TAIWANESE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD NATIVE AND
NON-NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING TEACHERS IN EFL CONTEXTS
A Dissertation
by
SHIH-YUN TSOU
Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies Texas A & M University – Kingsville In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
May 2013
Major Subject: Bilingual Education
Copyright by SHIH-YUN TSOU May 2013 All Rights Reserved
ABSTRACT
Taiwanese University Students’ Perceptions toward Native and Non-Native English-Speaking
Teachers in EFL Contexts
(May 2013)
Shih-Yun Tsou, B.A., Ming Chuan University, Taiwan; M.Ed., University of Idaho
Dissertation Chair: Dr. Patricia A. Gomez
English has evolved into the most widely learned and internationally used language because for the increasing numbers of learners in the globalization process. With the growing demand of English education, the competencies of English teachers as Native English-Speaking
Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) have become a significant matter of discussion.
Research to date on NESTs and NNESTs has primarily focused on teachers’ self- perceptions or their NESTs or NNESTs colleagues’ perceptions on English instruction (e.g.,
Arva & Medgyes, 2000; Kamhi-Stein, 2004; Llurda, 2004, 2005; Medgyes, 1999a; Moussu,
2000, 2006b; Tsui & Bunton, 2000) and has greatly related to the areas of English as second language (ESL) (e.g., Amin, 1997, 2004; Bernat, 2008; Ellis, 2002; Ma, 2009a; Moussu, 2006a;
Rao, 2010; Shin, 2008; Tang, 1997). However, few studies have focused on the perceptions of
English as a foreign language (EFL) students in regard to the English instruction of their NESTs and NNESTs. Also, the aforementioned studies have neglected that the group of NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language may have better English proficiency and be able to provide a more efficient curriculum for language learners than the
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group of NNESTs who do not hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate Taiwanese English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ perceptions and preferences toward NESTs and NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language through addressing the differences of their English instruction.
This study employed a concurrent triangulation mixed methods approach, a QUAN –
QUAL study. The researcher analyzed quantitative data through descriptive statistics by using
Statistical Packages for the Social Science (SPSS 20.0), while ATLAS.ti.7.0 was employed to manage and systematically analyze qualitative data. All 184 participants answered the questionnaire that consisted of 28 Likert scale type statements and two open-ended questions.
Only 50 participants responding to the open-ended questions were selected to analyze.
The findings revealed that the participants held an overall preference for NESTs over
NNESTs; nevertheless, they believed both NESTs and NNESTs offered strengths and weaknesses in their English instruction. More precisely, NESTs were perceived to be superior in their good English proficiency and ability to facilitate students’ English learning. In terms of
NNESTs, they were perceived to be superior in their proficiency in students’ first language, their knowledge of students’ learning difficulties, and at communicating in general. The characteristics that were perceived to be disadvantages of one group appeared to be advantages of the other. For example, NESTs were considered more difficult to communicate with by the participants, while NNESTs were believed to have limited English proficiency.
Interestingly, the results showed the teachers’ qualifications and experiences were seen as an important feature of excellent English teachers, regardless of his or her mother tongue.
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Finally, the findings indicated that EFL programs where both NESTs and NNESTs worked cooperatively were considered an effective English learning environment for language learners.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In this acknowledgment section, I would like to thank those individuals who supported, accompanied and inspired me during my doctoral academic journey with all my heart.
My wonderful husband, Dr. Haibin Su, deserves a special mention. He provided not only his love and accompany but also guidance and inspiration during these tough times. I want to thank my extremely loving and supportive parents, Kuei-Huan Tsou and Hsiu-Yu Chen, for their unconditional love and encouragement. Without them, the completion of this work could not have been possible.
I feel so blessed to have Dr. Patricia A. Gomez as my dissertation chair. With her continuous assistance, I was able to push my way through numerous obstacles along the way.
Her enormous patience, deep understanding, and heart-warming encouragement supported me during the process of this study, especially when I faced frustrations and difficulties.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my committee members, Dr. Jaya S.
Goswami, Dr. Monica Wong-Ratcliff, and Dr. Hongbo Su for their intelligent suggestions and invaluable assistance from framing, conducting my study, to the final version of my research.
Through receiving these professors’ tremendous assistance and endeavors, I can luckily step forward in my academic life.
Special thanks are extended to my dear uncle, Kuei-Chuan Tsou, my lovely brother and cousin, Yung-Sheng Tsou, and Yung-Hao Tsou, and my good friends in the Texas A&M
University – Kingsville: Yingling Chen, Shuchuan Hsu, Chih-Hsin Hsu, and Janet Chen for their accompany, generous help and all the wonderful time we spent together during the years of 2009 to 2013.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT…...…………………………………………………………...... ……………iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………….……...…vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………….…………..………………….……vii
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………..……….…….…………...x
LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………..….……………xii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION……………………………..………………………..…………..1
Background of the Study……………………………………………………….…………1
Statement of Problem…………………………………...…………….…………..…….…3
Conceptual Framework………………………………………...….…………...……….…5
Purpose of the Study……………………………………...…….………….………….…..6
Research Questions…………………………...……………………….…….……….……7
Significance of the Study…………………………………………...….……….…….…...7
Limitations of the Study………………...……………………………….….………..……9
Definition of Key Terms…………………………...…………………….……………....10
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE…………………………...... …….……………11
Introduction……………………………………………....………………………………11
Native vs. Nonnative English Speaker…………………………………………………...11
The Controversy of the Native Speaker Ideal…………………………………….……...13
Discussion on Strengths and Weaknesses of Native English-Speaking Teachers
(NESTs) and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)………………….…...16
Perceptions of Students toward Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs)
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and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)………………………………...21
An Effective English Language Teacher…………….………………………….….....…23
Effective L2 Instruction…………………………………….……………………..……..26
English as Foreign Language Education in Taiwan…………………………..…...…….31
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………………34
Introduction……………………………………………….……………..…….…………34
Research Design and Strategy….………………………………………..…….………...34
Re-statement of Research Questions……………………………………………...……..37
Sampling Description………………………………………………………..…………..38
Data Collection Procedures………………….………………………………..……….39
Instrumentation ……………………………...………..…………………….....………...40
Data Analysis and Presentation…………………………………………..…….………..45
Data Validity and Reliability………………………………...... ……………………..…47
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS……………………………..…………….48
Introduction…………………………………………………….……………..………….48
Section One: Demographic Information of the Participants…………………………..…49
Section Two: Students’ Perceptions toward NESTs and NNESTs………………..…….54
Quantitative Analyses on Research Questions………………………………..…78
Section Three: Students’ Learning Experiences with NESTs and NNESTs…………….84
Qualitative Analysis on Research Question…………………………..……….…90
CHAPTER V SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS…………...……102
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..……102
Summary of Research Findings…………………………………………………..…..102
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Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...106
Implications and Recommendations…………………………………………….….…..107
Recommendations for Future Studies…………………………………………….….…109
REFERENCES……………………………………….………………………………………...111
APPENDICES………………………………………………….………………………………133
Appendix A. The Approval of IRB……………………………………………….…….134
Appendix B. Informed Consent Form (English Version)………………………………136
Appendix C. Informed Consent Form (Chinese Version)……………………………...140
Appendix D. Questionnaire (English Version)…………………………………………144
Appendix E. Questionnaire (Chinese Version)…………………………………………151
VITA………………………………………………………………………………………..….158
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LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 2.1 Perceived Differences in Teaching Behavior between NESTs and
NNESTs…………………………………………………………...……..20
Table 3.1 Frequency Distribution of the Samples in the Four Universities………...39
Table 3.2 Internal Reliability Statistics of the Pilot Questionnaire…...... 45
Table 4.1 Frequency Distribution of the Questionnaire…………………….………49
Table 4.2 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Gender…………….....………50
Table 4.3 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Age…………………...………50
Table 4.4 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Majors……………….….....…51
Table 4.5 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ University Level…….…….…51
Table 4.6 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Years of Learning English…...52
Table 4.7 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Self-Rating of Overall
English Proficiency…..…………….....……………………………….....52
Table 4.8 Descriptive Statistics of the Numbers of NESTs and NNESTs Who
Taught the Participants’ English…………………………………..….….53
Table 4.9 Descriptive Statistics of the Courses Studied with NESTs and NNESTs
by the Participants……………………………...………………….……..54
Table 4.10 Percentage, Mean, and Standard Deviation of the Participants’
Learning Experiences with NESTs and NNESTs.……………………….55
Table 4.11 Percentage, Mean, and Standard Deviation of Teachers’ Performances in English education…………………………...…………….……..…….62
Table 4.12 Percentage, Mean, and Standard Deviation of The participants’
Overall Preference……………………………………….……..………..76
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Table 4.13 The Participants’ Languages Used on Items 29 and 30………………….85
Table 4.14 Descriptive Statistics of Items 29 and 30………………………..……….85
Table 4.15 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Gender Who Attempted
Items 29 and 30…………..…………………………………..…….…….86
Table 4.16 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Age Who Attempted
Items 29 and 30…………………………….……………..…………...…86
Table 4.17 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Majors Who Attempted
Items 29 and 30……………………………………..……………...... …87
Table 4.18 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ University Level Who
Attempted Items 29 and 30………………...……………..……..…87
Table 4.19 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Years of Learning English
Who Attempted Items 29 and 30...…………………………….…...……88
Table 4.20 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Self-Rating of Overall
English Proficiency Who Attempted Items 29 and 30…...……….……..88
Table 4.21 Descriptive Statistics of the Numbers of NESTs and NNESTs Who
Taught the Participants’ English and Attempted Items 29 and 30……….89
Table 4.22 Descriptive Statistics of Courses Studied with NESTs and NNESTs
by the Participants Who Attempted Items 29 and 30….…………..……90
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LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 3.1 Concurrent Triangulation Mixed Methods Design………………………37
Figure 4.1 The Participants’ Responses to Item 1………………………………...…56
Figure 4.2 The Participants’ Responses to Item 2…………………………….……..57
Figure 4.3 The Participants’ Responses to Item 3…………………………….……..58
Figure 4.4 The Participants’ Responses to Item 4……………………….…………..58
Figure 4.5 The Participants’ Responses to Item 5…………………………….……..59
Figure 4.6 The Participants’ Responses to Item 6………………………….………..60
Figure 4.7 The Participants’ Responses to Item 7…………………………………...60
Figure 4.8 The Participants’ Responses to Item 8………………….………………..61
Figure 4.9 The Participants’ Responses to Item 9………………………….………..62
Figure 4.10 The Participants’ Responses to Item 10………………………………….65
Figure 4.11 The Participants’ Responses to Item 11………………………………….65
Figure 4.12 The Participants’ Responses to Item 12………………………………….66
Figure 4.13 The Participants’ Responses to Item 13………………………………….67
Figure 4.14 The Participants’ Responses to Item 14………………………………….67
Figure 4.15 The Participants’ Responses to Item 15………………………………….68
Figure 4.16 The Participants’ Responses to Item 16………………………………….69
Figure 4.17 The Participants’ Responses to Item 17………………………………….69
Figure 4.18 The Participants’ Responses to Item 18………………………………….70
Figure 4.19 The Participants’ Responses to Item 19………………………………….71
Figure 4.20 The Participants’ Responses to Item 20………………………………….71
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Figure 4.21 The Participants’ Responses to Item 21………………………………….72
Figure 4.22 The Participants’ Responses to Item 22………………………………….73
Figure 4.23 The Participants’ Responses to Item 23………………………………….73
Figure 4.24 The Participants’ Responses to Item 24………………………………….74
Figure 4.25 The Participants’ Responses to Item 25………………………………….75
Figure 4.26 The Participants’ Responses to Item 26………………………………….75
Figure 4.27 The Participants’ Responses to Item 27………………………………….77
Figure 4.28 The Participants’ Responses to Item 28………………………………….77
Figure 4.29 Means of the Participants’ Responses to Items 3, 4, 11, and 27……...….82
Figure 4.30 Percentage Distribution of the Female Participants’ Responses to Item 27...…………………………………………………………...…….83
Figure 4.31 Percentage Distribution of the Male Participants’ Responses to Item 27…………………………………………………………...………83
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
In the 21st century, English is no doubt the most commonly spoken language
(Jeon & Lee, 2006; Foley, 2006). As a global language, English has attracted a dramatic number of people to learn English as their second or foreign language during the past several decades (Block, 2002; Crystal, 2003; Holliday, 2005; Nunan, 2001). According to
World Languages and Cultures (2010), the importance of learning the English language in the global market include: (a) increasing global understanding, (b) improving employment potential, (c) improving chances for entry into colleges or graduate schools,
(d) expanding study abroad options, and (e) increasing the understanding of another culture.
The craze of English language learning has swept into most of the Asian countries and Taiwan included without any exception. One of the reflections on this so called
“English fever” (Krashen, 2003) was announced by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in
Taiwan, which altered the beginning of English education from the “7th grade in middle school [in 1993] to the 5th grade in elementary school in 2001 academic year and to the
3rd grade in 2005” (Chang, 2008, p. 425). In addition, Yip (2011) discovered that English classes offered in university programs attracted more Taiwanese college students, ranging from a bachelor degree to any graduate degrees with majors ranging from Master of
Business Administration (MBA) to engineering, social sciences, and more. English is viewed as the most popular foreign language that people desire to master in Taiwan today.
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With a growing demand for English language learning, the need for well-educated and highly-qualified English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers has become more vital in Taiwan. Under this circumstance, there has been a debate throughout the Taiwanese educational system regarding who is better qualified to teach English, native or nonnative
English-speaking teachers. Admittedly, the dominant trend affirms that only native speakers of English qualify as English language teachers because of their English language competence. In Widdowson’s (1994) discussion, he stated, “there is no doubt that native speakers of English are preferred to in our profession. What they say is invested with both authenticity and authority” (p. 386). This perception leads to an assumption that Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) must be better than Non-
Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs), which has been widely ascertained in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT) in the present day (Davies, 2003).
However, the next question that springs to mind is: Do NESTs really perform better than NNESTs in English Language Teaching (ELT)? Phillipson (1992) introduced the phrase “native speaker fallacy”, which Mahboob (2005) defined as the “blind acceptance of native speaker norm in English language teaching” (p. 82) to deny the mystery of the ideal teacher of English as a native speaker. Also, Medgyes (1996) questioned the claim, “the more proficient in English, the more efficient in the classroom” (p. 40), since successful language instruction is also influenced by other variables such as experience, age, gender, personality, enthusiasm and training. Based on these aforementioned studies in this paragraph, one should not make a conclusion that
NESTs are better English instructors than NNESTs in ELT simply because NESTs have
English as their mother tongue.
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Most current research has been focused on whether NESTs have advantages over
NNESTs in ELT. However, if we take a close look at the NNESTs, they can actually be divided into two different subgroups: NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where
English is the dominant language and NNESTs who do not hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language. It is expected that the subgroup of NNESTs holding a degree from a country where English is the dominant language get more exposure to an authentic English accent, western classroom atmosphere and western culture (Vargas, 2012; Wood, 2010). With all of these factors, this subgroup of NNESTs has both the advantages of NESTs who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language and NNESTs who do not hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language. Whether this is true or not needs to be confirmed.
Statement of Problem
Substantial research has been conducted in the areas of NESTs and NNESTs (e.g.,
Amin, 1997; Benke & Medgyes, 2005; Braine, 1999; Chou, 2006; Davies, 2003; Gill &
Rebrova, 2001; Huang, 2006; Krashen, 2003; Lin, 2005; Medgyes, 1992, 1994, 2001;
Moussu, 2000; Phillipson, 1992; Sommers, 2005; Walker, 2006). Some of these studies explored NESTs and NNESTs in the global discourse of English education, but research focused only on the teachers’ self-perceptions or their NESTs or NNESTs colleagues’ perceptions on English instruction (e.g., Arva & Medgyes, 2000; Kamhi-Stein, 2004;
Llurda, 2004, 2005; Medgyes, 1999a; Moussu, 2000, 2006b; Rajagopalan, 2005; Todd &
Pojanapunya, 2009; Tsui & Bunton, 2000). Others made contributions to the teaching experiences of NESTs or NNESTs with an emphasis on English as a Second Language
(ESL) contexts rather than English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts (e.g., Amin,
3
1997, 2004; Bernat, 2008; Ellis, 2002; Ma, 2009a; Moussu, 2006a; Rao, 2010; Shin, 2008;
Tang, 1997).
However, not much research has been completed to evaluate the process and output of language teaching by NESTs and NNESTs from EFL students’ points of view.
The aforementioned studies have overlooked the fact that the group of NNESTs, in fact, can be divided into two subgroups: NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where
English is the dominant language and NNESTs who do not hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language. According to Vargas (2012) and Wood (2010),
NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language have the experiences from a western educational system, which may directly affect their
English proficiency and their ability to teach the English language. Thus, an assumption about NNESTs with a degree from English speaking countries would be they may have the capacities to develop a more efficient curriculum that applies effective pedagogy and devotes more enthusiasm to successfully assist students’ English learning due to their backgrounds of both their home country and the western culture. As a result, the proposed study that addressed NESTs and NNESTs in regard to their English teaching became a significant issue of discussion, especially with the growing demand for English education.
This study, therefore, synthesized the above knowledge gaps and aimed to provide a comparative investigation to Taiwanese EFL university students’ perceptions and preferences toward NESTs and NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where
English is the dominant language by addressing the differences of their EFL teaching.
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Besides, the positive or negative experiences those students had while learning from
NESTs and NNESTs were also examined in the study.
Conceptual Framework
The target of this study was to gain in-depth understanding of Taiwanese university students’ perceptions toward their NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English language instruction, which contained various areas such as students’ preferences toward the two groups of teachers, the performances of NESTs and NNESTs in their English education, and students’ learning experiences. The conceptual framework, hence, was derived from one particular perspective: native and non-native speakers concerning language proficiency and teaching styles. Specifically, the lens was used to guide and raise research questions as to what the significant issues were and how they pertained to the problem being studied.
This study adopted Al-Omrani’s (2008) questionnaire with some modifications.
Al-Omrani designed his questionnaire based on a perspective that NNESTs could be just as effective English teachers as NESTs. Originally, he insisted on the idea that native speakers of English were inherently better English teachers; he changed his mind since he was taught by a NNEST in a vocabulary class. The NNEST was familiar with students’ learning difficulties, utilized appropriate teaching materials and methods of vocabulary, and provided effective strategies that were suitable for learners. Hence, with all these merits, Al-Omrani believed NNESTs were the group of teachers who were capable, patient, helpful and friendly.
In this study, the researcher held a similar perspective as Al-Omrani: NNESTs could be just as effective English teachers as NESTs were. Therefore, Al-Omrani’s (2008)
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questionnaire was modified after a pilot study to fit this study, which investigated
Taiwanese university students’ perceptions and preferences toward NESTs’ and
NNESTs’ English instruction.
Purpose of the Study
Due to a significant increase in the demand for English education worldwide, studies of NESTs and NNESTs are necessary and important. However, the research did not just simply probe into the issues of NESTs and NNESTs; the purpose of the study was to increase our understanding of whether NNESTs, who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language, performed better than NESTs in English education within EFL contexts. This study would be an attempt to explore Taiwanese university students’ perceptions and their preferences toward NESTs’ and NNESTs’ teaching strategies in different language skill areas. The difficulties the students faced and some positive experiences they learned in class were also discussed.
