Introduction
English has been increasingly used in Thailand as a lingua franca; that is, a means of communication between people who do not share a mother tongue nor speak English as a native language. Given the integration of ASEAN nations to form an economic region, the use of English as lingua franca (ELF) in Thailand and other member states of ASEAN will likely continue to increase at a significant rate. Kagnarith, Klein and Middlecamp (Reference Kagnarith, Klein and Middlecamp2012) observe that the increasing use of English as an inter-regional language of communication probably results from two causes. First, the use of English as ASEAN's working lingua franca has already been in effect. Second, the promotion of English as an international business language is one objective of the plan for the regional integration of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). In fact, the campaign to promote English as an official lingua franca in ASEAN is based on Article 34 of The ASEAN Charter ratified in February 2009: ‘The working language of ASEAN shall be English’.
To prepare the country for the larger economic community, many schools, colleges and universities in Thailand have been involved in the process of revisiting their own academic curricula and revising them to be in line with the needs of the new economic community. Currently, one attempt, which is of pedagogic interest for most educational institutions, has been the aim to produce graduates with an adequate command of communicative English. Hence, several English Language Teaching (ELT) campaigns and strategic plans have been developed and implemented nationwide in the pursuit of this goal.
The role of native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) in Thailand's ELT
Over the past few years, Thailand has seen a craze of English language learning, probably due to Thais’ realization of the AEC integration. It could be seen that the plan to strengthen the competitiveness of the nation is of prime concern for educators and curriculum developers in Thailand. Several ELT sectors in Thailand have paid more attention to improving students’ communication skills. The following are some examples illustrating how the goal of the AEC unification has entered into the popular discourse of English education in Thailand.
Recently, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has established the ‘English Speaking Year’ program with an aim to ensure that Thai students are able to communicate effectively with non-Thai speakers (Hodal, Reference Hodal2012). The program, which receiving both praise and criticism, sent more than a thousand Thai English teachers to English-speaking countries for short periods of training during summer vacation and, at the same time brought more than a hundred volunteers from England to teach English in Thailand for a short periods (Takahashi, Reference Takahashi2012). The program also involves using famous celebrities as models for English language learning in Thailand. Recently, Britain's former Prime Minister, Tony Blair was appointed as an honorary English teacher and ambassador to improve the quality of English education in Thailand (Hodal, Reference Hodal2012; Galloway & Rose, Reference Galloway and Rose2015). Britain's former prime minister stated:
How happy I am that Thailand decided to take the teaching of English seriously. It makes sure as the world today is more and more one community and English is a universal language. So it is very sensible for the education system in Thailand to do this. (Fernquest, Reference Fernquest2012)
Future demand of communicative English also inspired a huge number of students to learn English with NESTs at a well-known language institute. In February 2013, the news of hundreds of Thai parents and children queuing up and camping overnight in order to secure limited seats for a British Council English course spread across the pages of Thai newspapers and social media. It was reported that some individuals had even camped out all night before they were allowed for registration the next morning (MGR Online, 2013).
A desire to implement the AEC initiative has also reached many schools across the country. For instance, a private school in a major province in the South of Thailand, responding to momentum to form the AEC, boasts on its advertising billboard that students will learn English with NESTs: ‘Moving toward the AEC [in Thai], every student can learn English with native speakers at … school’ (see Figure 1, where the name of the school has been redacted). The large billboard, which is emblazoned with large American and British flags, the ASEAN logo and pictures of native English-speaking teachers teaching young children in a classroom setting, was put in front of the school.
Advertising billboard of a Thai school
In fact, popular messages such as ‘100% taught by native speakers’, ‘learning English with native speakers’ and the slogan in Figure 1 are employed by many schools to market their English education, and these messages reflect the powerful role of NESTs in Thailand's ELT. This English learning hype, originally fueled by Thais’ preference for NESTs, has come to perpetuate the idea that ‘good English’ equals ‘native-like English’, and that ‘good English’ can only be achieved through the expert guidance of NESTs, not from local Thai English teachers.
