[etni] Re: Native Speaker Teachers to Native Speake Classes
- From: "Bari Nirenberg" <nirenber@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <inbarofra@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 10:18:49 +0200
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> I would like to contest this premise. There are plenty of excellent
> English speakers who are termed "non-native speakers" who can teach a
> native speakers class (whatever that means - who are the students in
> these classes? Aren't they in most cases just excellent language users
> themselves?)
Technically, a native speaker class is a class of students who speak English
at mother-tongue level, not just good students (I say "technically" because
this is not always the case, of course). This includes students who lived
in English speaking countries and also children of English speaking parents.
I taught a couple of elementary school native speakers this year privately
and believe me, these kids aren't excellent language users --- their Hebrew
isn't all that great.
> Being a native speaker does not endow someone with the
> right or qualifications to teach top level students.
But they're NOT all top-level students. We have an Etgar student at our
school who is a native speaker. He knows English -- that doesn't make him
smart.
> And just a thought: how many non-native Hebrew speakers are teaching
> classes in Hebrew to native Hebrew speakers?
> Should we employ the same principle here and run a native speaker test
> to see who is qualified to teach in the school system? Should we say
> that only native Hebrew speakers can teach Hebrew literature and
> language structures (lashon) to classes of native Hebrew speakers? Or is
> English a special case?
Do you know of any non-native Hebrew speakers who are teaching lashon and
sifrut? I don't. Sure, maybe some of the teachers weren't born in Israel,
but all of the ones I can think of were brought up here and went through the
Israeli school system.
> And just another thought: more of our students (native and non-native
> alike) will be communicating with non-native than native English
> speakers in the future.
I don't think that point is very relevant in this discussion. We're talking
about who should be teaching them, not who they should be communicating
with. I'm assuming that you're a native Hebrew speaker. If you were to
move to an English-speaking country, who would you prefer to have teach your
children Hebrew -- a native Hebrew speaker or someone like me -- a very good
Hebrew speaker with a mild American accent who, although quite familiar with
the language (and the culture, which, by the way, isn't always the case with
non-native English teachers), sometimes misses some of the "finer points"?
Bari
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