The study did not focus on indicating and determining who was better at teaching
English skills; on the contrary, it examined learners’ perceptions regarding their NESTs and NNESTs, who were more effective, unique, or contributive to English education.
Moreover, the research aimed to create awareness in regard to this area of focus and used the information to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of NESTs and NNESTs, so both teachers could benefit from them. The findings made implications for instructional approach selection and curriculum development in English education in order to meet both teachers’ and students’ demands. Last but not least, the research study stood to contribute a basis for future research in the field of ELT.
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Research Questions
Based on the rationale the study conducted, the quantitative and qualitative research questions had been designed to investigate university students’ perceptions and preferences toward their NESTs and NNESTs in English education. Specifically, the research questions drew on the differences between NESTs and NNESTs regarding their
EFL instruction in Taiwan. The following were the research questions that guided the study:
Quantitative research questions
1. What are Taiwanese university students’ perceptions in regard to the English
language instruction of Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
2. From which group of teachers do Taiwanese university students prefer to learn
English, Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) or Non-Native English-
Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) and why?
Qualitative research question
3. What positive and negative experiences do Taiwanese university students face when
learning English from Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
Significance of the Study
This study provided valuable information relating to the issues of NESTs’ and
NNESTs’ English teaching and learning, which could be categorized into the following areas. First of all, previous research with empirical studies stressed the perception of advantages and disadvantages between NESTs and NNESTs and then attributed the
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differences to teachers’ classroom behaviors (Arva & Medgyes, 2000; Benke & Medgyes,
2005; Jin, 2005; Kirkpatrick, 2006; Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2002; Mahboob, 2005;
Medgyes, 1994, 2003), which neglected students’ opinions and feedback. The study, therefore, not only picked up the missing link of students’ perceptions but also explored the insight into NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English education in different language skill areas.
By doing so, the findings may allow NESTs and NNESTs to develop an understanding of their distinct characteristics of teaching, so they would be able to build an effective curriculum by learning from each other’s unique experiences. In addition, through discussing the different challenges and positive experiences that students’ experienced in class, teachers would be able to adapt themselves to the needs of the students. Hopefully,
NESTs and NNESTs could have opportunities to realize how to improve their English teaching to better serve the needs of EFL students.
Secondly, research on the perceptions of EFL learners toward NESTs and
NNESTs is needed because research on these areas of focus started as early as the 21st century (Kamhi-Stein, 2004) and is still in the initial stages; the proposed research study attempted to respond to this need. This study investigated not only the perceptions and preferences of Taiwanese EFL students toward their NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English instruction, but also the two categories teachers’ teaching styles in different language skill areas.
Finally, the study had the potential to contribute to EFL or English as second language (ESL) teacher educational programs. Investigating NESTs’ and NNESTs’ different teaching strategies in the classrooms revealed teachers’ perceptions of the most efficient models of instruction in various language skill areas for EFL students. This
8
information could be used as valuable references to help other English language teachers who participated in teacher training programs. Also, through understanding the perspectives and experiences that NESTs and NNESTs brought to the classrooms, the teacher educational programs stood to better prepare English language teachers for becoming successful in learning and teaching English. To sum it all up, it was hoped that the research could benefit educators, language learners, curriculum planners, textbook writers, school administrators, and policy makers as well.
Limitations of the Study
Some limitations that might affect the findings are listed below:
1. The study focused only on university students’ responses toward their NESTs and
NNESTs. However, teachers’ own perceptions toward their colleagues and English
language teaching are also an important topic that should be addressed.
2. The research area of the study focused on the universities that were located in the
northern part of Taiwan. Thus, the findings might not represent the perceptions of all
Taiwanese EFL students, limiting its generalization.
3. The location of the research was limited to Taiwan only. In other words, the findings
might not be applicable when applied to other Asian or western countries.
4. Since the researcher was also a non-native English speaking learner, the researcher
might unintentionally bring personal biases into data analyses and interpretations,
making the issue of researcher bias another limitation for the study.
5. The honesty of participants on the responses to the questionnaire would definitely
influence the validity of the findings in this study.
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Definition of Key Terms
1. English as a Foreign Language (EFL):
English is not the primary language in Taiwan; hence, English is a “foreign” language
rather than a second language. English as a Foreign Language (EFL), then, is
explained as someone who learns English in a non-English-speaking country (Harmer,
2007).
2. English Language Teaching (ELT):
ELT is explained as “the practice and theory of learning and teaching English for the
benefit of people whose first language is not English” (Harmer, 2007).
3. English as a Second Language (ESL):
Learning English in a country where English is dominantly spoken. For example,
students from non-English-speaking countries who come to the U.S. and Canada for
an extended period of time learn English as a second language (Harmer, 2007).
4. Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs):
In this study, NESTs were referred to as English teachers who acquired English as a
first language and speak it as their mother tongue.
5. Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs):
In this study, NNESTs were referred to as English language teachers who were born
in Taiwan with Chinese as their first language. The researcher further limited
NNESTs to those who received a degree from an English-speaking country.
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Introduction
This study aimed to investigate Taiwanese university students’ perceptions and preferences toward their Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) in English education. An overview of literature associated with the study is presented in this current chapter, which is divided into seven sections: (1) native vs. nonnative English speaker, (2) the controversy of the native speaker ideal, (3) discussion on strengths and weaknesses of native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs), (4) perceptions of students toward native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and non-native English- speaking teachers (NNESTs), (5) an effective English language teacher, (6) effective second language instruction, and (7) English as foreign language education in Taiwan.
Native vs. Nonnative English Speaker
As the English language expands all around the world, the term “nativeness” is actively discussed by researchers. In general, it means “who is a native speaker of
English and who is not” (Al-Omrani, 2008, p. 25). According to Braine (1999), Ellis
(2002), and Mahboob (2004), there is no precise definition for “native speaker,” because people cannot empirically define what a native speaker is. Medgyes (1999b) thus, indicated that “there is no such creature as the native or non-native speaker” (p. 9).
Most people believe Americans born in the U.S. to be the only native English speakers in the country. However, if we reconsider this statement, there is a group of non-
11
Americans who attend American daycare centers or kindergarten schools, resulting in learning English before they fully acquire their parents’ mother tongue. Should they be considered as native speakers of English? Also, how about those second generations of non-Americans who were born and have grown up in the U.S. and speak English with accurate American accent? Should they be categorized as native English speakers? Hence,
Medgyes (1999b) believed that “being born into a group does not mean that you automatically speak the language – many native speakers of English cannot write or tell stories, while many non-native speakers can” (p. 18). Kramsch (1997) added that “native speakership … is more than a privilege of birth or even of education” (p. 363).
Modiano (1999) indicated that the ability to use English in an appropriate and effective way decides whether someone is proficient in speaking English or not. In other words, “nativeness should not be related with birth, because birth does not determine proficiency in speaking English” (Al-Omrani, 2008, p. 27). Al-Omrani (2008) indicated five features that could determine whether someone was native English speaker or not (p.
28):
The linguistic environment of the speaker’s formative years.
The status of English in his/her home country.
The length of exposure to English.
His/her age of acquisition.
His/her cultural identity.
In this study, the researcher referred to English teachers who acquired English as a first language and spoke it as a mother tongue as native English-speaking teachers
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(NESTs), while English teachers who spoke or acquired English as a second or foreign language were referred to as non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs).
The Controversy of the Native Speaker Ideal
There is a stereotype in English instruction that a native speaker by nature is the best person to teach his or her native language. The myth of the idealized native speaker originated from Chomsky (1986). He believed that “linguistic theories primarily explained the actual performance of an ideal native speaker who knew his language perfectly and was not affected by such irrelevant grammatical elements as a distraction, a lot of interest or attention in a homogeneous speech community” (Liaw, 2004, p. 36). To be more specific, he viewed grammar of a language as “a description of the ideal speaker- hearer’s intrinsic competence” (p. 4) that coincided to the linguistic intuition of an ideal native speaker. Native speaker, thus, was viewed superior in the English language; on the contrary, a nonnative speaker, whose native language was one other than English, bore the negative stereotype and experienced a disadvantage in terms of recognition and employment (Bae, 2006). The following examples support this statement.
Freudenstein (1991) demonstrated a policy statement, which indicated that the standard foreign language teachers within European countries should be a native speaker of a language. Ngoc (2009) claimed that only native speaker teachers were capable to teach an authentic language in daily life because they had “a better capacity in demonstrating fluent language, explaining cultural connotations, and judging whether a given language form was acceptably correct or not” (p. 2).
Moreover, Phillipson (1992) pointed out that NESTs who had better English competence were more qualified to teach than NNESTs. Clark and Paran (2007)
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described a hiring policy implemented among numerous ESL and EFL institutions, which emphasized only NESTs were qualified to be recruited because “students do not come to be taught by someone who doesn’t speak English” (Thomas, 1999, p. 6). The mystery of the native speakers was that they were better English teachers due to a better command of the English language, while the negative stereotype of the NNESTs had been widely disseminated in present day (Bulter, 2007; Davies, 2003; Lee, 2005). Admittedly, this theory has influenced the perceptions of language teachers, students, and the public, which leaves little room for NNESTs in the field of ELT.
However, there have been several arguments against this assumption (Barratt &
Kontra, 2000; Benson, 2012; Medgyes, 2001; Modiano, 1999; Moussu & Llurda, 2008;
Sommers, 2005; Thomas, 1999; Wu & Ke, 2009). These opposite opinions believed that
English teachers should not be valued just by their first language; other factors such as teaching experience, professional preparation, and linguistic expertise were equally important to represent a good foreign language teacher model. Medgyes (1992) claimed that NNESTs were effective and should be equally likely to reach professional success in the English instruction. Phillipson (1992) argued that NNESTs,
may, in fact, be better qualified than native speakers, if they have gone
through the complex process of acquiring English as a second or foreign
language, have insight into the linguistic and cultural needs of their learners, a
detailed awareness of how mother tongue and target language differ and what is
difficult for learners, and first-hand experience of using a second or foreign
language (p. 15).
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Medgyes (2001) explained that both NESTs and NNESTs could be equally good teachers; however, NNESTs could further “provide a better learner model, teach language-learning strategies more effectively, supply more information about the English language, better anticipate and prevent language difficulties, and be more sensitive to their students” (p.
436).
Cheng and Braine’s (2007) study served as an example along the same line. In their research, EFL students in Hong Kong universities were investigated for their attitudes and opinions towards NESTs and NNESTs, the pros and cons of the teachers from students’ points of views, and the capability of these teachers to assist students’ academic learning. The results revealed that both students and their families showed positive attitudes to Hong Kong EFL NNESTs. This surprising point contradicted a previous result (Lee, 2004) which had revealed the negative perceptions of students’ families toward EFL teachers. Looking more closely, participants did not face any problems regarding a teacher’s “nativeness;” instead, they believed that NNESTs taught
EFL effectively with no genuine differences while comparing to NESTs. In this case of
NNESTs, their ability to empathize with students, a shared cultural background, and their stricter expectations were seen as strengths. Another significant result of the study was that senior students showed a more positive attitude toward NNESTs than other lower grade participants. The result might suggest that beginning EFL students entered the learning process with the view that NESTs were better than NNESTs, but the perception changed with experience (Lee, 2004).
Overall, it was difficult to make a straightforward comparison on the better qualified teacher between NESTs and NNESTs, particularly when realizing the following
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facts: (1) teachers were educated or taught rather than born with native like competence or proficiency (Kim, 2008) and (2) effective teaching included many different elements, not simply the ability to sound like a native speaker (Laborda, 2006; Ngoc, 2009).
Discussion on Strengths and Weaknesses of Native English-Speaking Teachers
(NESTs) and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)
There have been debates on whether NESTs are better language instructors than
NNESTs, and no agreements have been reached on this controversial issue. Even so, the strengths and weaknesses of NESTs and NNESTs have been examined and documented in the field of ELT. Regarding the positive aspects of NESTs, Villalobos Ulate and
Universidad Nacional (2011) noted that NESTs included the following characteristics: (1) subconscious knowledge of rules, (2) intuitive grasp of meanings, (3) ability to communicate within social settings, (4) range of language skills, (5) creativity of language use, (6) identification with a language community, (7) ability to produce fluent discourse, (8) knowledge of differences between their own speech and that of the
“standard” form of the language, and (9) ability “to interpret and translate into the L1 (p.
62). Stern (1983) further indicated that NESTs’ linguistic knowledge, proficiency or competence of the target language was a crucial reference for the concept of language proficiency in English teaching. Widdowson (1992) pointed out that a NEST could be a reliable informant of linguistic knowledge due to their native language learning experiences.
Similarity, according to Medgyes’ (2001) study, NNESTs tended to have advantages in terms of six characteristics: (1) good role models for imitation, (2) effective providers of learning strategies, (3) supplies of information about the English language,
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(4) better anticipators of language learning difficulties, (5) sensitive and empathetic to language learners’ needs and problems, and (6) facilitators of language learning as a result of a shared mother tongue (p. 436). Phillipson (1992) explained that the L2 learning experiences of NNESTs detailed the awareness of how the mother tongue and the target language differed and what was difficult for learners, which gave insight into the linguistic and cultural needs of learners. Cook (2005) indicated that NNESTs
“provide models of proficient [second language] users in action in the classroom, and also examples of people who have become successful [second language] users” (p. 57).
Modiano’s (2005) study further showed that NNESTs would be more aware of learning an international variety of English and would be in a better position to encourage diversity since they did not belong to a specific variety of English. As a result, students would “learn more about how English operates in a diverse number of nation states so that they can gain better understanding of the wide range of English language usage” (p.
40).
Thus, Medgyes (1992) concluded that an ideal NEST was the one who had achieved a high level of proficiency in the learners’ native language; as for the ideal
NNESTs, one should achieve near-native proficiency in English (p. 348). As for an ideal school, Medgyes (2001) suggested that the school should have NESTs and NNESTs complemented each other in their advantages and disadvantages (p. 441).
As for the weaknesses of NESTs, Tang (1997) enumerated several points: (1) different linguistic and cultural backgrounds from learners, (2) lack of the awareness of learners’ needs, (3) unable to perceive the difficulties of learning the target language, and
(4) unfamiliar with learners’ learning contexts. Shaw (1979) explained that NESTs lacked
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the necessary insights into lesson preparation and delivered because they were not willing to learn the host languages and cultures (Widdowson, 1992). In Barratt and Kontra’s
(2000) study, NESTs rarely made useful comparison and contrasts with the learner’s first language and did not empathize with students going through the learning process, which discouraged learners easily. Additionally, Boyle (1997) pointed out that NESTs might understand the accuracy in grammar but were not able to explain language rules like
NNESTs did.
Regarding the disadvantages of NNESTs, it is undeniable that NNESTs’ may not be as confident as NESTs in speaking aspects. Canagarajah (1999) and Moussu (2010) noted that NNESTs’ higher anxiety on their accent and pronunciation greatly influenced their English instructions and the interactions, which might lead to the failure of language teaching. Tang’s (1997) study revealed similar results that NESTs were superior in terms of speaking, accents and pronunciation while NNESTs’ shortcomings included the foreign accent, insufficient knowledge of American culture, and the lack of self- confidence (Moussu, 2006a).
While discussing the different teaching behaviors, Arva and Medgyes’ (2000) study explored the different teaching styles between NESTs and NNESTs based on their backgrounds of language, qualifications, and experiences. The results showed that
NESTs tended to implement a wider variety of cultural resources and more structured activities, such as newspapers, posters, and videos, rather than a formal textbook. Besides,
NESTs often failed to manage the time for class discussion and did not provide a fair opportunity for each student to participate. NNESTs, on the contrary, preferred a step-by- step approach based on course books. The atmosphere in class was formal with less
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interaction with students. NNESTs better explained language rules, served as a role model for students, and demonstrated how to make sense of the English language.
Furthermore, Medgyes’ (1994) investigated the teaching behaviors of 325 NESTs and
NNESTs. The following table shows the results of teachers’ self-perceptions (see Table
2.1).
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Table 2.1. Perceived Differences in Teaching Behavior between NESTs and NNESTs
NESTS NNESTs Use of English Speak better English Speak poorer English Use real language Use “booklish” language Use English more confidently Use English less confidently General Attitude Adopt a more flexible approach Adopt a more guided approach Are more innovative Are more cautious Are less empathetic Are more empathetic Attend to perceived needs Attend to read needs Have far-fetched expectations Have realistic expectations Are more casual Are stricter Are less committed Are more committed Attitude to Teaching Language Are less insightful Are more insightful Focus on: Focus on: Fluency Accuracy Meaning Form Language in use Grammar rules Oral skills Printed work Colloquial registers Formal registers Teach items in context Teach items in isolation Prefer free activities Prefer controlled activities Favour groupwork/pairwork Favour frontal work Use a variety of materials Use a single textbook Tolerate errors Correct/punish errors Set fewer tests Set more tests Use no/less first language (L1) Use more first language (L1) Resort to no/less translation Resort to more translation Assign less homework Assign more homework Attitude to Teaching Culture Supply more culture information Supply less cultural information
Note. Adopted from The non-native teachers by Peter Medgyes, 1994, London: MacMillan.
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As Table 2.1 (p. 20) demonstrates, the teaching behavior between the two groups of teachers has a number of significant differences. However, “different does not imply better or worse” (Medgyes, 1994, p. 76). That is, teachers should be valued solely on the basis of their professional virture, regardless of their language background (Arva,&
Medgyes, 2000; Watson-Todd & Pojanapunya, 2009).
In Smith et al. (2007) personal observations, teachers taught as they were taught, and the strongest predictor of language teaching success was having successful foreign or second language classroom learning experiences. That is, successful language learning classroom experiences play a crucial factor for both NESTs and NNESTs alike, which lead them to achieve the route of successful teaching (Cheng, Chen, & Cheng, 2012).
Hence, Medgyes (1992) concluded, “the more proficiency in English, the more efficient in the classroom is a false statement” (p. 347).
Perceptions of Students toward Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs)
and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)
In the past few years, studies on examining the differences between NESTs and
NNESTs from students’ points of view had been recognized by researchers. This is crucial because “students, by nature, are the consumers of their teachers’ product and, as a result, can offer valuable feedback on and insight into the discussion” (Torres, 2004, p.
13).
In regard to Lasagabaster and Sierra’s (2005) study in the Basque Autonomous
Community of Spain, there were 76 EFL undergraduate students who completed a Likert scale questionnaire about their preferences toward NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English instruction. The results showed that students preferred to learn with NESTs in general,
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but the differences in preferences for NESTs and NNESTs were based on specific language skill areas. For example, learners preferred NESTs in “the production skills of speaking, pronunciation, and writing” (p. 136), while a swing towards NNESTs when it came to the teaching of grammar.
Liu and Zhang (2007) surveyed and interviewed 65 third year college students majoring in English language and literature in South China to determine the differences between NESTs and NNESTs in terms of attitude, means of instruction and teaching results. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference found between the two groups of teachers. That is, students perceived both groups as hardworking and competent. Specifically, the foreign teachers’ approaches to text materials were more varied, while Chinese teachers were believed to be more effective in teaching test- oriented courses such as Comprehensive English and Business English.
