A Story of South-East Asian TESOL Why Teach Abroad: Its Opportunities and Challenges

Luthfi Nicola Sereni, Elih Sutisna Yanto

Abstract


This study aimed to investigate a story from a South-East Asian TESOL teacher. The purpose of this study is to inspire and guide in-service and pre-service English teachers to teach EFL/ESL overseas either to native English-speaking or non-native English-speaking countries. The participant of the study is a BA TESOL Teacher from the Philippines teaching English in the Kingdom Saudi of Arabia. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview and analyzed through Braun & Clarke’s thematic analysis. The data then will be coded, read multiple times, and themes were assigned and generated. The findings describe that teaching abroad provides better prosperity and additive and transformative development for the teachers. However, teachers that aim to teach abroad should be globally accepted and possess proper identity and agency to overcome culture shock, language differences, homesickness as the common challenges of teaching abroad. Overall, teaching abroad should be considered greatly by teachers who are interested to receive a higher salary and involved various teachers’ development experience.

Keywords


EFL Teachers; Native English Teachers; Non-Native English Teachers; Teaching EFL/ESL Abroad; Pre-Service English Teachers

Full Text:

Full PDF

References


Amin, N. (2004). Nativism, the native speaker construct, and minority immigrant women teachers of English as a second language. In Learning and teaching from experience: Perspectives on non-native English-speaking professionals, ed. L.D. Kamhi-Stein, 61–80. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Alhassan, A. (2019). EFL postgraduate students’ learning needs on English-medium business programmes: An exploratory study. Language Teaching Research, 136216881985786. doi: 10.1177/1362168819857861

Árva, V. & Medgyes, P. (2000). Native and non-native teachers in the classroom. System, 28, 355–72.

Barratt, L. & Kontra, E. (2000). Native English-speaking teachers in cultures other than their own. TESOL Journal, 9, 19–23.

Beijaard, D., Meijer, P., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(2), 107–128.

Benson, P. (2012). Learning to teach across borders: Mainland Chinese student English teachers in Hong Kong schools. Language Teaching Research, 16(4), 483-499. doi: 10.1177/1362168812455589

Braun, V. and Clarke, V., 2012. Thematic analysis. APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol 2: Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological., pp.57-71.

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story

in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Clark, E., & Paran, A. (2007). The employability of non-native-speaker teachers of EFL: A UK survey. System, 35(4), 407-430. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2007.05.002

Creswell, J. W., Klassen, A. C., Plano Clark, V. L., & Smith, K. C. (2011). Best practices for mixed methods research in the health sciences. Bethesda (Maryland): National Institutes of Health, 2013, 541-545.

Davies, A. 1991. The native speaker in applied linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Frederiksen, Crisdella Pastera. (2014). Filipino EFL Teachers Working Abroad: Some benefits and downsides for English teachers working abroad. DIVA; Malmö högskola/Lärarutbildningen.

Graddol D (2000). The Future of English? London: The English Company (UK) Ltd.

Grubbs SJ, Jantarach V, and Kettem S (2010) Studying English with Thai and native-speaking teachers. Teachers and Teaching 16(5): 559–76,

doi: 10.1080/13540602.2010.507966

Hickey M (2014). English for ASEAN! African and Asian teacher migration in response to Thailand’s English-language education boom. Available at: https://asian.washington.edu/events/2014–01–15/english-asean-african-and-asianteacher-migration-response-thailands-english

Kachru, B.B., and C.L. Nelson. (1996). World Englishes. In Sociolinguistics and language teaching, ed. S.L. McKay and N.H. Hornberger, 71–102. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kirkpatrick A (2011) English as an Asian lingua franca and the multilingual model of ELT. Language Teaching 44(2): 212–24. doi:10.1017/S0261444810000145

Kobayashi Y (2017) ASEAN English teachers as a model for international English learners: modified teaching principles. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 27(3): 1–15. doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12173

Kong, M. (2016). On Teaching Methods: The Personal Experiences of Teachers of English. RELC Journal, 48(2), 197-209. doi: 10.1177/0033688216661251

Kubota R, Lin A (2006) Race and TESOL: introduction to concepts and theories. TESOL Quarterly 40(3): 471–93.

Medgyes, P (1992) Native or non-native: who’s worth more? ELT Journal 46(4): 340–49.

Medgyes, P. (1994). The non-native teacher. London: Macmillan.

Merino IG (1997) Native English-speaking teachers versus non-native English-speaking teachers. Revista alicantina de estudios ingleses 10: 67–79.

Moussu, L. & Llurda, E. (2008). Non-native English-speaking English language teachers: History and research. Language Teaching, 43, 315–48.

Pappa, S., Moate, J., Ruohotie-Lyhty, M., & Eteläpelto, A. (2017). Teachers’ pedagogical and relational identity negotiation in the Finnish CLIL context. Teaching and Teacher Education, 65, 61–70.

Rampton, M.B.H. 1990. Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. ELT Journal 44, no. 2: 97–101.

Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2011). Constructing practical knowledge of teaching: Eleven newly qualified language teachers’ discursive agency. Language Learning Journal, 39(3), 365–380.

Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2018). Identity-agency in progress: Teachers authoring their identities. In Research on Teacher Identity (pp. 25-36). Springer, Cham.

Shin, S. (2008). Preparing non‐native English‐speaking ESL teachers. Teacher Development, 12(1), 57-65. doi: 10.1080/13664530701827749

Songsirisak P (2015). Non-native English speaker teachers: uncovering Thai EFL

teachers’ instructional practices in a Thai international program.http://www.vnseameo.org/TESOLConference2015/Materials/Fullpaper/Mr.%20Prommin%20Songsirisak.pdf

Ulla, M., 2019. Filipinos as EFL Teachers in Bangkok, Thailand: Implications for Language Education Policy in the ASEAN Region. RELC Journal, p.003368821987977.

Ulla M. (2018) English language teaching in Thailand: Filipino teachers’ experiences and perspectives. Issues in Educational Research 28(4): 1080–94. http://www.iier.org.au/iier28/ulla2.pdf

Ulla M. (2017) Teacher training in Myanmar: teachers’ perceptions and implications. International Journal of Instruction 10(2): 103–18. Available at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1138329

Ulate NV (2011) Insights towards native and non-Native ELT educators. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature 4(1): 56–79.

Walkinshaw I, Duong OTH (2014) Native- and non-native English language teachers:

student perceptions in Vietnam and Japan. SAGE Open. 1–9 doi: 10.1177/2158244014534451

Walkinshaw I, Duong OTH (2012) Native- and non-native speaking English teachers in Vietnam: weighing the benefits. TESL-EJ 16(3): 1–17.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v9i3.3978

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2021 Luthfi Nicola Sereni, Elih Sutisna Yanto

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching (p-issn: 2338-0810 | e-issn: 2621-1378) has been Indexed/Listed by

 Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.