Translator: Mirjana Čutura Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
The history of various types of discrimination
goes deep back into ages.
People are clever enough to come up with inventions
like smartwatches, artificial hearts, driverless cars,
and a lot of useful things.
But sometimes people are not clever enough to stop discriminating each other.
Religion, political views,
gender, nationality, place of birth,
and other types of discrimination.
I think that we have to stop it.
I think that we have to bring some change into this world.
And one type of discrimination I want to talk about today
is discrimination against non-native English-speaking teachers.
About 80 to 90 percent of job advertisements
on big English language teaching websites are
for native English-speaking teachers only.
Note the word "only."
At the same time,
about 80 to 90 percent of English language teachers
are non-natives.
To understand that it is a case of discrimination,
I think we have first to understand what a native speaker of English is.
So I have some definitions here, from dictionaries.
So a native speaker, who is a native speaker?
Cambridge dictionary says that a native speaker is someone
who has spoken a particular language since they were a baby,
rather than having learnt it as a child or adult.
So, to be called a native speaker,
you have to be exposed to the language from your childhood.
Collins dictionary says,
"A person having a special native language is a person called a native speaker."
And then Macmillan says,
"Someone who has learnt a particular language
from the time they began to speak."
Well, I understand that dictionaries have to give some kind of a definition,
but I really think that the concept
of a native and non-native speakers dichotomy
is outdated.
A couple of centuries ago,
it was right
because national identity,
ethnical identity, and language would coincide
because people would not travel,
we did not have planes, and trains, and cars,
and other means of transportation.
But nowadays, people travel.
They marry, you know, people love each other,
they marry each other,
and very often, when you see somebody whom you like,
you do not ask for their passport.
You just marry them, and then you have kids.
So we have a lot of mixed marriages
and people moving from one country to another country.
Well, sometimes when people move to another country,
their kids forget or do not speak that first language properly,
but they speak the language of the country.
My son is here in this room.
I'm Armenian, and my wife is Armenian.
We've been living in Russia for 15 years now,
and for the last five years,
I've been speaking English to my three kids,
so my son speaks English, and Russian, and Armenian.
And what's his native language?
You could say that it is Armenian.
Well, I could argue,
because Armenian is not his first language
as far as the language competence is concerned,
but it is Russian.
So the second language is English, and the third is Armenian.
But if you take into consideration ethnicity,
you could say that it is Armenian.
But ethnicity has to do with discrimination
when it comes up to teaching.
I mean, when you use the word a native speaker of a language,
I have nothing against it if you use it in a conversation,
if you use it to tell about your original stuff,
but when it comes to teaching profession,
employers, recruiters, language school owners
use it to discriminate against non-native English-speaking teachers.
I mean, there is a huge demand for English language teachers
in the world.
And native speakers cannot meet the demand,
and we need
more, and more, and more non-native, qualified teachers to do the job,
but school owners and recruiters say
that students and parents put a high value
on somebody being a native speaker.
But being a native speaker doesn't mean
that you can be a good English language teacher, does it?
You think about your first language or about your native language.
Can you teach that language to somebody?
Are you sure that you know grammar,
that you know how the language works,
that you know about syntax,
that you know a lot of stuff about teaching,
a lot about classroom management?
Are you qualified as an English language teacher?
But this topic has been discussed a lot
in recent years,
and I'm really proud to say
that a lot of native speakers stand up
for non-native English-speaking teachers.
It is amazing that this discrimination
against non-native speaking teachers happens mostly
in the countries where English is not an official language.
So somehow language school directors want to attract more clients,
putting on their website that we have native English speakers in our school.
And very often,
you have there just native speakers of English,
nice guys who want to travel -
there is nothing, you know, bad about traveling.
But, guys, teaching is a profession,
speaking is not.
I own a chain of nine English language schools,
but, anyway, I'm against this kind of discrimination
because it has some consequences that we have to think about.
There are more than two billion people speaking English to a different extent
these days.
And about 1.5 billion of them
are English language learners.
I mean, if we pay more attention
not to the fact of being a native speaker,
but to the professional qualities of a teacher,
I think everybody is going to benefit,
both native speakers and non-native speakers.
This world needs a real lingua franca
so that people can communicate, so that people can understand each other,
so that there is more peace on this planet.
How do we do it?
How do we fight
against this fallacy?
And it is fallacy
because what they say is
that you have an accent.
I met a lot of people who say,
"Well, your English is pretty good, but you have an accent."
My answer to those people is, "You have an accent too."
And when they say, "You have a foreign accent,"
I say, "You have a foreign accent too because you live in a different country."
But this misconception is rooted
in human brain so deeply
that a lot of people,
a lot of non-native and native professionals as well,
are going to quit teaching.
They will to get out of the profession because of this job inequality, I guess.
And we have to do something about it.
So being a native speaker is not about qualification.
And when you see a job description saying
that a native English language-speaking teacher is needed [only] -
note the word "only" -
actually you can go and get the job.
Fighting is one thing; hacking the system is another thing.
I have something in my pocket.
Actually, I have a certificate here, guys.
And it says,
"This is to certify
that Araik Arzumanyan is a native speaker of English."
Yeah.
Then it says,
"Araik Arzumanyan holds certain guild's level three
Certificate in ESOL International Spoken Mastery C2 level.
To the best of my belief,
C2 level language competence description
in European Union's Common European Framework of Reference
corresponds to the language competence
of an educated native speaker."
(Applause)
"For the purpose of this certificate,
the meaning of the native speaker term
totally coincides with the meaning of the C2 level speaker term.
It does not mean anything else.
This certificate can be used only to apply for a job having
the 'native English-speaking teacher only' or the like requirement.
This certificate can not be used in any way to discriminate anybody
on the grounds of being a native speaker of English,
having a native language competence,
being a native of a particular nationality."
Signed by me, Araik Arzumanyan.
(Applause)
So, I have a certificate,
and next time I see a job description,
I promise -
if I see it in our town -
I promise, guys, I'm going to apply for it.
And if somebody says, "You're not a native speaker,"
I'm producing the certificate,
which means that now they have to prove that I'm not a native speaker.
And to prove that I'm not a native speaker,
recruiters have to discriminate against me
in a more open way.
They have to say that,
"You're not a native speaker because you're Armenian
or because you're Russian."
And that is plain discrimination.
So my call for action is:
We have a lot of teachers' associations on this planet.
Why wouldn't you issue a certificate
saying that somebody
who has C2 level of English,
which is the highest level of competence,
is a native speaker of English?
Why wouldn't teachers' associations issue certificates
to hack the system?
(Applause)
I think that if we try,
if we work together,
we can stop this practice
of non-native English-speaking teacher discrimination.
(Applause)
And it is very important because more people,
more teachers,
then, will get into the job.
They will be more professional.
And teachers also will be kind of forced to work
on their professional qualities,
so bringing more people
into the field of English language teaching.
And everybody is going to benefit:
natives, non-natives, students, teachers, humanity.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)