In another study that investigated 32 ESL students’ perceptions toward their
NESTs and NNESTs, Mahboob (2004) utilized a novel and insightful “discourse- analytic” technique. The participants were required to write an essay about their opinions in regard to their NESTs and NNESTs. The results showed that ESL students had no preference for NESTs and NNESTs, since the two categories of teachers were perceived to have strengths and weaknesses in English teaching. Some participants believed NESTs as better teachers of vocabulary and culture, while others supported NNESTs for the using of good teaching methods, the ability to answer students’ questions, and being responsible for their English instruction.
Similar results could be found in Park’s (2009) study. No overall preferences for
NESTs over NNESTs were concluded by 177 Korean university students while
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investigating their preferences for English language teachers. It was remarkable that the participants in this study considered that an integration and cooperation of NESTs and
NNESTs was appropriate and workable to enhance the possibility of learner’s academic success.
The related studies discussed above indicated no consensus in regard to the ideal
English language teacher, native or nonnative. They showed that “both NESTs and
NNESTs have their own merits and demerits and it is unfair to judge one group based on their disadvantages” (Alseweed, 2012, p. 45). Celik (2006), therefore, emphasized the need for NESTs and NNESTs to embrace each other and to work in a partnership; for example, co-teaching between NESTs and NNESTs could contribute to the improvement of the teaching quality of both of them (Liu, 2008).
An Effective English Language Teacher
According to Arikan (2010), “teacher effectiveness is one of the most profound factors affecting the quality of the language learning process” (p. 210). A question, thus, comes to mind: What is a good English language teacher? According to Astor (2000), a qualified teacher of English should be “a professional in at least three fields of knowledge: pedagogy, methodology, and psycho - and applied linguistics” (p. 18). Borg (2006) further provided five different criteria to identify the characteristics of good English language teachers: “personal qualities, pedagogical skills, classroom practices, subject matter and psychological constructs such as knowledge and attitudes” (p. 8). In this regard, simply being a native or non-native speaker of the mother tongue language would not be used to identify as an effective English language teacher. Rather, all these above areas and criteria must be learned and practiced by language teachers (Astor, 2000). That
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is, NESTs would not have a good awareness of the cultural background of a host country without a proper education. Similarly, NNESTs might know grammar but would still need to be educated in methodology selections or classroom practices (Moussu, 2006a).
Furthermore, Arikan, Taser and Sarac-Suzer’s (2008) research conducted from
Turkish students’ perspectives had shown the following qualities as indicators of being an effective EFL teacher: having personal strategies to teach, maintaining positive teacher- student interaction, creating a positive classroom atmosphere, being a role model, being knowledgeable on target cultures, possessing positive personal characteristics such as being friendly to students, having correct pronunciation of the English sounds, teaching with effective classroom materials and by using technology, and giving positive reinforcement (p. 43-44).
Likewise, in Alkhawaldeh’s (2011) study, an effective English language teacher was categorized into five teacher functions:
Teacher acts as communicator who needs to be able to communicate
effectively and processes strategies to comprehend what students say.
Teacher acts as an educator who is responsible for subject area instruction
and should also select educational materials and provide learning
opportunities that encourage EFL learner’s learning.
Teacher acts as evaluator whose decisions have important consequences for
students.
Teacher acts as educator who demonstrates information by language.
Teacher acts as social agent by planning a central role in socializing children
to the views, norms and communication patterns. (p. 379)
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Furthermore, Tsujimoto (2001) stated that a good English language teacher must have passions in five different areas: language, teaching, learning, witnessing growth of their students, and showing their passion through their voice and manner through their persona. Hassett (2000) and Evrim (2007) believed that good English teachers should
“have a sense of purpose, have expectations of success for all students, tolerate ambiguity, demonstrate a willingness to adapt and change to meet student needs, reflect on their work, learn from a variety of models, and enjoy their work and students” (p. 10).
Remarkably, the aforementioned studies in the previous paragraphs did not identify language “nativeness” as a distinctive feature of an effective English language teacher. In other words, it is understandable that scholars believe an effective English language teacher is not necessarily born or originates from any English speaking country or has the English language as his/her mother tongue (Ates & Eslami, 2012). Then, an alternative term, Standard English (SE), was introduced to English education. Generally,
SE is “formed of written and spoken English language that is thought to be non-native for educated users” (Al-Omrani, 2008, p. 33). Within most ESL and EFL contexts, SE was the only target for non-native speakers of English (Goldstein, 1987). That is, it presented something that any foreign/second language speaker could hope to achieve or get close to.
Therefore, Al-Omrani (2008) suggested to replace the term “native” with the term
“standard,” since an effective English language teacher would be one who spoke SE regardless of his/her mother tongue.
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Effective Second Language (L2) Instruction
The effective second language (L2) teaching methodology
Based on Dixon et al. (2012), successful second language (L2) learning largely depended on effective L2 teachers. In this regard, adopting an effective L2 teaching methodology is essential for every English teacher, no matter NESTs or NNESTs.
According to Richards, Platt and Platt (1992), a methodology in language teaching could be explained as “a way of teaching a language which is based on systematic principles and procedures” (p. 228). Prabhu (1990) further commented that a method is “a set of activities to be carried out in the classroom and to the theory, belief, or plausible concept that informs those activities” (p. 162). Samaranyake (2010) concluded that a method is
“theoretically related to approach, is organizationally determined by a design, and is practically realized in procedure” (p. 20).
Grammar-Translation Approach, Direct Approach, Reading Approach,
Audiolingual Approach, Total Physical Response Approach, The Silent Way, The
Natural Approach, Communicative Functional National Approach, and Communicating
Language Learning were the L2 teaching methodologies that were commonly implemented in most L2 teaching classrooms (Brown, 2000). However, according to
Prabhu’s (1990) research, he argued that “there is no best method” because: a) different methods were best for different teaching contexts, b) all methods were practically true or valid, and c) the notion of good and bad methods was itself misguided (p. 161). Mitchell and Myles (2004) supported the idea and stated that “there can be ‘no one best method’…which applies at all times and in all situations, with every type of learner” (p.
261). To be more specific, different methods are appropriate for different students and
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should be used in different teaching contexts; hence, there is no single method that is suitable for every learner. Prabhu (1990) further indicated that what was best depends on whom the method was for, in what circumstances, and for what purpose because each method had its own strengths and weaknesses.
Likewise, Larsen-Freeman (2000) asserted that every L2 teaching method held its values, experiences, and fundamental views about teaching and learning. Also,
Kumaravadivelu (2005) indicated that the teacher him/herself should take into consideration the learners’ contexts and decide one effective method for them.
Specifically, every student has different perceptions, skills, abilities and interests.
Therefore, teachers have to realize that students would have better performances when they feel motivated by an interesting subject. Hence, being effective English language teachers, instructors had to understand students’ interests and further motivate them to be successful in the classroom (Al-Omrani, 2008).
Communicative Language Learning (CLT) method as an example is an approach that many L2 teachers consider as the most effective L2 teaching method. However, some researchers have argued that CLT is not an effective method and cannot be introduced to all L2 teaching situations, especially for EFL classrooms (Chen, 1988;
Chen, 2008; Chowdhury, 2003; Hu, 2002; Li, 1998; Rao, 2002; Sun & Cheng, 2002).
Some constraints have been reported from China, Japan, and Pakistan where language learners have shown a resistance to CLT. Samaranayake (2010) explained the situation and indicated that students in these Asian countries had been learning in a traditional setting where they relied on the information from teachers directly. In other words, teachers faced difficulties in engaging students in classroom activities.
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It is always a hard task for English teachers to pick the one method that can apply to all classroom settings and learners. Therefore, Samaranayake (2010) provided recommendations to English teachers by encouraging them to pick and choose among various methods, considering advantages and weaknesses of each method, and then further creating their own blend and effective L2 teaching methodology to fulfill students’ unique linguistic needs.
Integrating culture into classroom
Culture has raised a debate in most EFL contexts since language should not be taught without culture during the present era (Tseng, 2004). According to Nieto and
Booth (2009), education programs that included knowledge about culture were more successful because they provided insight into the learner’s behaviors. That is, knowing both L1 and L2 cultural backgrounds is essential for language learners; teachers ought to integrate cultural elements into the English language teaching process.
Krieger (2005) stated that the L1 culture should be incorporated into the L2 teaching curriculum so that students could reflect on their own culture and would be able to explain various features of L2 by using L1 cultural awareness. Moreover, Yin (2009) pointed out that foreign language learning and teaching must consider both the learner’s own culture and the culture where the target language operated since the learner’s L1 culture could promote the target language learning. For instance, while a foreign language learner tries to interact with an individual from another cultural background, it is necessary for the learner to understand not only the cultural behaviors of the foreigner, but also apply the learner’s own cultural thought and linguistic expressions.
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Based on Byram and Morgan’s (1994) opinion, language and culture were seen as a complete entity in foreign language classrooms. The reason is because “language is a part of a culture, and culture is part of a language” (Jiang, 2001, p. 328). In the educational setting in Taiwan, NESTs are equipped with the background of English language with a lack of sufficient knowledge of L1 culture; on the other hand, NNESTs have the same kind of cultural background as English language learners, but they may not be as familiar with English culture as NESTs are. Specifically, the two groups of teachers may not be able to successfully integrate both L1 and L2 cultures into English instruction.
For example, Wang (2003) indicated that NNESTs in Taiwan cared less about the L2 culture and viewed the teaching of culture as “an addendum” in language classrooms (p.
1). Tseng (2004), thus, argued that without background knowledge of the foreign culture, learners might feel frustrated, lonely, and demoralized with the unfamiliar surroundings.
Hai (1982) made a similar statement that language learners might have difficulties in getting their ideas across without the L2 cultural background information. To sum,
English teachers must have the basic understanding of both L1 and L2 cultures in order to properly facilitate students’ language learning.
Applying student’s first language (L1) into second language (L2) teaching and learning
In recent years, the topic whether language learners should be taught by their first language (L1) in the target language classroom has always been placed in the center of debate (Sharma, 2006). Researchers hold their own perspectives to either support or oppose it. Proponents for maximizing target language emphasized the benefit of language exposure. They asserted that the more language learners were exposed to the target
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language, the more quickly they would learn. The environment forced them to use the second language (L2) which was the only way they could succeed (Auerbach, 1993;
Curtin, 2005; Duff & Polio, 1990; Turnbull, 2001; Turnbull & Arnett, 2002).
However, He (2012) and Nazary (2008) stated that it could be advantageous for
English teachers to appropriately utilize students’ L1 in foreign language instruction. In
Dornyei and Kormos’ (1998) study, they found that language learners tended to apply the mother tongue as a communication strategy to make up the deficiencies in their L2. Also,
Carless (2002) indicated that the use of L1 or code switching from the foreign language to the mother tongue or vice versa was a common feature in EFL worldwide. In Tang’s
(2002) Chinese context study, she discovered the use of L1 in English instruction did not reduce learners’ exposure to the target language, but rather assisted their teaching and learning process. Rose (1999) suggested that the L1 and L2 should be used side by side:
“In an EFL setting there is the possibility of an in-depth comparison between learners’ L1 and English, which can be helpful in clarifying difficult points, such as grammar, vocabulary, pragmatics, and cultural subtleties” (p. 169).
But, it should be noted that “excessive and more frequent use of mother tongue can enable students to communicate in their own language only” (Sharma, 2006, p. 81).
Goldenberg (2006) pointed out that EFL teachers reported it was impossible to prohibit learners from using of their L1 in a language classroom. Therefore, English teachers should notice this issue and make a clear regulation for students to realize when to use and when not to use the L1. It was crucial for English teachers to organize and structure
L1 usage so that students would only use it in pedagogically beneficial ways (Krieger,
2005; Urdaneta, 2010; Vaezi & Mirzaei, 2007).
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English as Foreign Language Education in Taiwan
Confucianism’s influence on Asian education
Confucius and his philosophy had a great influence on Asian culture and its educational system (Kim, 2009; Rao, 2006). Confucius’s philosophy on learning emphasized “effortful learning, behavioral reform, pragmatic learning, acquisition of essential knowledge, and respectful learning” (Tweed & Lehman, 2002, p. 91). Under the impact of Confucian philosophy, Asian student’s view of teachers was always the model of knowledge and virtue (He, 1996).
A Chinese saying, “One day’s teacher, a lifetime master,” serves as a good example for realizing how Confucianism affects Asian educational culture. This Chinese proverb indicates that students have to pay their respect to the teacher always, no matter how long the teacher has taught them (Huang & Brown, 2009). In other words, in most
Asian countries, teachers are at the top of the classroom hierarchy, and students are the passive and silent recipients. As a result, a teacher-centered perspective has long prevailed in the Taiwanese educational culture.
Under the impact of Confucianism, the traditional teacher-centered educational model explains the English teaching and learning atmosphere in Taiwan, which can be traced back to the 1950s (Chu, 2003). Under this educational model, students are expected to only watch and listen in the classroom since they believe teachers always transfer the “correct” information. That is, students have to obey teachers’ words without any choice. Actively asking questions could be seen as an act that threatens the teachers’ authority (Tatar, 2005). In other words, Taiwanese teachers are the only authority in the classroom. Consequently, this one-way interaction causes Taiwanese EFL learners to
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become passive and silent receivers of knowledge who participate less in classroom activities or group discussions. As Liu (1998) concluded, this group of students “offer little input to the class” (p. 8).
“Although the Ministry of Education has issued new curriculum standards based on the Communicative Teaching Approach, Taiwanese English teachers are not using this approach [,] and teacher-centered practices remain dominant” (Huang, 2001, p. 154).
Consequently, the teaching and learning strategies that focused on talk, discussion, and sharing, such as cooperative learning, were neglected by the EFL context in Taiwan (Lai,
2002).
EFL context in Taiwan
In Taiwan, English is considered as a major foreign language in most universities
(Kawamura, 2011). Generally, EFL education for English majors in Taiwanese universities consists of a four-year program that offers foundational training courses in the skill areas of listening, speaking, reading, and translation (Rao, 2010). In each subject matter, teachers devote efforts to create effective and compact texts, as well as establish an English learning environment to develop students’ linguistic competence.
It should be mentioned that the English language education in Taiwan followed an exam-driven educational system (Huang & Brown, 2009). To become eligible for higher education, students in the highest level of senior high schools needed to take the Joint
College Entrance Examination, in which their English language proficiency will be assessed. As a result, the main target of English teachers is to assist their students to perform better as well as get higher scores in the English part of examination. For this purpose, “grammar-translation method” was widely utilized in which teachers focused
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primarily on grammar construction and vocabulary building, rather than comprehension and information exchange (Azar, 2007; Chang, 2011; Huang & Brown, 2009). Within this method, students are taught the basic Chinese grammar structure and directly translate it into English. EFL learners are encouraged to memorize all the grammar rules and sentence constructions as well as “cram up” vocabulary and idioms in order to perform well on examinations. Consequently, Taiwanese university students were competent in the English language skills that were tested but could not use the language to communicate (Yeh, 2005).
Nevertheless, proficiency in a language represented not only memorizing the vocabulary, semantics, syntax, or phonology; students should be able to successfully integrate the knowledge they learned into appropriate forms of communication (Bagheri,
Rahimi, & Riasati, 2012). In order to correct the deficiency of Taiwanese English language education system, the government of Taiwan has formulated language policies to improve students’ communicative proficiency (Research Development and Evaluation
Commission, Executive Yuan, 2002). Particularly, one policy is to increase the percentages of NESTs in university English education to try to create the environment for students to improve their speaking skills. Therefore, investigation of students’ perceptions toward NESTs and NNESTs becomes a crucial and emergent task.
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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
Introduction
Based on the discussion in Chapter II, a more in-depth investigation of the perceptions of Taiwanese university English as Foreign Language (EFL) students toward their Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native English-Speaking
Teachers (NNESTs) in English education was needed, especially in the issues related to language teaching skills, students’ learning experiences and their preferences of learning with NESTs and NNESTs. The current chapter describes the research methodology used and procedures of the study, which were categorized as follows: (1) research design and strategy, (2) re-statement of research questions, (3) sampling description, (4) data collection procedure, (5) instrumentation, (6) data analysis and presentation, and (7) data validity and reliability.
Research Design and Strategy
This study utilized a mixed methods design that combined both quantitative and qualitative research approaches to collect and analyze data during the research process
(Creswell, 2009). Based on Bazeley (2004), quantitative and qualitative research approaches were distinguished by “the type used (text or numeric; structured or unstructured), the logic employed (inductive or deductive), the type of investigation
(explanation or confirmatory), the method of analysis (interpretive or statistical), and the approach to explanation (variance theory or process theory)” (p. 142). For example,
Ivankova, Creswell, and Stick (2006) indicated that the mixed method research employed
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various methods, taking advantage of the strengths of each to allow for a more robust analysis and to find the most definitive, reliable, and conclusive answers. That is, by mixing the two methods of research, “one method can be nested within another method to provide insight into different levels or units of analysis” (Creswell, 2003, p. 16). Creswell
(2003) further posed three major reasons for conducting a mixed methods study. First of all, by converging or triangulating the results, mixed methods provided more effective information than either qualitative or quantitative research alone. One advantage of mixed methods research was that it allowed the triangulation of findings from qualitative and quantitative approaches, reducing potential bias from either method of data collection or analysis. Secondly, the results from one method could enrich the information extracted from the other. Finally, quantitative measures were developed from the subjective data gathered by the qualitative research.
In the study, the researcher employed a concurrent triangulation mixed methods approach, in which “the researcher collects both quantitative and qualitative data concurrently and compares the two databases to determine if there is convergence, differences or some combinations” (Creswell, 2009, p. 213). Specifically, this model allowed researchers to triangulate multiple resources by comparing and contrasting quantitative and qualitative data at the same time (Clark, Huddleston-Casas, Churchill,
Green, & Garrett, 2008; Hanson, Creswell, Plano Clark, Petska, & Creswell, 2005), which helped to “separate quantitative and qualitative methods as a means to offset the weaknesses inherent within one method with the strengths of the other” (Creswell, 2009, p. 213). Hence, the purposes of applying concurrent triangulation mixed methods were to:
“converge the findings, validate one form of data through the other forms; transform the
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data for comparison; or generate data that will address different types of questions”
(Creswell, 2007, p. 118). By using the concurrent triangulation mixed method approach, the researcher can ensure that the participants are responding to the questionnaire as well as open-ended questions in the same mode to maintain the consistency of the results.
In this study, the researcher planned to conduct a QUANT-QUAL study where both sets of data had equal weight for collecting and analyzing. Also, the two studies merged and integrated side-by-side. Moreover, a non-experimental research strategy
(questionnaire) was used for quantitative data collection, which aimed to investigate
Taiwanese EFL students’ perceptions and preferences in regard to English education of
NESTs and NNESTs. As is widely acknowledged, the questionnaire was perhaps the most commonly employed instrument in educational research (Cohen & Manion, 1989), which was especially useful to explore the conditions in which the teaching/learning process took place from the point of view of teachers or students (Madrid, 2004).
