Page 16 - ELG1707 Jul Issue 449

?

COMMENT .

Are bilinguals

now the new

model

teacher

A language school advert calls for teachers with at least a C2 level of English

and fluency in the local tongue – but it might struggle to find many, argues
Melanie Butler

he visionary architect Buckminster job advert for a language school in Murcia. and Spanish.
Fuller once said, ‘You never change Roughly translated from the original The bilingual teacher idea is an easy sell
things by fighting the existing Spanish, it reads: to parents: given the choice, who wouldn’t
Treality. To change something, build ‘Wanted: full-time English teacher. want teachers who speak both? And
a new model that makes the existing model Minimum requirements: must be a native research supports the importance of L1 in L2
obsolete.’ speaker or have C2 English and be qualified acquisition.
The traditional model of EFL sees the to teach English. Must have five years’ In her summary of fifty years of research,
ideal teacher as a native speaker, and the experience with Spanish learners especially Patsy Lightbown emphasises that first
only language of instruction as English. children … Must speak Spanish fluently.’ language affects not only learners’ language
Indeed, the only possible language of production but what they perceive as
instruction is English because the vast The traditional grammatical in the target language. Knowing
majority of native-speaker Teflers are the students’ language gives the teacher
monolingual. model of EFL sees the insight into the students’ learning process.
This existing reality is increasingly under For example, I recently came across a
attack, particularly from non-native-speaker ideal teacher as the splendid lesson plan for Spanish students
teachers. The anti-nativist website Tefl native speaker but I noticed that among the phrases to
Equity publishes endless studies showing that pre-teach it had ‘an extravagant symbol
students judge teachers on their teaching and the only language of wealth’. Why choose that? Symbol and
ability, not their mother tongue. extravagant are Latin cognates: símbolo
But the native-speaker model remains an of instruction as and extravagante in Spanish. The pattern
article of faith for the parents, companies noun+of+noun, which the lesson planner
and governments who foot the bill. In some English was focusing on, is bog standard in all Latin
countries is not just the mother tongue languages.
which is important, but the skin colour. As A monolingual English teacher will
we report opposite, in Hong Kong some The new model teacher is a qualified associate words and patterns derived from
schools specify Caucasians. functional bilingual: someone who was not Latin as formal and difficult. Teflers fluent in
But he who pays the piper calls the tune. raised bilingual but speaks both the L1 and Latin languages know that they are easy; it is
In most countries, private language schools the target language fluently. This is the Anglo-Saxon words like ‘wealth’ which cause
have danced to the parents’ tune, hiring model adopted by the members of Aceia, the a problem.
monolingual native English speakers, often influential association of language schools in Spain’s schools are going to struggle to
unqualified and normally unable to speak Andalucia. As it explained in an article in find enough Spanish-speaking native English
any foreign language. the May Gazette, Aceia has banned adverts speakers to meet their requirements; at least
In Spain, however, a revolution is under excluding all but native speakers, and is among EU citizens who don’t need a work
way – a revolution clearly signalled in a looking for teachers who speak both English permit.
16 July 2017

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