian student is always represented as the negative pole of the opposition, but also suggested the possibility of dislocation of these representations when the interaction involved Brazilian students and other non-native speakers of English. However, it is argued that this dislocation is always postponed and never takes place because of the power that the native speaker has over the Brazilian student/non-native speaker of English. We concluded that these fixed representations, based on binary oppositions, make it difficult for the English language teaching practice to allow for the production of new meanings. Based on this conclusion, we highlight the importance of a pedagogical practice that goes beyond teaching English merely as a communication tool, by deconstructing binary oppositions and making it possible for the Brazilian student/non-native speaker of English to occupy a new place in the relationship with the native speaker and the English language.

Este trabalho tem como principal objetivo analisar as representações do falante nativo e do falante não-nativo de inglês construídas sob o ponto de vista do aluno brasileiro, e as implicações dessas representações no processo de constituição da identidade desse aluno, que tem o português como primeira língua e aprende inglês como língua estrangeira. Nossa hipótese é que a diferença significativa que se observa na relação entre o aluno brasileiro e falantes nativos, de um lado, e entre o mesmo aluno e falantes não-nativos, de outro, afeta as representações construídas pelo aprendiz, podendo resultar numa tentativa de resistência ao lugar aparentemente fixo ocupado pelo brasileiro enquanto falante não-nativo de inglês. A análise dessas representações baseia-se num corpus constituído por dez entrevistas com alunos brasileiros de inglês de uma escola de idiomas de São Paulo. Nossa pesquisa é embasada nos preceitos teóricos da Análise do Discurso, assim como em conceitos dos Estudos Culturais e da perspectiva psicanalista. Com base na análise da materialidade lingüística do corpus, destacamos representações sustentadas por oposições binárias que, se por um lado, parecem imobilizar o sujeito-aluno na relação com o falante nativo, pelo fato de o aluno brasileiro ser sempre representado como o polo negativo da oposição, por outro, permitem, na relação com o falante não-nativo, vislumbrar a possibilidade de um deslocamento dessas representações associadas ao aprendiz brasileiro. Porém, observamos que esse deslocamento é sempre adiado e não se concretiza devido à força que o falante nativo ainda exerce sobre o aluno brasileiro/falante não-nativo. Concluímos que essas representações fixistas, baseadas em oposições binárias, dificultam a prática de ensino de língua inglesa como um lugar de produção de novos sentidos. Com base nessa conclusão, ressaltamos a importância de uma prática pedagógica que vá além do ensino de inglês como mero instrumento de comunicação, permitindo desconstruir as oposições binárias e contribuir para uma ressignificação do lugar do aprendiz brasileiro/falante não-nativo de inglês em relação ao falante nativo e à língua inglesa. / This work aims at analyzing the representations of native and non-native speakers of English built by Brazilian students, and the implications of these representations to students identity as Portuguese native speakers and learners of English as a foreign language. Our hypothesis is that the significative difference noticed in the relationship between Brazilian students and native speakers of English, on the one hand, and between these students and other non-native speakers, on the other, affects the way Brazilian students represent themselves and other speakers, and may result in an attempt to resist the apparently fixed place occupied by Brazilians as non-native speakers of English. The analysis of these representations is based on a corpus containing ten interviews with Brazilian students of English from a language school in São Paulo. Our work is based upon the theoretical tenets of Discourse Analysis, as well as on concepts from the Cultural Studies and Psychoanalysis. The analysis of the linguistic materiality of the corpus showed representations that were sustained by binary oppositions, which seemed to immobilize the learners in the interaction with native speakers, since the Brazilian student is always represented as the negative pole of the opposition, but also suggested the possibility of dislocation of these representations when the interaction involved Brazilian students and other non-native speakers of English. However, it is argued that this dislocation is always postponed and never takes place because of the power that the native speaker has over the Brazilian student/non-native speaker of English. We concluded that these fixed representations, based on binary oppositions, make it difficult for the English language teaching practice to allow for the production of new meanings. Based on this conclusion, we highlight the importance of a pedagogical practice that goes beyond teaching English merely as a communication tool, by deconstructing binary oppositions and making it possible for the Brazilian student/non-native speaker of English to occupy a new place in the relationship with the native speaker and the English language.

This study examines the beliefs of foreign language teachers regarding the relative positions of native and nonnative speakers in foreign and second language education. In particular, I am concerned with the idealization of the native speaker in this context and the foreign language anxiety that may occur in nonnative speaker language teachers if they internalize this idealization. I collected data from 29 college-level Arabic and Hebrew teachers using four methods: (1) a questionnaire on their background and beliefs regarding native and nonnative speaker language teachers, (2) a version of the Teacher Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, 2007), (3) a one-on-one interview, and (4) class observation. By and large, study participants believed that native speakers, because of their nativity, have reached higher levels of linguistic and cultural proficiency with relative ease, and as a result are more readily granted credibility as teachers of their native language. Participants believed that nonnative speakers are more empathetic and understanding of their students' problems because of their own experience and efforts as students of the language. With regard to foreign language anxiety, the main sources of anxiety among the nonnative speaker participants were the fear of making mistakes (and losing credibility as a result), of not having the authority to speak on cultural issues, of not being hired when competing with native speakers, and of addressing professional audiences. Native speakers feared that they cannot anticipate or understand as easily as nonnative speaker teachers the difficulties their students have in learning their language, because they cannot relate to their experiences in the same way. Neither group, however, reported feeling particularly anxious overall. I argue that anxiety was minimal for both groups because of specific steps that participants have taken to overcome the perceived disadvantages of their group and thereby bolster their confidence. Participants reported gaining confidence through some combination of the following factors: (1) gaining experience and education, (2) improving their linguistic and cultural proficiency, (3) presenting the persona of a credible language teacher through extra preparation and language choices, (4) receiving external validation, and (5) realizing that everyone can learn from and teach others. / text

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