Concurrent to gathering quantitative data, a phenomenological research approach with open-ended questions was employed to explore more about students’ learning experiences with the two groups of teachers. As a result, the concurrent triangulation mixed methods study aimed to bring together the strengths of quantitative and qualitative data to corroborate results (see Figure 3.1).
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Figure3.1. Concurrent Triangulation Mixed Methods Design
QUAN ＋ QUAL
Quantitative Qualitative Data Collection Data Collection
Quantitative Qualitative Data Analysis Data Analysis Data Results Compared
Note. Adapted from Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd Edition ed., p. 210) by John W. Creswell, 2009, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Re-statement of Research Questions
Based on the review of literature, three primary research questions associated with
Taiwanese university EFL students’ perceptions and preferences toward their NESTs and
NNESTs in English language education were developed for investigation. More specifically, the study aimed to answer the following research questions:
Quantitative Research Questions
1. What are Taiwanese university students’ perceptions in regard to the English
language instruction of Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
2. From which group of teachers do Taiwanese university students prefer to learn
English, Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) or Non-Native English-
Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) and why?
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Qualitative Research Question
3. What positive and negative experiences do Taiwanese university students face when
learning English from Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
Sampling Description
In the study, the participants for both quantitative and qualitative data collection were 184 university-level Taiwanese EFL students. They were randomly selected from four Taiwanese universities’ English programs from northern Taiwan: Applied English
Program in Ming Chuan University, Applied English Program in Yuanpei University,
Applied Foreign Language Program in Tatung University, and Foreign Language and
Applied Linguistic Program in Yuan Ze University. According to Trochim (2006), simple random sampling is a fair way to select a sample without bias issues, since every individual has the same opportunity of being chosen at any stage during the sampling process and researchers can generalize findings from samples and apply the results back to populations. In addition, all the participants needed to have the experiences of learning
English as a foreign language for at least seven years, and had at least two semesters learning with NESTs and NNESTs who were able to express their preferences towards their preferred teachers (see Table 3.1).
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Table 3.1. Frequency Distribution of the Samples in the Four Universities
Ming Chuan Tatung Yuanpei Yuan Ze Total University University University University Samples 50 41 50 43 184
Data Collection Procedures
The questionnaire includes 28 questions using a Likert scale as well as two open- ended questions that the researcher distributed to all EFL students who participated in the study. Since the English language was not the mother tongue language for the participants, both the English and Chinese versions of the questionnaires were provided, along with the consent forms and answer sheets for open-ended questions.
The data collection procedures were described as follows. First, the researcher randomly called about six universities located in northern Taiwan and explained the purpose of the study. Second, English teachers from four universities who volunteered their classes for this research were contacted by phone or regular email. Third, the researcher collected the name lists of students in each class and keyed the data into a
Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in a sequence from 1 to N (N= total population in the lists) to generate the data from a random sample formula. Then, the researcher chose about 50 students in each class, and there were 210 participants in total. Fourth, the researcher visited each class and asked for the permission from these selected EFL students to participate in the study. Fifth, before starting the questionnaire, the participants were asked to sign a consent form, which informed participants of the rights, voluntariness, and anonymity of the study. Next, after collecting the signed consent forms, the researcher introduced the questionnaire and open-ended questions to students and asked
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them to honestly answer every question. Finally, the participants were expected to complete the questionnaire and open-ended questions in 40 minutes. The researcher spent about three weeks collecting data. After collecting the data, the researcher counted the valid questionnaires and analyzed them by applying the computer software of Statistical
Packages for the Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 for the quantitative data and
ATLAS.ti version 7.0 for the qualitative data.
Instrumentation
The questionnaire in the study consisted of six sections: (1) consent form, (2) key definitions, (3) Individual Background Questionnaire (IBQ), (4) statements that measure students’ perceptions and preferences in regard to NESTs and NNESTs in English instruction, (5) open-ended questions related to students’ learning experiences, and (6) a personal information form. In the consent form, a brief statement about the study, the purpose of the questionnaire, and instructions of how to complete the questionnaire were clearly stated. In the key definitions part, a distinction between NESTs and NNESTs was briefly made, and the term of English as foreign language (EFL) was explained. At the end of the questionnaire, there was a personal information form, which asked each participant to provide a phone number and email address if they were willing to verify their responses later while the researcher analyzed the qualitative data.
Quantitative instrument
The IBQ and statements that measured students’ perceptions and preferences toward their NESTs and NNESTs in English teaching were used in collecting quantitative data. Since all of the respondents were Taiwanese EFL students, the statements in this section were conducted in two languages: the participants’ native language – Chinese
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(see Appendix E) and the target language – English (see Appendix D). The translation was proofread by one doctoral student in an education related major and two NNESTs in
Taiwan to ensure participants’ full understanding of the instructions and each statement.
In order to document the participants’ background information, the questions in the IBQ consisted of the participant’s gender, age, academic major, year(s) attending the university, the length of their study of English, and the numbers of NESTs and NNESTs who taught participants’ English. Moreover, the statements that measured students’ perceptions and preferences toward their NESTs and NNESTs in English teaching were categorized into three subscales and designed after Al-Omrani’s (2008) study. In Al-
Omrani’s (2008) study, an investigation of Saudi ESL and EFL students’ perceptions and beliefs regarding the advantages and disadvantages of learning English from NESTs and
NNESTs was conducted. With similar focuses in the areas of EFL contexts and students’ perceptions toward the English teaching between NESTs and NNESTs, this study, therefore, adopted some questions from Al-Omrani’s (2008) study with modifications to build up this part of the questionnaire.
Section one consisted of nine statements, which was designed to obtain information about several factors related to language learning such as the experiences of learning language with NESTs and NNESTs; learners’ problems and concerns; and learners’ motivation and anxiety. In section two, the 17 statements aimed to investigate the perceptions of participants toward learning with NESTs and NNESTs in the areas of oracy, writing, grammar, vocabulary, American culture, and the aspects of language learning. Section three targeted students’ overall preferences in regard to their NESTs and NNESTs; there were two statements included in this part.
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The participants were asked to read each statement and chose from a five point
Likert-scale type (Likert, 1932) items with the choices of (1) Strongly Disagree, (2)
Disagree, (3) Neutral, (4) Agree, and (5) Strongly Agree. The statements were designed to evaluate Taiwanese EFL students’ perceptions and preferences in regard to their
NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English teaching; hence, there was no right or wrong answer for each question.
Qualitative instrument
While collecting qualitative data, the questionnaire included two open-ended questions. Creswell (2003) introduced four types of qualitative data collection: interviews, observations, audio-visual methods, and documentation. Creswell (2003) further indicated that documents should include an official record of written open-ended questions. There were four advantages of written open-ended questions as stated by
Creswell (2003): (1) the actual words for participants could be remained, (2) the data could be accessed at anytime for both researchers and participants, (3) it was an unobtrusive source of collecting information, and (4) the data could be utilized as written evidence. Nevertheless, the shortcomings of using open-ended questions included the possibility that the response might be incomplete or might not be authentic, and transcription for computer entry was needed (Creswell, 2003).
Based on the research questions of the study, two open-ended questions were added to the questionnaire in order to further explore Taiwanese EFL students’ learning experiences with NESTs and NNESTs. For instance, the positive or negative experiences they had experienced in the classroom were examined. The two open-ended questions were presented in the last part of the questionnaire.
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Validity of the questionnaire
There were three types of validity of an instrument: content validity, criterion- related validity, and construct validity (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). According to
Salkind (2008), the findings of the study could possible remain in doubt if the researcher did not establish validity. Among the three types of validity, the researcher selected the content validity, which “is the extent to which the questions on the instrument and the scores from these questions are representative of all the possible questions that could be asked about the content or skills” (Creswell, 2005, p. 590).
A group of three Taiwanese NNESTs in linguistics and applied foreign language programs from two different universities in northern Taiwan were consulted to provide evidence of the questionnaire content validity. Based on Groves et al. (2009), experts offered guidance on “the wording of questions, the structure of questions, the response alternatives, the order of questions, instructions to interviews for administering the questionnaire, and the navigational rules of the questionnaire” (p. 260). The experts were asked to review the questionnaire to ensure that these items covered the research scope, including nine background information items and 30 quantitative and qualitative statements. All the three experts believed that the questionnaire was appropriate and comprehensive for the aims of this study.
Pilot test
A pilot test was conducted to “help produce a survey form that is usable” (Fink,
2006, p. 6) and increased opportunities for the researcher to run the final survey smoothly because poor questions were eliminated (Fink, 2006). The pilot test in this study consisted of two sections: individual background information and the questionnaire. The
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first section consisted of seven items using checklists and two fill-in-the-blank items. The second section included 28 items using the 5-point Likert rating scale (1=Strongly
Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree) and two open-ended questions. According to Johnson and Christensen (2012), individuals who were involved in the pilot questionnaire should be similar to the sample of the research study. Therefore, the researcher mailed the questionnaire to 10 Taiwanese university students from a university located in northern Taiwan and six of them returned completed questionnaire.
All the six participants had learned English in EFL contexts for more than nine years and had the experiences of learning English from at least five NESTs and five
NNESTs. It took one week for the researcher to collect the pilot questionnaire. The reviewers were asked to circle the items that did not capture the essence of the research scope and evaluate them in terms of clarity and sentence meanings. The researcher further asked them to detail the reasons for each circled item and provide ways to improve them. The reviewers took 30 to 40 minutes to review each statement in anonymity. Of these nine background information items and 30 quantitative and qualitative statements, 13 were revised because the reviewers found them to be uncertain, vague, confusing, or not grammatically correct. After deleting, rewording, and rephrasing, the researcher synthesized the 39 items of the questionnaire for this study.
Internal reliability of the pilot questionnaire
To determine the reliability of the pilot questionnaire, the researcher tested internal consistency for the 28 items by using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. Cronbach’s
Alpha is widely used in educational research (Yurdugul, 2008). There were three subscales. First, the Cronbach’s Alpha for the students’ learning experiences (items 1 to 9)
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was .779. Second, the Cronbach’s Alpha for the teachers’ performances in English education (items 10 to 26) was .764. Finally, the Cronbach’s Alpha for the students’ overall preferences (items 27 and 28) was .713 (see Table 3.2).
Table 3.2. Internal Reliability Statistics of the Pilot Questionnaire
Subscales N of Items Cronbach’s Alpha Students’ learning experiences 9 .779 Teachers’ performances in English education 17 .764 Students’ overall preferences 2 .713
Data Analysis and Presentation
Quantitative data analysis and presentation
Quantitative data was analyzed through descriptive statistics by using Statistical
Packages for the Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 and categorized into three areas: students’ learning experiences (Items 1-9), teachers’ performances in English education
(Items 10-26), and students’ overall preferences (Items 27-28). The researcher analyzed the quantitative data by using descriptive statistics to get percentages, means, and standard deviations. Furthermore, the researcher considered English learners of different
English proficiencies and different genders might have different preferences regarding their NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English instruction. Hence, the responses from different groups (English learners of different English proficiency levels and gender) were compared to see if there were any differences. Last but not least, the researcher summarized the quantitative data by creating a series of tables and figures.
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Qualitative data analysis and presentation
The researcher collected qualitative data from the two open-ended questions (Item
29-30). Since the questionnaire was provided in both Chinese and English versions, participants responded to open-ended questions in one of the two language versions. The researcher translated the answers into English and asked one Taiwanese doctoral student in the Bilingual Education Program and two NNESTs in Taiwan to double-check to make sure of the clarity and accuracy, if the responses were provided in Chinese. Upon the same nature, the grammar or spelling mistakes were not modified if the participants used
English to answer the open-ended questions. Due to the larger number of participants in this study, there were only fifty responses randomly selected for each open-ended question to list and categorize into themes.
Furthermore, the method, member checking, was adopted to give an opportunity for participants to check and approve particular aspects of the interpretation of the data they provided (Doyle, 2007; Merriam, 1988). It is a “way of finding out whether the data analysis is congruent with the participants’ experiences” (Curtin & Fossey, 2007, p. 92).
In order to maintain overall authenticity, the researcher randomly selected ten students to verify their transcribed responses.
The computer software, ATLAS.ti version 7.0, was applied to manage and systematically analyze a large amount of raw data. Creswell and Plano Clark (2007) shared five steps to analyze qualitative data, which included: “preparing the data for analysis, exploring the data, analyzing the data, representing the data analysis and validating the data” (p. 129). The researcher followed these steps, and the procedures of analyzing qualitative data were listed as follows:
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Transcribed the responses of the two open-ended questions into Microsoft Word,
and keyed in the transcribed data into ATLAS.ti version 7.0. software;
Analyzed the transcribed data to determine any prevailing themes and broke the
responses into small units;
Organized the responses and extra information into subcategories; and
Grouped the rising themes and made conclusions.
Data Validity and Reliability
The researcher consulted three NNESTs in English related programs to ensure all the questions in the questionnaire covered the research scope. Furthermore, after transcribing the qualitative data, the researcher asked for help from one doctoral student in an education related major and two NNESTs in Taiwan to verify each transcription.
Then, the researcher randomly chose ten participants to validate their responses by using follow-up email connections. Member checking, which is “taking data and interpretations back to the people from whom they were derived and asking them if the results are plausible” (Merriam, 1988, p. 169), was adapted to the qualitative data analysis. The purpose of using member checking was to double check the participants’ authenticity of each response to make sure the data were meaningful to be measured. The use of concurrent triangulation research design helped to ensure the reliability of the findings.
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CHAPTER IV
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Introduction
The study was aimed at exploring Taiwanese university students’ perceptions and preferences toward their Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-native
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) in English teaching and learning. Chapter Four presented the results of the statistics analysis, which originated from the three target research questions. The first objective was to find out the students’ perceptions in regard to the differences of NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English teaching. In addition, the second target research question was attempted to examine from which group of teachers the students preferred to learn from. Finally, the third objective was to explore the positive and negative experiences that the students faced during their English learning processes.
Since the study employed a concurrent triangulation mixed methods approach, a
QUAN – QUAL study was employed. The researcher analyzed quantitative data through descriptive statistics by using Statistical Packages for the Social Science (SPSS) version
20.0 package. Furthermore, the researcher utilized ATLAS.ti version 7.0. to manage and systematically analyze qualitative data.
The results were divided into three main sections: (1) the demographic data from the Individual Background Questionnaire (IBQ) which included the information related to: (a) participants’ gender, (b) age, (c) academic major, (d) college level, (e) years spent on learning English as foreign language, (f) overall proficiency in English level, (g) numbers of NESTs and NNESTs from which they have learned, (2) the respondents’
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perceptions toward the teaching of NESTs and NNESTs from the first three sections of the questionnaire (items 1-28), aimed to answer the first and second research questions, and (3) the participants’ learning experiences with NESTs and NNESTs from the open- ended questions (items 29-30), were used to explain the third research question.
The questionnaire was distributed to 210 participants. There were 193 participants who responded. However, nine questionnaires were excluded because some items were left unanswered. As a result, 184 respondents were considered valid for use in the study
(see Table 4.1).
Table 4.1. Frequency Distribution of the Questionnaire
Questionnaires Questionnaires Questionnaires Questionnaires Distributed Returned Excluded Used Total 210 193 9 184
Section One: Demographic Information of the Participants
In Section One, the participants’ background information such as gender, age, majors, college level, overall English proficiency and so on, were presented as follows.
Gender of the participants
Table 4.2 shows the participants’ gender. Among 184 participants, 143 (77.7%) were female and 41 (22.3%) were male. In general, female participants were about three times the male participants.
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Table 4.2. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Gender
Gender Total Female Male Participants Frequency 143 41 184 Percentage 77.7 22.3 100
Age of the participants
Table 4.3 presents the participants’ age. The age of the 184 participants ranged from 18 to 40; 57 (31%) participants were aged18 to 20, 122 (66.3%) participants were aged 21 to 23, and 5 (2.7%) participants were aged over 24. The average age of the participants was 21.0.
Table 4.3. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Age
Age Frequency Percentage 18 to 20 57 31.0 21 to 23 122 66.3 Over 24 5 2.7 Total 184 100
Major of the participants
Table 4.4 indicates the majors of the participants. Among the valid data, 100
(54.3%) participants were Applied English majors, 43 (23.4%) respondents were in the major of Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics, and 41 (22.3%) respondents were
Applied Foreign Language majors. Generally, the majority participants majored in
Applied English.
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Table 4.4. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Majors
Majors Frequency Percentage Applied English 100 54.3 Applied Foreign Language 41 22.3 Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics 43 23.4 Total 184 100
University level of the participants
Table 4.5 presents the respondents’ years of university study. Within the 184 participants, 30 (16.3%) respondents were sophomore students, 43 (23.4%) participants were junior students, and 111 (60.3%) participants were in a senior level. The majority of the respondents in this study were senior students; the average number of the participants spent in the university was 3.44 years.
Table 4.5. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ University Level
University Level Frequency Percentage 2 30 16.3 3 43 23.4 4 111 60.3 Total 184 100 Note. 2 = Sophomore Student; 3 = Junior Student; 4 = Senior Student
The participants’ year of learning English
Table 4.6 displays the number of years that the participants spent on learning
English. The valid participants’ English learning experiences ranged from 8 to 30 years.
One hundred (54.3%) participants had 8 to10 years of English learning experiences, 57
(31.0%) participants had 11 to 13 years of English learning experiences, 23 (12.5%)
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respondents had 14 to 16 years of English learning experiences, and 4 (2.2%) participants
had over 17 years of English learning experiences. Generally speaking, the average
number was 11.07 years among the 184 participants.
Table 4.6. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Years of Learning English
Years of Learning English Frequency Percentage 8 to 10 100 54.3 11 to 13 57 31.0 14 to 16 23 12.5 Over 17 4 2.2 Total 184 100
The participants’ self-rating of overall English proficiency
Table 4.7 shows the respondents’ self-rating of overall English proficiency.
Among the 184 participants, 23 (12.5%) respondents rated their English proficiency as
beginner level, 133 (72.3%) participants rated themselves in the level of intermediate,
and 28 (15.2%) participants marked their English proficiency as advanced. More
specifically, the number of participants who perceived themselves as intermediate
learners was four times larger than those who considered themselves beginners.
Table 4.7. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Self-Rating of Overall English Proficiency
English Proficiency Level Beginner Intermediate Advanced Total Participants Frequency 23 133 28 184 Percentage 12.5 72.3 15.2 100
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The numbers of NESTs and NNESTs who taught the participants’ English
Table 4.8 indicates the numbers of NESTs and NNESTs from whom the participants learned English. The average number of NESTs from whom participants received English instruction was 5.1. Specifically, 62 (33.7%) respondents received instruction from one to three NESTs, and 82 (44.6%) participants received instruction from four to six NESTs. Twenty-three (12.5%) respondents received instruction from seven to nine NESTs, and 17 (9.2%) participants received instruction from over 10
NESTs.
Regarding the numbers of NNESTs that participants learned English from, the average number was 9.5. To be more specific, 5 (2.7%) participants received English instruction from one to three NNESTs, and 40 (21.7%) respondents received English instruction from four to six NNESTs. Twenty-five (13.6%) participants received English instruction from seven to nine NNESTs, and 114 (62%) participants received English instruction from over 10 NNESTs.
Table 4.8. Descriptive Statistics of the Numbers of NESTs and NNESTs Who Taught the Participants’ English
Numbers of NESTs NNESTs NESTs and Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage NNESTs 1 to 3 62 33.7 5 2.7 4 to 6 82 44.6 40 21.7 7 to 9 23 12.5 25 13.6 Over 10 17 9.2 114 62.0 Total 184 100 184 100
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Courses studied with NESTs and NNESTs by the participants
Table 4.9 shows courses the participants were instructed by NESTs and NNESTs.
In the course of oracy, 172 participants were instructed by NESTs, and 129 participants were instructed by NNESTs. In reference to writing courses, 61 participants were instructed by NESTs, and 174 respondents were instructed by NNESTs. Regarding grammar courses, 55 respondents were instructed by NESTs, and 177 participants were instructed by NNESTs. In the courses of vocabulary, 83 respondents were instructed by
NESTs, and 171 participants were instructed by NNESTs. Finally, in regard to American culture courses, 121 participants were instructed by NESTs, and 80 respondents were instructed by NNESTs.
Table 4.9. Descriptive Statistics of the Courses Studied with NESTs and NNESTs by the Participants
Courses NESTs NNESTs Frequency Frequency Oracy 172 129 Writing 61 174 Grammar 55 177 Vocabulary 83 171 American Culture 121 80
Section Two: Students’ Perceptions toward NESTs and NNESTs
This section examined the participants’ perceptions and preferences toward their
NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English instruction. It was divided into three subsections based on the questionnaire: (1) students’ learning experiences (items 1 to 9), (2) teachers’ performances in English education (items 10 to 26), and (3) students’ overall preferences
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(items 27 to 28). The results of the three subsections were presented in Table 4.10, 4.11,
and 4.12. In addition, the researcher calculated the frequency, percentage, mean and
standard deviation of each item to demonstrate participants’ responses toward these
statements.
The participants reported their perceptions in terms of their learning experiences
with NESTs and NNESTs. Table 4.10 presents the results of items 1 to 9.
Table 4.10. Percentage, Mean, and Standard Deviation of the Participants’ Learning Experiences with NESTs and NNESTs
1 2 3 4 5 M SD Statements (SD) (SA) 1. I learn English better from F 3 16 80 75 10 3.40 .79 NNESTs because we share the same first language. P (%) 1.6 8.7 43.5 40.8 5.4 2. I learn English better from F 1 21 78 75 9 3.38 .75 NNESTs because we share P (%) 0.5 11.4 42.4 40.8 4.9 the same culture. 3. I feel motivated when I take F 6 49 97 27 5 2.87 .75 course with NNESTs. P (%) 3.3 26.6 52.7 14.7 2.7 4. I feel anxious when I take F 16 65 69 30 4 2.68 .92 course with NESTs. P (%) 8.7 35.3 38.0 16.3 2.2 5. NNESTs are better than F 3 21 69 77 14 3.42 .85 NESTs because they can understand my problems in P (%) 1.6 11.4 38.0 41.8 7.6 learning English. 6. NNESTs always understand F 1 12 73 84 14 3.53 .75 my questions and provide clear answers. P (%) 0.5 6.5 40.0 45.7 7.6 7. NNESTs are a good model F 2 17 106 51 8 3.25 .73 in learning English because they have gone through the same language learning P (%) 1.1 9.2 57.6 27.7 4.3 process. 8. In general, beginning F 3 20 59 85 17 3.51 .87 learners learn better with NNESTs because NNESTs apply Chinese into English P (%) 1.6 10.9 32.1 46.2 9.2 instruction.
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Table 4.10 continued
9. In general, intermediate and F 1 13 58 83 29 3.68 .84 advanced learners learn better with NESTs because they rely less on the Chinese P (%) 0.5 7.1 31.5 45.1 15.8 support and need more opportunities to practice their English. Note. 1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree M = Mean; SD = Standard Deviation; F = Frequency; P = Percentage
The above nine items in this subsection are presented as individual figures (Figure
4.1 to 4.9) as follows.
Item 1. Figure 4.1 (Mean=3.40, SD=0.79) shows that 46.2% of the participants
agreed that sharing the same first language with NNESTs helped them learn well in the
English subject. 43.5% of the participants stayed neutral, and 10.3% of the participants
disagreed.
Figure 4.1. The Participants’ Responses to Item 1
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Item 2. Figure 4.2 (Mean=3.38, SD=0.75) displays that over 45% of the respondents believed that they learned English better because they shared the same cultural background with their NNESTs; 42.4% of the participants indicated neutral;
11.9% of the participants disagreed.
Figure 4.2. The Participants’ Responses to Item 2
Item 3. Figure 4.3 (Mean=2.87, SD=0.75) presents data showing that about 30% of the participants considered they were not motivated when taking courses with
NNESTs, while 17.4% agreed they were motived. The majority of the respondents
(52.7%) answered neutral to this statement.
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Figure 4.3. The Participants’ Responses to Item 3
Item 4. Figure 4.4 (Mean=2.68, SD=0.92) shows that almost half of the participants (44.0%) believed they had not experienced anxiety when taking courses with
NESTs, and 18.5% of the respondents agreed with this statement. There were 38% of the respondents stayed neutral.
Figure 4.4. The Participants’ Responses to Item 4
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Item 5. Figure 4.5 (Mean=3.42, SD=0.85) illustrates that 49.4% of the participants agreed that NNESTs could better understand their English learning problems compared to NESTs. In the meanwhile, 38.0% of the respondents expressed neutrality. Only 13.0% of the participants disagreed.
Figure 4.5. The Participants’ Responses to Item 5
Item 6. Figure 4.6 (Mean=3.53, SD=0.75) reveals that the majority of the participants (53.3%) believed that NNESTs always understood their questions and provided clear answers. There were only 7.0% of the respondents disagreed and 40.0% of the participants stayed neutral with this item.
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Figure 4.6. The Participants’ Responses to Item 6
Item 7. Figure 4.7 (Mean=3.25, SD=0.73) displays that about 32% of the participants agreed that NNESTs were good role models in learning English because they had gone through the same language learning process as the participants. There were
57.6% of the participants indicated neutral, and 10.3% of the respondents disagreed.
Figure 4.7. The Participants’ Responses to Item 7
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Item 8. Figure 4.8 (Mean=3.51, SD=0.87) indicates that most of the participants
(55.4%) considered beginning learners learned better with NNESTs because the teachers applied Chinese into English instruction, in general; however, 12.5% of the respondents disagreed. Also, about 30% of the participants experssed neutrality.
Figure 4.8. The Participants’ Responses to Item 8
Item 9. Figure 4.9 (Mean=3.68, SD=0.84) shows that about 70.0% of the respondents believed intermediate and advanced learners learned better with NESTs because these groups of students relied less on the Chinese support and could have more chances to practice their English with NESTs. There were only a few participants (7.6%) who disagreed with this statement, and 32.1% of the participants indicated neutral.
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Figure 4.9. The Participants’ Responses to Item 9
The participants shared their perceptions regarding their teachers’ performances
in teaching English. Table 4.11 illustrates the findings of items 10 to 26.
Table 4.11. Percentage, Mean, and Standard Deviation of Teachers’ Performances in English Education
1 2 3 4 5 M SD Statements (SD) (SA) Oracy 10. In teaching oracy, NESTs F 0 7 46 92 39 3.89 .78 are better because they have standard P (%) 0 3.8 25 50.0 21.2 pronunciation. 11. I prefer taking oral courses F 1 5 57 80 41 3.84 .82 with NESTs because it forces me not to speak P (%) 0.5 2.7 31.0 43.5 22.3 Chinese. 12. I prefer learning oracy F 2 5 55 92 30 3.78 .79 with NESTs because they P (%) 1.1 2.7 29.9 50.0 16.3 are fluent native speakers.
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Table 4.11 continued
Writing 13. I prefer to learn writing F 0 15 68 85 16 3.55 .77 with Non-NESTs because I can describe what I want P (%) 0 8.2 37.0 46.2 8.7 to write in Chinese to my teachers. 14. NESTs teach writing F 3 17 75 77 12 3.42 .81 better than Non-NESTs because they know certain writing styles used in P (%) 1.6 9.2 40.8 41.8 6.5 English speaking countries. Grammar 15. NESTs teach grammar F 4 30 86 55 9 3.14 .79 better than Non-NESTs because they can provide different variations of P (%) 2.2 16.3 46.7 29.9 4.9 sentence structures in one specific grammar rule. 16. I prefer taking grammar F 1 8 70 85 20 3.63 .76 classes with Non-NESTs because they provide P (%) 0.5 4.3 38.0 46.2 10.9 Chinese explanations for the rules of English grammar. Vocabulary 17. I prefer taking vocabulary F 2 19 99 55 9 3.27 .76 courses with NESTs because they have bigger P (%) 1.1 10.3 53.8 29.9 4.9 wealth of vocabulary. 18. I prefer taking vocabulary F 0 62 72 90 16 3.63 .69 courses with Non-NESTs because they provide P (%) 0 33.7 39.1 48.9 8.7 explanations of unknown words in Chinese. American Culture 19. NNESTs incorporate F 0 11 68 94 11 3.57 .70 Chinese and American cultures into American P (%) 0 6.0 37.0 51.1 6.0 culture classes. 20. NESTs supply learners F 0 1 39 106 38 3.98 .67 with more information in P 0 0.5 21.2 57.6 20.7 the English language and (%) culture.
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Table 4.11 continued
Aspects of Language teaching 21. The teaching style of F 2 5 66 84 27 3.70 .79 NESTs ensures student P (%) 1.1 2.7 35.9 45.7 14.7 enjoyment of the lessons. 22. Non-NESTs are better F 1 11 115 47 10 3.29 .69 than NESTs because they frequently use Chinese to P (%) 0.5 6.0 62.5 25.5 5.4 teach English. 23. Most Non-NESTs do not F 4 22 73 66 19 3.40 .91 consider class activities, games, and out-of-class activities as resources of P (%) 2.2 12.0 39.7 35.9 10.3 English learning. 24. Non-NESTs make F 1 7 83 84 9 3.51 .68 comparison between Chinese and English while teaching, which helps P (%) 0.5 3.8 45.1 45.7 4.9 improve English learning. 25. Non-NESTs have great F 4 20 93 58 9 3.26 .80 teaching abilities in using different techniques and P (%) 2.2 10.9 50.5 31.5 4.9 methods. 26. To be an effective EFL F 1 5 52 82 44 3.88 .82 teacher, a person needs both experience and P (%) 0.5 2.7 28.3 44.6 23.9 qualification in teaching English. Note. 1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree M = Mean; SD = Standard Deviation; F = Frequency; P = Percentage
The above 17 items in this subsection are presented as individual figures (Figure
4.10 to 4.26) as follows.
Item 10. Figure 4.10 (Mean=3.89, SD=0.78) displays that the majority of the
participants (71.2%) agreed that NESTs were better in teaching oracy because they had
standard pronunciation. Only 3.8% of the respondents disagreed. There were 25.0% of
the participants indicated neutral.
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Figure 4.10. The Participants’ Responses to Item 10
Item 11. Figure 4.11(Mean=3.84, SD=0.82) reveals that the majority of the respondents (65.8%) preferred to learn oracy with NESTs because they could not use
Chinese in their classes. There were only a few participants (3.2%) who disagreed, and
31.0% of the respondents expressed neutrality.
Figure 4.11. The Participants’ Responses to Item 11
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Item 12. Figure 4.12 (Mean=3.78, SD=0.79) indicates that over 65% of the participants preferred learning oracy with NESTs because this group of teachers was considered as fluent native speakers. There were 3.8% of the participants who disagreed, and 29.9% of the participants indicated neutral.
Figure 4.12. The Participants’ Responses to Item 12
Item 13. Figure 4.13 (Mean=3.55, SD=0.77) illustrates that about 55% of the respondents preferred to learn writing with NNESTs because they could use Chinese to describe what they wanted to write in their assignments. Only 8.2% of the respondents expressed opposite opinions, and 37% of the participants stayed neutral about this item.
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Figure 4.13 The Participants’ Responses to Item 13
Item 14. Figure 4.14 (Mean=3.42, SD=0.81) indicates that 48.3% of the participants believed that NESTs taught writing better than NNESTs because they knew certain writing styles used in English speaking countries. About 40 % of the participants stayed neutral, and only 10.8% of the respondents disagreed.
Figure 4.14. The Participants’ Responses to Item 14
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Item 15. Figure 4.15 (Mean=3.14, SD=0.79) illustrates that 23.4% of the participants agreed that NESTs taught grammar better than NNESTs because they could provide different variations of sentence structures in a specific grammar rule. There were
18.5% of the respondents disagreed. The majority of the respondents (58.2%) indicated neutral.
Figure 4.15. The Participants’ Responses to Item 15
Item 16. Figure 4.16 (Mean=3.63, SD=0.76) displays that more than half of the participants (57.1%) preferred to take grammar courses with NNESTs because the teachers provided Chinese explanations for the rules of English grammar. There were only 4.8% of the participants disagreed, and 38.0% of the participants indicated neutral.
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Figure 4.16. The Participants’ Responses to Item 16
Item 17. Figure 4.17 (Mean=3.27, SD=0.76) indicates that 34.8% of the respondents preferred to take vocabulary courses with NESTs because they had bigger wealth of vocabulary than NNESTs; however, 11.4% of the participants disagreed. There were 53.8% of participants expressed neutral about it.
Figure 4.17. The Participants’ Responses to Item 17
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Item 18. Figure 4.18 (Mean=3.63, SD=0.69) shows that over half of the participants (57.6%) preferred to take vocabulary courses with NNESTs because the teachers provided explanations of unknown words in Chinese. There were 33.7% of the respondents disagreed, and 39.1% of the participants expressed neutral about it.
Figure 4.18. The Participants’ Responses to Item 18
Item 19. Figure 4.19 (Mean=3.57, SD=0.70) reveals that the majority of the participants (57.1%) agreed that NNESTs incorporated Chinese and American cultures into American culture classes. There were only a few (6.0%) of the respondents disagreed, and 37.0 % of the participants indicated neutral.
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Figure 4.19. The Participants’ Responses to Item 19
Item 20. Figure 4.20 (Mean=3.98, SD=0.67) indicates that most of the participants (78.3%) believed NESTs supplied learners with more information in the
English language and culture. There were 21.2% of respondents stayed neutral, and only
0.5% of the participants disagreed.
Figure 4.20. The Participants’ Responses to Item 20
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Item 21. Figure 4.21 (Mean=3.70, SD=0.79) illustrates that about 60% of the participants agreed that the teaching style of NESTs ensured student enjoyment of the lessons; however, 3.8% of the respondents disagreed. There were 35.9% of the participants indicated neutral.
Figure 4.21. The Participants’ Responses to Item 21
Item 22. Figure 4.22 (Mean=3.29, SD=0.69) indicates that about 30.0% of the participants considered that NNESTs were better than NESTs because they frequently used Chinese to teach English, and 6.5% of the respondents disagreed. The majority of the participants (62.5%) expressed neutrality about this statement.
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Figure 4.22. The Participants’ Responses to Item 22
Item 23. Figure 4.23 (Mean=3.40, SD=0.91) reveals that 46.2% of the participants believed that most NNESTs did not consider class activities, games, and out-of-class activities as resources of English learning; nevertheless, there were only 3.4% of the respondents who expressed opposite opinions toward it. There were 39.7% of the participants indicated neutral.
Figure 4.23. The Participants’ Responses to Item 23
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Item 24. Figure 4.24 (Mean=3.51, SD=0.68) displays that more than 50.6% of the respondents agreed that NNESTs made comparisons between Chinese and English while teaching, which helped to improve students’ English learning. There were 45.1% of the respondents indicated neutral, and only a few of the participants (4.3%) disagreed.
Figure 4.24. The Participants’ Responses to Item 24
Item 25. Figure 4.25 (Mean=3.26, SD=0.80) illustrates that over 35% of the participants agreed that NNESTs had great teaching abilities in using different techniques and methods; however, there were 13.1% of the respondents disagreed. Half of the respondents (50.5%) expressed neutral opinions.
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Figure 4.25. The Participants’ Responses to Item 25
Item 26. Figure 4.26 (Mean=3.88, SD=0.82) shows that the majority of the participants (68.5%) considered that an effective EFL teacher needed both experience and qualification in teaching English. There were only 3.2% of the participants disagreed with this item, and 28.3% of the respondents indicated neutral.
Figure 4.26. The Participants’ Responses to Item 26
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The participants indicated their overall preferences toward NESTs and NNESTs’
English instruction. Table 4.12 displayed the results of items 27 to 29.
Table 4.12. Percentage, Mean, and Standard Deviation of Students’ Overall Preferences
Statements 1 2 3 4 5 M SD (SD) (SA) 27. NESTs are preferable to F 1 4 74 89 16 3.63 .70 Non-NESTs and I learn more with them. P (%) 0.5 2.2 40.2 48.4 8.7 28. I would like to have classes F 0 3 34 86 61 4.11 .76 where both NESTs and NNESTs co-teach in the P (%) 0 1.6 18.5 46.7 33.2 same class. Note. 1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree M = Mean; SD = Standard Deviation; F = Frequency; P = Percentage
The above two items in this subsection are presented as individual figures (Figure
4.27 to 4.28) as follows.
Item 27. Figure 4.27 (Mean=3.63, SD=0.70) indicates that 57.1% of the
participants agreed that NESTs were preferable to NNESTs and they learned more from
NESTs; nevertheless, there were 2.7% of the respondents disagreed, and 40.2% of the
participants expressed neutral.
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Figure 4.27. Participants’ Responses to Item 27
Item 28. Figure 4.28 (Mean=4.11, SD=0.76) reveals that about 80.0% of the participants preferred to have classes with both NESTs and NNESTs who worked collaboratively. There were 1.6% of the respondents disagreed, and 18.5% of the participants indicated neutral.
Figure 4.28. The Participants’ Responses to Item 28
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Quantitative Analyses on Research Questions
Results from the above 28 statements revealed the participants’ perceptions and preferences in regard to both NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English education. The answers of research questions one and two were derived from this data and were discussed in this current section.
Research Question 1
What are Taiwanese university students’ perceptions in regard to the English
language instruction of Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-
Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
Results from items 1 to 26 showed that Taiwanese university students believed that NNESTs offered advantages to English instruction in some aspects. To be more specific, the participants stated that learning from NNESTs had the following advantages.
First of all, due to the same first language and cultural backgrounds, 45% of the
Taiwanese university students claimed they learned English better from NNESTs. That is, by sharing the same mother tongue language and cultural backgrounds, NNESTs could better understand students’ problems in learning English, stated by 49.4% of the participants; NNESTs could provide clearer answers to students’ questions, claimed by
53.3% of the respondents. Also, about 30% of the participants considered NNESTs went through the same language learning process like other English learners did; hence,
NNESTs were deemed as good models of learning English.
Secondly, most participants in items 13, 16, 18, and 19 (54.9%, 57.1%, 57.6%,
57.1% respectively) agreed that NNESTs had some positive aspects in teaching the courses of writing, grammar, vocabulary, and American culture. For example, in writing
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courses, students could describe what they wanted to write in Chinese to NNESTs; in grammar courses, NNESTs provided Chinese explanations for the rules of English grammar; in vocabulary courses, NNESTs often offered Chinese explanations to unknown English words; in the courses of American culture, NNESTs were able to combine both Chinese and American cultures into the curriculum.
Finally, 30.9%, 50.6% and 36.4% (Items 22, 24, 25, respectively) of the participants believed NNESTs created positive English learning because of the use of
Chinese into English instruction, the comparisons between Chinese and English while teaching, and the abilities of using different techniques and teaching methods. Generally speaking, this kind of English instruction is better for beginning learners to learn English, stated by 55.4% of the participants.
As for the disadvantages associated with NNESTs, about 30% of the respondents claimed that they did not feel motivated when they learned from NNESTs. One of the reasons considered by 46.2% of the respondents was that NNESTs cared less about class activities, games, and out-of-class activities as resources of English learning.
Upon the same nature, the participants felt that NESTs were superior to NNESTs in the following aspects. First, the majority of the participants (66.3%) in item 12 preferred to learn oral skills with NESTs because they saw NESTs as the most fluent speakers. This positive feature of NESTs might lead English learners to prefer NESTs over NNESTs as they allowed students to hear English as it was spoken in real settings.
Furthermore, as results indicated, 71.2% of the participants considered NESTs had standard pronunciation and pronounced words more accurately. Given this, the
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participants might naturally believe that it was more appropriate to learn oracy from someone who spoke English as a native language.
Secondly, 65.8% of the participants showed their willingness to take oral classes with NESTs because students were forced to speak only English in class. That is, learners might have more opportunities to practice their English in such environments.
Finally, 34.8% of the participants considered NESTs had a bigger wealth of vocabulary, which increased the students’ chances to acquire more vocabulary. Also, 78.3% of the participants believed NESTs supplied more information in the English language and its culture, and 60.4% of the respondents agreed that the teaching style of NESTs ensured student enjoyment of the lessons. To sum, 60.9% of the respondents agreed that since intermediate and advanced learners relied less on the Chinese support and needed more opportunities to practice their English, learning with NESTs could be a good choice for them.
Surprisingly, the results revealed that learners generally did not feel anxious when learning from NESTs, which did not coincide with most existing studies. Those researchers suggested that language anxiety might arise when learners encountered native
English speakers in English (Chan, Abdullah, & Yusof, 2012; Chang, 2012; Docan-
Morgan & Schmidt, 2012; Luk & Lin, 2007). Also, some previous studies found the strengths of NNESTs in teaching grammar (Cheung & Braine, 2007; Lipovsky &
Mahboob, 2010; Pacek, 2005); however, NESTs’ teaching of grammar and writing were preferred by some participants (about 40%) in this study. In addition to being familiarity with certain writing styles, and providing different variations of sentence structures in
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one specific grammar rule, NESTs might be preferable to the participants because they were usually assigned to teach oracy rather than grammar or writing courses.
As one might expect, Taiwanese university students perceived NESTs’ and
NNESTs’ English education differently; both groups of teachers had their strengths and weaknesses in different aspects of English education. Generally, a high number of the participants (68.5%) believed a good EFL teacher was someone who had both experience and qualification in teaching English.
Research Question 2
From which group of teachers do Taiwanese university students prefer to learn
English, Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) or Non-Native English-
Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) and why?
Out of the 28 items, 26 of them (items 1 to 26) were about evaluating the performances of NESTs and NNESTs in English education and two of them (items 27 and 28) were about the participants’ general preferences of NESTs and NNESTs. Based on the finding on item 27, the participants had a preference of NESTs over NNESTs in
English learning. This finding could be explained by the reasons discussed in the first research question.
The researcher suspected that English learners of different English proficiencies might have different preferences in regard to NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English teaching.
Based on this assumption, the researcher selected four items, items 3, 4, 11, and 27, which may reflect the participants’ distinct responses. Figure 4.29 presents the means of responses from different groups of language learners in terms of English proficiency. On item 3, “I feel motivated when I take course with Non-NESTs,” and item 4, “I feel
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anxious when I take course with NESTs,” the means of responses decreased with proficiency levels from beginner to advanced learners. In contrast, on item 11, “I prefer taking oral courses with NESTs because it forces me not to speak Chinese,” and item 27,
“NESTs are preferable to Non-NESTs and I learn more from them,” the means of responses increased with proficiency levels from beginner to advanced level. The findings confirmed the researcher’s assumption that NNESTs were more preferable to beginner learners while advanced students preferred to learn from NESTs.
Figure 4.29. Means of the Participants’ Responses to Items 3, 4, 11, and 27
4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 Beginner 2 Intermediate 1.5 Advanced 1 0.5
0 Note. Item Item3= I 3feel motivatedItem 4when I takeItem course 11 withItem Non -27NESTs. Item 4= I feel anxious when I take course with NESTs. Item 11= I prefer taking oral courses with NESTs because it forces me not to speak Chinese. Item 27= NESTs are preferable to Non-NESTs and I learn more from them.
The researcher further investigated whether different genders had preferences over the two groups of teachers. Figure 4.30 and Figure 4.31 presented the distributions of female and male participants’ responses of overall preferences to Item 27. As indicated
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in these two figures, both female and male participants preferred to learn English with
NESTs. However, female participants had a stronger preference to learn English with
NESTs. That is, there were 59% of the female participants preferred to learn English with
NESTs (Figure 4.30), while 50% of the male participants had preferences to learn
English with NESTs (Figure 4.31). Therefore, in this study, the gender did influence the participants’ preferences toward the English instruction of NESTs and NNESTs.
Figure 4.30. Percentage Distribution of the Female Participants’ Responses to Item 27
Note. Item 27= NESTs are preferable to Non-NESTs and I learn more from them.
Figure 4.31. Percentage Distribution of the Male Participants’ Responses to Item 27
Note. Item 27= NESTs are preferable to Non-NESTs and I learn more from them.
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Importantly, the response to item 28 showed that about 80% of the participants suggested the cooperation between of NESTs and NNESTs in English teaching.
According to Delli Carpini (2008), teacher collaboration was one of the key measures for improving student achievement, effective professional development, and continued school success. Wang’s (2012) study revealed that “both NESTs and NNESTs had great interest and willingness to team teach, and believed that this collaborative model has pedagogic benefits” (p. 32). More precisely, NESTs and NNESTs both had pros and cons in distinct areas in English as a foreign language (EFL). They were recommended to learn from each other, exchange their teaching experiences, and further work cooperatively to ensure students’ academic success. This study supported those existing research findings and further introduced students’ perceptions into this issue.
Section Three: Students’ Learning Experiences with NESTs and NNESTs
This section provides information about the participants’ learning experiences they had with NESTs and NNESTs, including both positive and negative experiences.
Table 4.13 presents the languages that subjects used while responding to the two open- ended questions (see items 29 and 30). There were 42.4% of the participants answered in
English, while 57.6% responded in Chinese. In practice, the researcher translated 50 randomly selected participants’ responses from Chinese into English before transcribing the data into Microsoft Word. The selected data were replied in 38% of English and 62% of Chinese (see Table 4.13). All 50 English transcriptions of responses were verified by one doctoral student in an education related major and two NNESTs in Taiwan. Also, 10 respondents received their transcriptions to verify whether or not the English translations
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matched their answers. After that, the researcher inputted the data into a qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti. 7.0. for analyzing.
Table 4.13. The Participants’ Languages Used on Items 29 and 30
Primary data Total Selected data Total English Chinese English Chinese Frequency 78 106 184 19 31 50 Percentage 42.4 57.6 100 38 62 100
Items 29 and 30: Background information of the participants
The two open-ended questions were designed to investigate some learning experiences and additional perceptions of the participants in regard to their NESTs and
NNESTs that were not covered in the questionnaire. Almost 80% of the 184 participants responded to the two open-ended questions. Among those who responded, 51.1% of the respondents made comments on both of the two questions. There were 79.3 % of the participants answered item 30, and 66.8% of the participants gave details in item 31 (see
Table 4.14).
Table 4.14. Descriptive Statistics of Items 29 and 30
Item 30 Total Item 31 Total Answer Blank Answer Blank Frequency 146 38 184 123 61 184 Percentage 79.3 20.7 100 66.8 33.2 100 Note. Item29 = Open-Ended Question 1; Item 30 = Open-Ended Question 2
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Items 29 and 30: Gender of the participants
Table 4.15 shows the participants’ gender. Among the 50 participants, 66% (n=33) were female and 34% (n=17) were male.
Table 4.15. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Gender Who Attempted Items 29 and 30
Gender Total Female Male Participants Frequency 33 17 50 Percentage 66.0 34.0 100
Items 29 and 30: Age of the participants
Table 4.16 presents participants’ ages as follows: 24 (48%) of the participants ranged in age from 18 to 20, and 26 (52%) of the respondents ranged in age from 21 to 23.
Table 4.16. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Age Who Attempted Items 29 and 30
Age Frequency Percentage 18 to 20 24 48.0 21 to 23 26 52.0 Total 50 100
Items 29 and 30: Major of the participants
Table 4.17 distributes participants’ majors: 37 (74%) in the major of Applied
English, 8 (16%) in the major of Applied Foreign language and 5 (10%) in the major of
Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics.
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Table 4.17. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Majors Who Attempted Items 29 and 30
Majors Frequency Percentage Applied English 37 74.0 Applied Foreign Language 8 16.0 Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics 5 10.0 Total 50 100
Items 29 and 30: University level of the participants
Table 4.18 shows participants’ years of university study. Among the 50 participants, 28% (n=14) were sophomore students, 30% (n=15) were junior students and
42% (n=21) were senior students.
Table 4.18. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ University Level Who Attempted Items 29 and 30
University Level Frequency Percentage 2 14 28.0 3 15 30.0 4 21 42.0 Total 50 100 Note. 2 = Sophomore Student; 3 = Junior Student; 4 = Senior Student
Items 29 and 30: The participants’ years of learning English
Table 4.19 shows the distribution of participants’ years of learning English. 31
(62%) participants had eight to10 of years English learning experiences, 15 (30%) participants had 11 to 13 years of English learning experiences, and 4 (8%) respondents had 14 to 16 years of English learning experiences. In general, the average years of experiences were 10.24 years.
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Table 4.19. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Years of Learning English Who Attempted Items 29 and 30
Years of Learning English Frequency Percentage 8 to 10 31 62.0 11 to 13 15 30.0 14 to 16 4 8.0 Total 50 100
Items 29 and 30: The participants’ self-rating of overall English proficiency
Table 4.20 presents students’ self-rating of overall English proficiency: 8 (16%)
were beginner, 36 (72%) were in an intermediate level, and six (12%) were in an
advanced level. Generally speaking, the majority of the participants viewed their overall
English proficiency as intermediate level.
Table 4.20. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants’ Self-Rating of Overall English Proficiency Who Attempted Items 29 and 30
English Proficiency Level Beginner Intermediate Advanced Total Participants Frequency 8 36 6 50 Percentage 16.0 72.0 12.0 100
Items 29 and 30: The numbers of NESTs and NNESTs who taught the participants’ English
Table 4.21 indicates the number of NESTs and NNESTs from whom the
participants learned English. The average number of NESTs from whom the participants
received English instruction was 4.5. Specifically, 50% (n=25) of the participants
received English instruction from one to three NESTs, 34% (n=17) of the participants
received English instruction from four to six NESTs, 8% (n=4) of the participants
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received English instruction from seven to nine NESTs, and 8% (n=4) of the participants received instruction from over 10 NESTs.
In regard to the numbers of NNESTs from whom the participants learned English, the average number was 9.1. More precisely, one (2%) participant received English instruction from one to three NNESTs, 12 (24%) respondents received English instruction from four to six NNESTs, 10 (20%) students received English instruction from seven to nine NNESTs, and 27 (54%) students received English instruction from over 10 NNESTs.
Table 4.21. Descriptive Statistics of the Numbers of NESTs and NNESTs Who Taught the Participants’ English and Attempted Items 29 and 30
Numbers of NESTs NNESTs NESTs and Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage NNESTs 1 to 3 25 50.0 1 2.0 4 to 6 17 34.0 12 24.0 7 to 9 4 8.0 10 20.0 Over 10 4 8.0 27 54.0 Total 50 100 50 100
Items 29 and 30: Courses studied with NESTs and NNESTs by the participants
Table 4.22 shows the courses the participants were instructed by NESTs and
NNESTs. In reference to oracy courses, 50 participants were instructed by NESTs, and
33 students were instructed by NNESTs. In the courses of writing, 14 participants were instructed by NESTs, and 50 students were instructed by NNESTs. In regard to grammar courses, 17 respondents were instructed by NESTs, and 49 participants were instructed by NNESTs. Regarding the courses of vocabulary, 28 students were instructed by NESTs,
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and 48 participants were instructed by NNESTs. Finally, in regard to American culture courses, 37 participants were instructed by NESTs, and 20 respondents were instructed by NNESTs.
Table 4.22. Descriptive Statistics of Courses Studied with NESTs and NNESTs by the Participants Who Attempted Items 29 and 30
Courses NESTs NNESTs Frequency Frequency Oracy 50 33 Writing 14 50 Grammar 17 49 Vocabulary 28 48 American Culture 37 20
Qualitative Analysis on Research Question
The results of the two open-ended questions, which discuss Taiwanese university students’ learning experiences with NESTs and NNESTs, are reported to address the third research question.
Research Question 3
What positive and negative experiences do Taiwanese university students face
when learning English from Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and
Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
The answers of the third research question were derived from the two open-ended questions (items 29 and 30). To complete the third research question, the findings were explained by three main themes: (1) pedagogical aspects, (2) teaching styles, and (3) motivation and anxiety. More precisely, the first theme, pedagogical aspects, was divided
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into five subcategories: oracy, writing, grammar, vocabulary and culture. After reading the participants’ responses, the codes that were used in oracy section included: accent, fluent, and accurate pronunciation. The codes applied to the writing section were writing style, comprehension, and feedback. Grammar rules and Chinese support were the codes utilized in the grammar section. For the vocabulary section, the codes included: current words, Chinese explanations, and test-oriented educational system. The codes applied to the culture section were American life and less western culture input. Furthermore, the researcher utilized the codes of interaction, discussion, English only teaching style, good model, and Chinese facilitated teaching into the second theme, teaching styles. Finally, the codes used in the third theme included: interesting, relaxed classroom atmosphere, encouragement, understanding of students’ needs, responsible, and boring.
Theme one: Pedagogical aspects
Most respondents (n=32) in the two open-ended questions considered NESTs and
NNESTs had good English proficiency in teaching different English language skills. It could be divided into five main areas: (1) oracy, (2) writing, (3) grammar, (4) vocabulary, and (5) culture.
Oracy
In regard to oracy, NESTs were viewed as fluent speakers with an accurate
English accent. Over 70% of the participants (n=37) believed taking oracy courses with
NESTs helped them not only practice their pronunciation and English speaking skills, but also observe various phrases and constructions that native English speakers used when they spoke. By using standard English, NESTs were most likely to help English learners
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be more acquainted with the fluent, accurate pronunciation of English. One intermediate student responded for example:
I have experienced several NESTs who were capable of checking my errors
related to word stress and intonation [in pronunciation]. I was able to avoid the
errors next time during communication.
Besides, learners could benefit from this positive feature of NESTs by recognizing their own errors of pronunciation and avoiding those errors to reduce the misunderstanding of native English speakers during communication.
Furthermore, half of the participants (n=25) considered they gained more opportunities to practice speaking and listening skills while taking an oracy class with
NESTs. Benke and Medgyes’ (2005) study supported this finding. They found that most
NESTs encouraged learners to speak English; hence, learners were forced to stay in an
English only setting. An advanced level respondent explained:
My speaking and listening skills improve a lot when I learn English in an English
only classroom.
Only one negative aspect regarding NESTs’ oracy classes was indicated by 13 respondents, the high speed of NESTs’ speech. These participants experienced difficulties in English learning since their NESTs’ speech was too fast to follow.
One positive learning experience in regard to taking oracy classes with NNESTs was the selection of appropriate topics. Eight participants believed NNESTs were capable of picking appropriate topics with serious consideration to learners’ different English proficiency levels. These choices encouraged conversation in a positive way. On the other hand, negative experiences that subjects shared mainly concerned inaccuracy in
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pronunciation of English and less on improvement in speaking and listening skills of students. “Nonstandard” and non-native pronunciation had always been the students’ main criticism of NNESTs in the literature (Lee, 2000; Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2005; Ma,
2009b; Mahboob, 2004; Pacek, 2005). In this study, Taiwanese accent of NNESTs was pointed out by most of the participants (n=42) as a major disadvantage of NNESTs.
Writing
Regarding the positive learning experiences of taking writing classes with NESTs,
12 participants indicated that NESTs’ teaching focused on specific writing skills, which made students’ writings more understandable to other native speakers of English.
Moreover, the feedback from NESTs gave learners ideas about the common writing styles of native English speakers. Take an intermediate students statement for an example, he/she claimed:
One of my NESTs asked us to be more creative and use more imaginations
[imagination] on our compositions. I like to learn English writing in this way.
No negative aspect of taking writing courses with NESTs was shared by students.
Subjects’ sharing of their positive experiences with NNESTs in writing courses was that they were able to use Chinese to explain what they wanted to write and discussed it with NNESTs. There were 17 participants who believed that they could express their thoughts better by using their mother tongue language. Few participants
(n=5) revealed their negative experiences with NNESTs related to the lack of English proficiency of NNESTs. That is, NNESTs provided the wrong feedback on students’ writing assignments.
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Grammar
One interesting positive experience that nine participants had with NESTs in grammar courses was that NESTs were perceived to be more familiar with the common grammar mistakes made by native English speakers. Hence, learning from NESTs helped learners to be more knowledgeable about the different uses of grammar in daily life.
However, 20 participants pointed out that NESTs could not explain grammar rules in detail. Students felt confused easily toward different grammar rules such as tense, word variation, sentence structure and so on. A beginner respondent shared:
I got more confused of [with] English grammar rules after my NEST’s English
illustration.
Over half of the participants (n=29) considered NNESTs performed better in grammar teaching because they shared the first language with learners. Those respondents claimed that NNESTs in grammar courses provided them with Chinese examples to explain the rules of English grammar. By doing so, learners could have a clear image of the rules in mind and further realize how and when to use English grammatical forms precisely. However, Huang and Brown (2009) revealed that most
Taiwanese NNESTs tended to apply a test-oriented educational system in grammar teaching. By doing so, teaching grammar was not for actual use. As a result, there were
21 participants who complained that learning grammar in that way was not meaningful for them.
Vocabulary
While dealing with vocabulary, eight participants shared their positive experiences with NESTs in two aspects. First, NESTs in vocabulary courses always had
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more current words. Besides, six respondents indicated that NESTs had authentic accent in vocabulary. That is, English learners were able to hear a native-accent pronunciation of words so they were not confused while communicating with other native speakers of
English. No negative experience was shared by the participants.
About half of the participants (n=24) considered their positive experiences toward
NNESTs in vocabulary courses were that NNETs had the advantage of providing new words with explanations of Chinese. With Chinese support in new vocabularies, English learners realized accurate meaning of each new word. One intermediate student explained:
Knowing accurate meaning of words increases the chance for me to actually apply
them into some specific fields and daily life.
Nevertheless, a few respondents (n=5), especially advanced English learners, considered this advantage as NNESTs’ weakness. More precisely, those participants felt more comfortable to be given a synonym or sentence in English when learning a new vocabulary. Also, 10 participants complained that the test-oriented teaching on vocabulary that was applied by most NNESTs in Taiwan was an ineffective way for them to learn new words. Students were asked to memorize all new vocabularies to pass an exam, rather than actually use and absorb them. Consequently, one participant in an intermediated level stated:
I tried to memorize those new vocabulary two days before my exam; however, I
usually forgot most of them on the next day following the exam.
Culture
More than half of the participants (n=36) who shared their positive experiences of learning American culture all agreed that NESTs were more familiar with the different
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features of the western culture. More precisely, 14 respondents claimed that NESTs provided clear answers to those cultural related questions. In the meantime, a few participants (n=3) considered cultural knowledge of NESTs increased learners’ level of motivation. Furthermore, with NESTs’ western culture input, some participants (n=19) believed they gained more understanding of the western life and environment. Take one of the beginner participants’ responses for example:
I love taking American culture courses with NESTs. I learned the origin of
American holidays and western customs. It was fun.
No negative response was indicated.
As for the positive aspects of learning American culture from NNESTs, five subjects mentioned that since NNESTs shared the same mother tongue language and cultural background with learners, they were able to combine both the students’ cultural backgrounds and the western costumes and further select appropriate teaching materials to meet learners’ needs and goals. In Benke and Medgye’s (2005) research, the respondents gave compliments to NNESTs on the selecting of teaching materials. On the other side, Benke and Medgye’s (2005) study discovered that NESTs might not be able to answer students’ questions due to the differences in cultural background of the target language, which created a communication gap between teachers and students. In this study, 17 respondents did complain of having less input on the western culture from
NNESTs. Although these NNESTs had experienced the life of the U.S., some might care less about the western culture or be unaware of its development or ongoing changes.
Such a teacher might provide less cultural input in teaching.
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Theme two: Teaching styles
One of the teaching styles of NESTs that gained more compliments from the respondents was from using an activity approach during class. NESTs’ emphasis on learning through playing and a less textbook-bound teaching style contrasted with
NNESTs’ test-oriented system, and 10 students preferred the previous one. In addition,
13 participants revealed NESTs cared more about the interaction and discussion between teachers and students. Students were encouraged to question their teachers or actively share their opinions rather than being passive learners, which conflicted to what they experienced in NNESTs’ classes. One intermediate respondent shared:
Learning English with the purpose of gaining [a] higher grade on exam makes me
stressed. I preferred learn [learning] this target language with NESTs because they
integrated various activities into teaching and encouraged us to actively discuss
our opinions during class.
Consequently, more than half of participants (n=31) agreed that it would be better for intermediated or advanced English learners to learn with NESTs because they had better
English proficiency and eventually students could gain more opportunities to practice
English.
Nevertheless, participants (n=7) found that it was comparatively more difficult to communicate with NESTs than NNESTs due to the lack of the knowledge of students’ first language and Taiwanese cultural background. More precisely, without these two factors, NESTs could hardly understand students’ questions and needs. Additionally, there were five subjects who reported that the English only classroom setting made
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learning become more complicated. Take one of the advanced participants’ responses for example:
I have to pay more attention to NESTs’ English only classes to reduce my
misunderstanding of school content.
Another intermediate student had a similar point of view:
NESTs used only English to explain unknown words to me, which even confused
me more.
In terms of positive aspects of NNESTs, about two-thirds of the participants
(n=34) considered NNESTs shared the same first language and culture with students; as a result, they understood students’ needs and were easy to communicate with them.
Specifically, those participants believed sharing the first language with learners enabled
NNESTs to use Chinese to explain instructions of assignments, unknown words, activities or exams to avoid any misunderstanding of learners. Meanwhile, sharing the mother tongue with students enabled learners to ask questions and communicate with teachers without language restrictions. Furthermore, 16 subjects believed that NNESTs had gone through the same process of learning English like themselves; they were aware of the difficulties of learning a new language. In Kelch and Sanatana-Williamson’s (2002) research, they found a similar result like this study that NNESTs were more capable of providing suitable solutions to students’ learning problems.
The participants also pointed out another advantage of learning English from
NNESTs was that NNESTs represented a good model for successful learning for students, which pushed them to make efforts to learn and further achieve high levels of language proficiency. To sum, 26 participants recommended NNESTs to teach beginning level
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EFL classes. By doing so, not only were teachers able to make sure learners’ understanding of instructions and feedback, but also students might have more chances to reach English language proficiency.
Two main aspects were pointed out by the participants (n=17) in regard to the negative experiences of NNESTs’ teaching styles. First, NNESTs applied test-bound teaching styles and an exam-oriented educational system. Second, learners had less chance to actually practice English in class. One beginning level participant stated:
I prefer to learn English with NESTS, because I don’t need to experience an
exam-oriented educational system with NNESTs.
Another intermediate student expressed:
Although the use of Chinese by NNESTs ensures my understanding of school
assignments, I would like to have more opportunities to practice English in a real
life setting.
Theme three: Motivation and anxiety
Some participants (n=22) showed their motivation of taking classes with NESTs.
This confirmed participants’ responses to item 4, where about 45% of the respondents did not feel anxiety while they learned English from NESTs. Many participants preferred taking English class with NESTs because such classes were interesting and had a relaxed classroom atmosphere. For example, one advanced student elaborated:
NESTs sometimes tell some jokes, sometimes share their life experiences, which
make me feel more relaxed in class. Although I may have difficulty fully
understanding the sharing in English, I still enjoy the class.
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Additionally, some participants (n=8) mentioned that NESTs were more patient and provided students with more encouragement while they were practicing English. One beginning level participant wrote:
NESTs will not discriminate against you just because your English is poor,
instead, they will compliment you as long as you are willing to use English to
communicate.
The picture was not one-sided as 18 participants reported they experienced anxiety and heavy stress when encountering NESTs. Little opportunity to interact with foreigners might be a possible contributing factor. One beginning level student stated:
It is hard for me to communicate with NESTs because I usually felt scared and
[become too] shy to use English.
Another intermediate participant expressed similar feelings:
My English is not so good. I feel [felt] disappointed easily especially when I
cannot communicate with NESTs.
Some subjects (n=14) revealed that taking courses with NNESTs increased their level of motivation. The reasons included: (a) NNESTs cared more about details of the curriculum, which students were able to learn more precisely, (b) NNESTs were more responsible for their work, (c) NNESTs cared about students’ distinct needs, and (d)
NNESTs were easy to understand.
For example, one intermediate student indicated:
I feel motivate [motivated] while teaching by NNESTs because they are very
concerned about accuracy in using the language and knowing the way English is
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the way it is. Besides, I feel comfortable to learn with NNESTs because they are
easy to understand and we can communicate without any difficulties.
Nineteen participants considered that NNESTs were strict and gave punishment to students which was a negative experience. In Arva and Medgye’s (2000) study, the respondents believed NNESTs took their teaching more seriously than NESTs; hence, students might receive punishments if they didn’t perform well on their school work.
Furthermore, 12 respondents pointed out the courses taught by NNESTs were boring because of the use of textbook-bound teaching styles. Based on these two main reasons, those participants considered taking courses with NNESTs reduced their motivation and increased their anxiety of learning English.
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CHAPTER V
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
The main intent of this research study was to examine some pedagogical aspects related to Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native English-Speaking
Teachers (NNESTs) of English as foreign language from students’ points of view.
Specifically, it sought to explore Taiwanese EFL university students’ perceptions regarding the pros and cons of NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English instruction as well as their preferences toward the two groups of teachers. The previous chapter presented the responses collected through 184 questionnaires, which were distributed at three different
Taiwanese universities during the spring semester of 2013. In this chapter, the researcher summarizes the findings, addresses some implications, and makes recommendations for further research in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT).
Summary of Research Findings
This section reviews the research questions and summarizes the results of the study. The questionnaire of this study involved two stages: a quantitative portion, which consisted of the first 28 items, and a qualitative portion, which included two open-ended questions (Items 29 and 30). There were 184 participants who responded to the quantitative part of the study, and 50 respondents were randomly selected for the qualitative section.
This study attempted to address the following three research questions. Since research questions 1 and 3 were related to each other, they are discussed together in this current section.
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(1) What are Taiwanese university students’ perceptions in regard to the English
language instruction of Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-
Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
(3) What positive and negative experiences do Taiwanese university students face
when learning English from Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and
Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)?
The responses and the comments received from the participants indicated a set of positive and negative features regarding the English teaching of NESTs and NNESTs.
In fact, the positive aspects associated with NESTs were related to accurate pronunciation such as having good English language proficiency, including using standard English, accurate pronunciation, providing opportunities to learners to practice English language, having awareness of the culture of the target language, offering more interaction and discussion during classes, and creating an active and relaxed classroom atmosphere. Due to the above positive aspects, the participants, in general, believed intermediate or advanced levels of English learners may learn better with NESTs. However, the picture was not one-sided; NESTs were criticized for being hard to communicate with, speaking too fast, being difficult to understand, having less awareness of students’ needs, and increasing students’ anxiety while communicating.
Upon the same nature, as shown in the responses, the participants reported that one of the major aspects where NNESTs were superior to NESTs was their sensitivity to students’ needs, difficulties, and problems, which were strongly supported by some previous empirical studies (Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2005; Lipovsky & Mahboob, 2010;
Ma, 2009b). Such ability may be explained by two possible reasons: (1) the sharing of the
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same mother tongue and the cultural background between NNESTs and the respondents, and (2) having similar experiences of the language learning process and educational system as the participants. More precisely, NNESTs had gone through the process of learning English as a foreign language, and they were perceived as typical models of successful English learners by the participants.
Creating a safe and warm environment is always one of the significant factors in improving students’ language learning in any aspect of education. In the process of language instruction, this atmosphere may be especially important. Learners have to be comfortable and feel they could make mistakes and take risks during class, so they would able to take in and produce language. The above two positive features of NNESTs confirmed Krashen’s (1982) affective filter hypothesis, which shows that students who enter into a learning environment with a high motivation and a low level of anxiety in a learning environment are expected to have more chances to be successful learners than those who do not.
Another positive feature associated with NNESTs involved the ability to alternate between learners’ first language and English while instructing. For example, NNESTs were able to draw on their first language (L1) knowledge to identify complicated grammar rules or vocabulary for the participants, and the respondents could discuss their ideas of writing assignments in Chinese with NNESTs. In regard to Cummins’ (2001) iceberg theory, it is believed that the L1 and the target language represent two icebergs which outwardly differed but fused underneath the surface. To be more specific, the two languages operate together through the same central processing system; one language can easily transfer to the other one as long as they are well-developed. Therefore, L1
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promotes the students’ second or foreign language learning.
Nevertheless, the Hong Kong Ministry of Education announced a policy that
English classes should be taught in English only (Ma, 2012). Chen et al. (2011) and Xie
(2005) also indicated that the English only instruction has become a new trend that more and more universities in China and Taiwan seek to practice. Based on the results of this study, the benefits of using students’ L1 with English instruction were clear and remarkable. Administrators, therefore, should be aware of this finding and reconsider its feasibility.
Last but not least, other positive features such as being easy to communicate with, the ability to select appropriate topics to meet the respondents’ goals, and taking more responsibility for their works were supported by the participants. Based on these advantages of NNESTs, the participants, in general, suggested that English learners at a beginning level might learn with NNESTs. On the other hand, negative aspects of
NNESTs were mostly associated with their oral skills, particularly their Taiwanese accent, their shortage of the knowledge of the English language, their inability to involve the participants in real world settings of language use and their use of test-bounded teaching styles.
(2) From which group of teachers do Taiwanese university students prefer to learn
English, Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) or Non-Native
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) and why?
The participants’ gender and their levels of English proficiency indicated some differences on their preferences toward the English instruction of NESTs and NNESTs.
Specifically, although both of the female and male participants showed their preferences
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toward learning with NESTs over NNESTs, the female participants held a higher preference for NESTs than male participants. Additionally, the participants in higher levels of English proficiency expressed being more interested in learning with NESTs, whereas the respondents in lower levels of English proficiency seemed to have more positive perceptions in regard to NNESTs’ English teaching. Generally, based on the questionnaire, the participants revealed an overall preference for NESTs over NNESTs.
However, the respondents still considered that both NESTs and NNESTs showed strengths and weaknesses in their English teaching which could benefit the participants’
English learning in different language skill areas.
Generally speaking, the participants agreed with the significance of teachers’ qualifications and experiences; they further suggested co-teaching or working cooperatively between NESTs and NNESTs. According to Medgyes (1996), an ideal language learning environment was a “good balance of NESTs and NNESTs, who complement each other in their strengths and weaknesses” (p. 42). Obviously, the participants in this study believed that, under such English learning conditions, the disadvantages of each type of teachers would be minimized while the advantages of both groups would strengthen.
Conclusion
In this study, the participants were able to express their perceptions and preferences toward the English teaching of their NESTs and NNESTs. The results revealed the respondents’ acknowledgement of the advantages of both NESTs and
NNESTs in teaching specific language skill areas. They believed the two groups of teachers’ strengths and weaknesses complemented each other in English instruction.
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Obviously, having opportunities to learn English from both NESTs and NNESTs appeared to be valuable to students’ foreign language learning. However, the observed differentiations did not conclude that either the NESTs or NNESTs were superior to the other. The results, hence, might be explained in the ways they taught the target language and how their performance and competences were perceived by the participants during
English teaching sessions. It is hoped that this study and the subsequent results could prove useful to all those involved in the English learning and teaching fields.
Implications and Recommendations
Some implications and recommendations that derived from the results of the study are presented in this section.
(1) Since the participants in this study indicated the ability of NNESTs to select
appropriate topics and teaching materials due to the sharing of the same cultural
background with the learners, it is recommended that NESTs may become aware
about learners’ cultural aspects. Meanwhile, the participants believed that NNESTs
did not have enough understanding of the target language cultural background; hence,
NNESTs may increase their knowledge about various western cultural aspects as they
apply to language instruction.
(2) The awareness of the participants’ needs and problems was seen as one of the positive
features of NNESTs. In this situation, NESTs are urged to raise their awareness of
learners’ needs and problems to further assess students’ English learning. One
recommendation for increasing NEST’s awareness is to analyze students’ personal
needs, which can be conducted at the beginning of each semester. By doing so,
English teachers are able to realize and identify each learner’s goal and difficulty.
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(3) In this study, the participants showed positive attitudes in regard to applying students’
mother tongue into English teaching of NNESTs. Therefore, Taiwanese NNESTs are
recommended to continue the L1 usage of instruction and further learn how to apply
it for students’ advantages.
(4) In this study, the participants considered NNESTs to be successful role models of
English learners. Thus, it is hoped that NNESTs can share their own English learning
experiences with their students. For example, some effective learning strategies that
NNESTs have found during their own English language learning process would be
good experiences to share with learners. In addition, some useful solutions to learning
problems from NNESTs’ own past learning experiences would be another good
resource for learners.
(5) According to the findings, the respondents pointed out the advantages and
disadvantages related to NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English instruction in different
language skill areas. Therefore, it is suggested that administrators in EFL programs
may assign NESTs and NNESTs to instruct some specific language skills based on
these results. For instance, NESTs can be assigned to teach speaking courses, while
NNESTs may handle the courses of writing and grammar.
(6) The participants in this study affirmed the essential features of teachers’
qualifications and teaching experiences, which should be given high priority in
defining effective teachers. For this reason, administrators in EFL programs may pay
more attention on the qualifications and experiences of the two categories of teachers
rather than their mother tongue.
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(7) Based on the findings, participants believed the co-teaching between NESTs and
NNESTs could be an effective and appropriate combination from which English
learners were able to gain benefits. As a result, administrators in EFL programs are
recommended to assign both NESTs and NNESTs to teach in the same course. This
cooperation provides chances for both groups of teachers to benefit from each other’s
experiences and further create effective teaching methods and design appropriate EFL
curricula that suit these English language learners.
Recommendations for Future Studies
This study explored Taiwanese EFL students’ perceptions and preferences regarding the English instruction of their NESTs and NNESTs. Based on the results, some recommendations can be made for future studies.
(1) The qualitative data of this study were collected through two open-ended questions. It
is suggested that future studies collect data from additional sources such as face to
face interviews, follow-up emails, daily journals or classroom observations. Through
various methods of data collection, the results would be more comprehensive, reliable,
and trustworthy.
(2) There is no doubt that NESTs and NNESTs play essential roles in English language
teaching. Therefore, future studies are encouraged to investigate the two target groups
from teachers’ perceptions or even administrators’ points of view. It is believed that
teachers’ own experiences and administrators’ experiences in working with the two
categories of teachers may contribute valuable information about effective English
language instruction.
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(3) This present study focused on participants from one language background and one
school level, Taiwanese university students. Future research may consider involving
participants with other cultural and language contexts. Additionally, it is
recommended that future studies compare the perception of subjects, no matter
students or teachers, who have different language backgrounds.
(4) This study explored participants’ perceptions toward NESTs’ and NNESTs’ English
instruction in some specific language skill areas, such as oracy, writing, and grammar.
It is recommended that future studies stress NESTs and NNESTs as instructors of
courses such as speaking and listening.
(5) This current study revealed participants’ perceptions in terms of cooperation between
NESTs and NNESTs with limited discussion. Future research is suggested to explore
how EFL students can benefit from such cooperation. Moreover, future studies may
also compare the courses where NESTs and NNESTs teach independently and those
NESTs and NNESTs work cooperatively.
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APPENDICES
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APPENDIX A
Approval of IRB
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APPENDIX B
Informed Consent Form (English Version)
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INFORMED CONSENT FORM
Title of the Study: Taiwanese University Students’ Perceptions Toward Native and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers in EFL Contexts
Principal Researcher: Shih-Yun Tsou
Dear Student,
You are invited to participate in this research study. The goal of this questionnaire is to collect information about your perceptions and preferences in regard to your Native English-Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). Please read the information below and ask questions about anything you do not understand before you decide whether or not to participate. The researcher will answer any questions you have. There has been a great deal of previous research conducted in the areas of NESTs and NNESTs. Some of these studies focused only on the teachers’ self-perceptions or their NESTs or NNESTs colleagues’ perceptions on English instruction. In addition, the aforementioned studies have overlooked the fact that the group of NNESTs in fact can be divided into two subgroups: NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language and NNESTs who do not hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language. NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language have the experiences of western educational system, which may directly affect their English proficiency and their ability to teach the English language. Thus, an assumption to NNESTs with a degree from English speaking countries would be they may have the capacities to develop a more efficient curriculum that applies effective pedagogy and devotes more enthusiasm to successfully assist students’ English learning due to their backgrounds of both their home country and the western culture. This study, therefore, will synthesize the above knowledge gaps and aims to provide a comparative investigation to Taiwanese EFL university students’ perceptions and preferences toward NESTs and NNESTs who hold a degree from a country where English is the dominant language by addressing the differences of their EFL teaching. If you agree to participate in this study, you will be asked to complete a questionnaire. Your name will be kept confidential. Your participation is voluntary, and you can refuse to participate or withdraw anytime without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.
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I would appreciate it if you return the form showing you are willing and able to participate in this study. Thanks for your kind cooperation and assistance. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the researcher.
The contact information of the researcher: Researcher: Shih-Yun Tsou Phone: 0911238051 E-Mail: [email protected]
The contact information of the Department of Teacher and Bilingual Education: Faculty Sponsor: Patricia A. Gomez, Ed.D. Phone: (361) 593-2910 Mailing Address: Department of Teacher and Bilingual Education MSC 152, 700 University Blvd. Kingsville, Texas 78363 Phone of the Department of Teacher and Bilingual Education: (361) 593-2871 Hours of Operation: Monday – Friday 08:00 a.m. – 05:00 p.m.
The contact information of the IRB on campus: Mailing Address: Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Texas A&M University-Kingsville MSC 201. 700 University Blvd. Kingsville, Texas 78363-8202 Fax: (361) 593-3409 Phone: (361) 593-3344 E-mail: [email protected]
Agreement to participant in this research project: If you are agreed to participate in the study, you will respond to the enclosed questionnaire, which consisted of two parts. In the first part, the questions are about your gender, age, English learning experiences, etc. Part two contains 4 sections; with total 29 statements and two open-ended questions. The purpose of the questionnaire aims to investigate your perceptions and preferences toward your NESTs and NNESTs in regard to their English instruction. It may take you up to 40 minutes to complete the questionnaire.
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Possible discomforts and risks: No discomforts or risks are anticipated.
Thank you for your participation.
Sincerely,
Shih-Yun Tsou
______I am willing to participate in this study, and I am eighteen years old or over. ______I am not willing to participate in this study. ______I need more information before consenting my permission.
Signature: ______Date: ______Phone: ______Address: ______Witness Signatures: ______
This Research Project Has Been Reviewed And Approved By The Texas A&M University – Kingsville Institutional Review Board For The Protection Of Human Subjects. If You Have Questions Or Concerns Those Questions Or Concerns Should Be Directed To The Office Of Research And Sponsored Program. Phone: (361) 593-3344
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APPENDIX C Informed Consent Form (Chinese Version)
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參與研究同意書
題目: 台灣的大學生對於本國和外國英文教師英語教學的看法
研究者: 鄒詩韻
親愛的同學:
歡迎您來參與此次的教育研究。本問卷的主要目的是在收集您對於本國英語 教師和外國英語教師的看法和喜好。在您決定參與本研究之前，請仔細閱讀以下訊 息。如有任何疑問歡迎您提出，現場的研究人員將詳細地回答您的問題。
在現有的研究文獻中，已有大量關於本國和外國英語教師的研究，但是大部 分的研究只著重於教師對於英語教學的自我看法和對現有英語教師的英語教學的看 法。而在這些研究當中，它們忽略了一項事實：本國英語教師可細分為兩類：一類 是從英語國家獲得學位的本國英語教師，另外一類是從本國獲得學位的本國英語教 師。從英語國家獲得學位的本國英語教師，因為經歷過西方文化和教育的洗禮, 這 種經歷可能會直接影響到他們的英語能力和英語教學方法。所以我們假設這些從英 語國家獲得學位的本國英語教師，因為擁有西方和東方文化的背景，可能會設計出 更有效果的課程，運用更有效果的教學方法，在教學上付出更多熱情，進而有效的 幫助學生學習英語。為填補以往研究的不足，本研究是在比較外國英語教師和從英 語國家獲得學位的本國英語教師不同的教學方法，以及調查台灣的大學生對於這兩 類教師的看法和喜好。
如果您同意參與這項研究，請您完成以下的調查問卷。您的個人訊息將被妥 善保密。這項研究的參與是自願性的，您有權利拒絕參與或是隨時退出此次研究。
如果您願意參加此研究，請在同意書上簽名。 謝謝您的參與和配合！
以下是研究人員聯絡方式：
姓名: 鄒詩韻 電話: 0911238051 電子郵件: [email protected] 以下是德州農工大學金斯維爾分校教學與雙語教育學系的聯絡方式：
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指導教授: Patricia A. Gomez, Ed.D. 電話: (361) 593-2910 地址: Department of Teacher and Bilingual Education MSC 152, 700 University Blvd. Kingsville, Texas 78363 教學與雙語教育學系電話: (361) 593-2871 上班時間: 星期一至星期五 上午八點至下午五點
倫理審查委員會聯絡方式：
地址: Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Texas A&M University-Kingsville MSC 201. 700 University Blvd. Kingsville, Texas 78363-8202 傳真: (361) 593-3409 電話: (361) 593-3344 電子郵件: [email protected]
參與此研究協議之同意書: 如果你同意參加此研究，請您答覆以下的問卷。此問卷包含兩部分：第一部 份是包含你的性別、年齡、以及英語學習經歷。第二部分包含四小部分，總共有二 十九題問題和兩題問答題。第二部分問卷的目的是在調查您對於本國與外國英語教 師在英語教學上的看法和喜好。本份問卷預計將耗時四十分鐘。
預計可能會發生的不適和危險性： 預計無任何不適和危險性。
謝謝您的參與！
研究者: 鄒詩韻
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______我願意參加此研究，並且我已年滿十八歲。 ______我不同意參加此研究。 ______在我同意參加此研究之前我需要更多訊息。
簽名:______日期: ______電話: ______地址: ______見證人: ______
這份研究已經通過德州農工大學金斯維爾分校倫裡審查委員會的審查，如果您有任 何問題請直接向倫理審查委員會聯絡。電話: (361) 593-3344。
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APPENDIX D
Questionnaire (English Version)
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Key Definitions
1. English as a Foreign Language (EFL): English is not the primary or dominant language in Taiwan; hence, English is considered a “foreign” language rather than a second language. “EFL” (English as a Foreign Language), then, is explained as learning English in a non-English-speaking country.
2. Native English-Speaking Teacher (NEST): In the study, NESTs are referred to English teachers who acquire English as a first language and speak it as a mother tongue.
3. Non-Native English-Speaking Teacher (Non-NEST): In this study, Non-NESTs are referred to English language teachers who were born in Taiwan with Chinese as their first language. The researcher further limits NNESTs to those who received a degree from an English speaking country.
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Individual Background Questionnaire
Please answer the following questions and check the proper answers.
1. Gender : Male ______Female ______
2. Age: 18 to 20 ______21 to 23 ______Over 24______
3. Academic Major: ______
4. What’s your college level: Sophomore ______Junior ______Senior ______
5. How long have you been learning English? (Including self-study and taking private English courses) 8 to 10 years ______11 to 13 years ______14 to 16 years ______Over 17 years ______
6. How do you rate your overall proficiency in English compared to that of other students in your class? Beginner ______Intermediate ______Advanced ______
7. How many Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) have you had since you started learning English? (Including taking private English courses) 1 to 3 ______4 to 6 ______7 to 9 ______Over 10 ______
8. How many Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) have you had since you started learning English? (Including taking private English courses) 1 to 3 ______4 to 6 ______7 to 9 ______Over 10 ______
9. Check if you have studied English courses from NESTs or NNESTs.
Courses Native English-Speaking Non-native English- Teachers (NESTs) Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) Oracy Writing Grammar Vocabulary American Culture
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Perceptions Toward NESTs and NNESTs’ English instruction
Please respond to the following statements by circling a number that best expresses your view.
Section One – Students’ Learning Experiences Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Statements Disagree Agree 1. I learn English better from Non-NESTs 1 2 3 4 5 because we share the same first language. 2. I learn English better from Non-NESTs 1 2 3 4 5 because we share the same culture. 3. I feel motivated when I take course with Non- 1 2 3 4 5 NESTs. 4. I feel anxious when I take course with NESTs. 1 2 3 4 5 5. Non-NESTs are better than NESTs because they can understand my problems in learning 1 2 3 4 5 English. 6. Non-NESTs always understand my questions 1 2 3 4 5 and provide clear answers. 7. Non-NESTs are a good model in learning English because they have gone through the 1 2 3 4 5 same language learning process. 8. In general, beginning learners learn better with NNESTs because NNESTs apply Chinese into 1 2 3 4 5 English instruction. 9. In general, intermediate and advanced learners learn better with NESTs because they less 1 2 3 4 5 relay on the Chinese support and need more opportunities to practice their English.
Section Two – Teachers’ Performances in English education Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Statements Disagree Agree Oracy 10. In teaching oracy, NESTs are better because 1 2 3 4 5 they have standard pronunciation. 11. I prefer taking oral courses with NESTs 1 2 3 4 5 because it forces me not to speak Chinese. 12. I prefer learning oracy with NESTs because 1 2 3 4 5 they are fluent native speakers. Statements Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
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Disagree Agree Writing 13. I prefer to learn writing with Non-NESTs because I can describe what I want to write in 1 2 3 4 5 Chinese to my teachers. 14. NESTs teach writing better than Non-NESTs because they know certain writing styles used 1 2 3 4 5 in English speaking countries. Grammar 15. NESTs teach grammar better than Non- NESTs because they can provide different 1 2 3 4 5 variations of sentence structures in one specific grammar rule. 16. I prefer taking grammar classes with Non- NESTs because they provide Chinese 1 2 3 4 5 explanations for the rules of English grammar. Vocabulary 17. I prefer taking vocabulary courses with NESTs because they have bigger wealth 1 2 3 4 5 vocabulary. 18. I prefer taking vocabulary courses with Non- NESTs because they provide explanations of 1 2 3 4 5 unknown words in Chinese. American Culture 19. NNESTs incorporate Chinese and American 1 2 3 4 5 cultures into American culture classes. 20. NESTs supply learners with more information in the English language and 1 2 3 4 5 culture. Aspects of Language teaching 21. The teaching style of NESTs ensures student 1 2 3 4 5 enjoyment of the lessons. 22. Non-NESTs are better than NESTs because 1 2 3 4 5 they frequently use Chinese to teach English. 23. Most Non-NESTs do not consider class activities, games, and out-of-class activities 1 2 3 4 5 as resources of English learning. 24. Non-NESTs make comparison between Chinese and English while teaching, which 1 2 3 4 5 helps improve English learning. 25. Non-NESTs have great teaching abilities in 1 2 3 4 5 using different techniques and methods. 26. To be an effective EFL teacher, a person needs both experience and qualification in 1 2 3 4 5 teaching English.
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Section Three – Students’ Overall Preferences Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Statements Disagree Agree 27. NESTs are preferable to Non-NESTs and I 1 2 3 4 5 learn more from them. 28. I would like to have classes where both NESTs 1 2 3 4 5 and NNESTs co-teach in the same class.
Open-Ended Questions
29. Have you ever had any positive or negative experiences while learning English from NESTs? Please provide your personal experiences.
Positive experiences: ______
Negative experiences: ______
30. Have you ever had any positive or negative experiences while learning English from NNESTs? Please provide your personal experiences.
Positive experiences: ______
Negative experiences: ______
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IMPORTANT NOTE: The researcher would like to verify the responses of open-ended questions later while analyzing the data to make sure the answers you provided maintain overall authenticity. If you would like to consider taking part in this process, please write down your name, telephone number and email address below.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Name: ______
Tel.: ______
Email Address: ______
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APPENDIX E
Questionnaire (Chinese Version)
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名詞解釋和定義
1. 英語作為外語: 在台灣，英語並不是主流語言，英語被認為是一種外國語言而 不是第二語言，所以英語作為外語指的是在非英語國家的英語學習。 2. 外國英語教師: 本研究中，外國英語教師被定義為英語是母語的英語教師。 3. 本國英語教師: 本研究中，本國英語教師被定義為以國語為第一語言，出生台 灣的英語老師。
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個人背景資料問卷調查
請回答以下問題並在合適的地方打勾。
1. 性別: 男 ______女 ______2. 年齡: 18 到 20 歲 ______21 到 23 歲 ______超過 24 歲 ______3. 主修: ______4. 您目前就讀: 大二 ______，大三 ______，大四 ______5. 您學習英語多久了? (包括自修和補習班) 8 到 10 年 ______11 到 13 年 ______14 到 16 年 ______超過 17 年 ______6. 您覺得您的英語程度和班上同學相比會落在? 初級 ______中級 ______高級 ______7. 您曾經和多少位外國英語教師學習過英語? (包含補習班) 1 到 3 位 ______4 到 6 位 ______7 到 9 位 ______超過 10 位 ______8. 您曾經和多少位本國英語教師學習過英語? (包含補習班) 1 到 3 位 ______4 到 6 位 ______7 到 9 位 ______超過 10 位 ______9. 請勾選您曾經上過外國英語教師和本國英語教師的英語科目。
科目 外國英語教師 本國英語教師 口語 寫作 文法 字彙 美國文化
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對外國和本國英語教師英語教學的看法
請圈選 1 至 5 中的一個數字來確切地表達您的意見及看法
第一部分: 學生的學習經驗
非常 不同意 中立 同意 非常 問題 不同意 同意 1. 我和本國英語教師學英語學的比較好，因 1 2 3 4 5 為我們說同樣的母語。 2. 我和本國英語教師學英語學的比較好，因 1 2 3 4 5 為我們有同樣的文化背景。 3. 和本國英語教師學英語比較能激勵我學習 1 2 3 4 5 英文的動力。 4. 和外國英語教師學習英語讓我覺得很焦 1 2 3 4 5 慮。 5. 本國英語教師比外國英語教師好，因為本 國英語教師較能瞭解我在學習上會遇到的 1 2 3 4 5 問題。 6. 本國英語教師比較能夠瞭解我所發問的問 1 2 3 4 5 題，並提供明確的答案。 7. 本國英語教師是我學習英語的好範例，因 1 2 3 4 5 為他們經歷過和我一樣的語言學習過程。 8. 一般來說，初級學習者跟本國英語教師學 得比較好，因為本國英語教師能使用國語 1 2 3 4 5 輔助英語教學。 9. 一般來說，中、高級學習者對母語輔助學 習的依存度較小，對英語實際講演機會的 1 2 3 4 5 需求較大，所以和外國英語教師學得比較 好。
第二部分: 教師在英語教學上的表現
非常 不同意 中立 同意 非常 問題 不同意 同意 口語會話 10. 在口語會話教學中，外國英語教師更好， 1 2 3 4 5 因為他們發音較標準。 11. 我較喜歡外國英語教師教授口語會話課， 1 2 3 4 5 這使我在課堂上必須說英語。
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非常 不同意 中立 同意 非常 問題 不同意 同意 12. 我較喜歡上外國英語教師教授的口語會話 1 2 3 4 5 課，因為他們口語較流利。 寫作 13. 我較喜歡和本國英語教師學寫作，因為我 1 2 3 4 5 可以用國語來解釋我想要寫的內容。 14. 外國英語教師教寫作比本國英語教師好， 1 2 3 4 5 因為他們瞭解特有的西方式寫作風格。 文法 15. 外國英語教師教文法比本國英語教師好， 因為他們比較能夠提供在同一類文法中其 1 2 3 4 5 他的句型變化模式。 16. 我較喜歡和本國英語教師學文法，因為他 1 2 3 4 5 們能夠使用國語來輔助解釋英語的文法。 字彙 17. 我較喜歡上外國英語教師的字彙課，因為 1 2 3 4 5 他們的字彙量較大。 18. 我較喜歡上本國英語教師的字彙課，因為 1 2 3 4 5 他們能夠用國語解釋我不懂的英語單字。 美國文化 19. 在英語教學上，本國英語教師較能夠融合 1 2 3 4 5 中西方的文化。 20. 在英語教學上，外國英語教師提供更多英 1 2 3 4 5 語的資訊和美國文化。 關於語言學習方面 21. 外國英語教師的教學方法與方式，讓學生 1 2 3 4 5 在課程中更能享受英語學習的樂趣。 22. 本國英語教師比外國英語教師好，因為他 們能夠在適當的時候用國語來輔助英語教 1 2 3 4 5 學。 23. 大部分本國英語教師不認為課堂上的遊戲 活動，或是戶外活動是學習英語的有效途 1 2 3 4 5 徑。 24. 本國英語教師在教學上會採用中英文對 1 2 3 4 5 照，此方法對教學有正面的效果。 25. 本國英語教師擅於使用不同的教學方法。 1 2 3 4 5 26. 一位教學成效良好的英語教師必須同時具 1 2 3 4 5 備有英語教學的資格和經驗。
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第三部分: 學生的整體喜好 非常 不同意 中立 同意 非常 問題 不同意 同意 27. 我比較喜歡外國英語教師，從他們那我學 1 2 3 4 5 到更多。 28. 如果有機會，我會想要外國老師和本國老 1 2 3 4 5 師共同合作教學。
問答題 29. 您有任何和外國英語教師學習英語的正面或負面經歷嗎？請提供您的個人經 驗。
正面經歷: ______
負面經歷: ______
30. 您有任何和本國英語教師學習英語的正面或負面經歷嗎？請提供您的個人經 驗。
正面經歷: ______
負面經歷: ______
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重要訊息: 研究人員分析數據時將驗證您在問答題中的回答以確保研究的真實 性。 如果您願意參加驗證過程，請在留下您的姓名、電話以及電子郵件。謝謝您的合 作！
姓名: ______電話: ______電子郵件: ______
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VITA
Shih-Yun Tsou Texas A&M University – Kingsville Department of Teacher & Bilingual Education 700 University Blvd. Kingsville, TX 78363 208.301.0322 [email protected]
EDUCATION Master of Education, Curriculum and Instruction 2007 - 2008 University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
Bachelor of Arts, Applied English 2002 - 2006 Ming Chuan University, Taoyuan, Taiwan
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES Chinese Teacher 2012 - 2013 Corpus Christi Chinese School, Corpus Christi, Texas
Teaching Assistant 2009 American Language and Culture Program, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
English Teacher 2006 Chungli Municipal Hsin-Ming Junior High School, Taoyuan, Taiwan
English Teacher 2005-2006 Lai, Shih-Hsiung English School, Taoyuan, Taiwan
English Teacher 2005-2006 Kao-Chieh Engslih School, Taoyuan, Taiwan
English Teacher 2005-2006 Chien-Te Elementary School, Taoyuan, Taiwan
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CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS Tsou, S.Y. (2012). Taiwanese graduate students’ perspectives and preferences toward learning in EFL and ESL contexts. Paper to be presented at 10th Annual Pathways Student Research Symposium, Galveston, TX.
Tsou, S. Y. (2011). The exploration towards learning English in ESL and EFL contexts: Taiwanese graduate students’ perspectives. Paper to be presented at 9th Annual Pathways Student Research Symposium, College Station, TX.
Tsou, S. Y. (2010). Exploring the effective approaches for motivating high school ESL learners: Taiwanese English teachers’ perspectives. Paper to be presented at 8th Annual Pathways Student Research Symposium, Canyon, TX.
HONORS International exchange education fund (IEEF) scholarship 2011 Texas A&M University – Kingsville, Kingsville, TX
1st place prize for the best senior thesis project 2006 Ming Chuan University, Taoyuan, Taiwan
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