Background to the study
The above ELT phenomena have generated my interest in investigating how different stakeholders (teachers, students and parents) value ‘nativeness’ in ELT in general and in its relationship to the initiative to form the ASEAN Economic Community in particular. Regarding the function of English as an ASEAN lingua franca, Kirkpatrick (Reference Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick2002: 213) argues that ‘a new curriculum is required that concentrates on ASEAN rather than ‘Anglo’ cultures and on local rather than imported native speaker teachers’. Similarly, Matsuda (Reference Matsuda and Sharifian2009) maintains that the teaching of English in the globalized era is principally concerned with a change in the mindset of ELT stakeholders – a pedagogic change which departs from the traditional ELT orientation that prioritizes native-speaker approximation. Despite the increase in awareness of the global role of English in the world, we do not have sufficient empirical data concerning whether such awareness is shared by Thai teachers, parents and students. Without eliciting the stakeholders’ voices, we seemingly do not have any idea about how to meaningfully revisit ELT in order to make it consistent with the current sociolinguistic profile of English as a working lingua franca in ASEAN. Thus, this paper attempts to fulfill the gap in the literature by investigating how stakeholders view the role of ‘nativeness’ in ELT and its relationship to language education may be affected by the initiative to establish the AEC.
The project
The research site was a small private secondary school in southern Thailand. The message on the billboard (see Figure 1) sparked my interest in investigating how the stakeholders – namely teachers, parents and students – reacted to the message saying that the school is moving toward the AEC and that every student can learn English with NESTs. It was interesting to know how such policy was put into practice and how stakeholders would view it.
I conducted semi-structured interviews with two teachers, two parents and two students in the interest of gaining in-depth reactions to these questions. Concerning the participant demographics, the two teachers are female and hold bachelor's degrees in English education. Both are considered young teachers (Teacher 1 with four years and Teacher 2 with six years of experience). For parent interviews, two female parents at age 48 (Parent 1) and 45 (Parent 2) were contacted with the assistance of one of the teachers. They are the parents of the two 16-year-old students who also participated in the current study. Student 1 (female) and Student 2 (male) each reported having 10 years of experience learning English.
The student interviews lasted approximately 20 minutes and the teacher and parent inteviews lasted 30–40 minutes. All the interviews were conducted in Thai and audio-recorded. The interview data were transcribed and translated into English for in-depth analysis. Both transcriptions and translations were proofread and checked by the researcher and a translation expert. The interview data were read several times to discover substantial and useful data for analysis. A coding process was employed to interpret the interview data. In this process, all the interview data were carefully coded to look for emerging thematic categories. These categories were, in turn, related back to the aim of this study (He & Miller, Reference He and Miller2011).
Results
Based on the interviews with ELT stakeholders of a local school in Thailand, the results suggest three major themes involving the participants’ awareness of the role of English in the context of the AEC, views toward the role of NESTs in ELT and beliefs about ‘ideal English’ teachers as models for language education within the context of the AEC.
Awareness of the role of English in the context of the AEC
I first asked the participants whether they were aware of the commencement of the AEC, which had already been established. The purpose of this question was to check their general knowledge and awareness of the AEC. They all responded that they were well informed about the AEC. Interestingly, although the students were aware of the AEC, they admitted that they knew nothing beyond the name of the AEC. One even admitted that he only knew about easier travel between the countries:
I know that Thailand is part of the AEC now, but I don't know why everyone keeps talking about it. What I only know is there is a freer movement of people across the region. (Student 2)
When asked how important English is in the context of the AEC, all of them stated that English is important for Thai people for several reasons, including maintaining international competitiveness, helping secure better jobs and functioning as a tool for international communication. Parent 1 reacted:
English is very important for my child. […] I want her to be able to compete with other people internationally. […] If she has a good command of English, she will get a well-paid job. (Parent 1)
Teacher 2, interestingly, mentioned the role of English as a working lingua franca in the region. She said that:
English is regarded as a working language of ASEAN, and this means that everyone is required to know some English … if they want to interact with international speakers in the region. (Teacher 2)
The role of NESTs in ELT
The participants were then asked how they felt about the message made by school that, ‘Every student can learn English with native speakers’. The teachers were found to hold favorable views toward getting the students to study with NESTs. Teacher 1 claimed that:
The school realizes that the students need to be able to communicate with native speakers in their real life encounters, so … we try our best to get the students to study with a NEST at least an hour a week. (Teacher 1)
Although Teacher 2 was positive about the message, she pointed out that the school was experiencing a shortage of NESTs. Therefore, what was boasted in the advert could be an unrealistic goal. She stated that:
It's good to expose the students to NESTs because they can learn how to communicate confidently in English, … but I don't think we have enough NESTs for all the students now. (Teacher 2)
Teacher 2 went on to discuss the questionable qualification of NESTs teaching English in Thailand. She also pointed out how parental needs influenced the choice of teacher selection:
I doubt whether some NESTs are qualified to teach because they do not seem to have the passion of teaching. […] Some look like travelers, but since there's no choice… we have to hire them. […] The parents want their children to study with them. (Teacher 2)
Similarly, parents also believe that NESTs can widen their children's futures. When asked to specifically comment on the message shown in the billboard, they thought it was a good policy since it can help their children become better English speakers. Two reacted:
Getting my child to study with NESTs in an all-English environment will guarantee a brighter future for her. (Parent 1)
The school policy is good. […] I think it's necessary for my child to study with a NEST because I want him to be able to speak English well. (Parent 2)
The students also reacted to the message positively, pointing to the need to improve their overall communication skills and develop a native-like accent. Two said that:
The good thing about studying with a NEST is that … I can improve my listening skills. (Student 1)
It's important because I want to speak good English and develop a native-like accent …. (Student 2)
I then asked them to reflect upon their past moments and experiences when they studied English with NESTs. It was found that they seemed to have mixed attitudes. While Student 1 thought that NESTs were not as strict as Thai English teachers, Student 2 thought that they did not pay much attention to the class and often left the class early. They remarked:
The NESTs I have studied with are not as strict as Thai teachers. They rarely assign homework … and they don't punish us when we don't do homework. (Student 1)
Most of the time, they just come to the class talking nonsensically about their lives and football and … dismiss the class very early. […] They don't even use any books to teach. (Student 2)
Ideal English teachers as models for language education in the context of the AEC
I further encouraged the participants to talk about ideal English teachers for language education in the context of the AEC. The findings showed that the participants seemed to supply a similar set of views. With an emphasis on using communicative language teaching (CLT) approaches to teaching English, the teachers believed that NESTs are in a better position than local teachers to teach communication skills, thus making them ideal English teachers for the students. Two reacted:
To prepare the students for communication in the AEC context, I think NESTs are better than us in teaching communicative English. (Teacher 1)
We have been trained to use CLT in classroom … because we have to make sure that the students improve their communicative skills for their future encounters, but I think NESTs are more familiar with this approach than us. (Teacher 2)
Likewise, both parents and students thought that NESTs are ideal language teachers because they speak better English (i.e. ‘correct English’), provide correct model of language use and know their own cultures well. Two stated that:
Actually, I like to study with good NESTs in speaking class because I want to have a native-like accent … and it's good for me in the future if … I have to work in neighboring countries. (Student 2)
I think NESTs make better English teachers because they speak English naturally and know their own cultures very well […] So it's good for the students to learn from them and understand their cultures at the same time. (Parent 1)
It could be seen that the parents and students in the above excerpts did not relate the issue in question to the context of the AEC. Their focus was only on who they thought were better English teachers. However, this is not true for Parent 2, who made a somewhat crucial relationship between the question of ideal English teacher and language education in the AEC. She claimed that:
I think all English classes in school should be taught by NESTs and using English as a medium. […] I believe their communication and teaching skills are better than Thai teachers. […] We all know that people from all over ASEAN will come to do business in Thailand, and the students need to be able to speak fluently. (Parent 2)
Discussion
The participants seemed to be aware of the importance of English in the region, as they realized that Thais will need to use English to interact with individuals from neighboring countries. Perhaps the establishment of the AEC plays significant roles in how the participants perceived English. Due to Thailand's essential emphasis on building the nation's economic competitiveness in the region, people across the country have been made conscious about the increasingly important role of English in the region (Kanoksilapatham, Reference Kanoksilapatham2014).
Despite awareness of the role of English in the AEC, the participants’ assumptions about English language teaching and learning seem to be deeply grounded in the belief that the only correct model of language teaching is directly derived from NESTs. In fact, the students expressed their clear goal that they wanted to be able to speak English like native speakers. This pattern of belief is likely to conform to the teachers’ goal and the parents’ desire, as they also believe that getting the students to study with NESTs and maximizing the use of English as a medium of instruction will make the students acquire native-like proficiency, especially in skills dealing with communication. This finding explains the popularity of NESTs in English education. In fact, this ideology is thought to dominate the field of ELT in many countries (Jenkins, Reference Jenkins2007; Lai, Reference Lai2008; Tanghe, Reference Tanghe2014), resulting in the powerful status of NESTs and their varieties. This was reflected by the participants who thought of NESTs as speaking ‘standard English’ and providing ‘correct models’ of language usage.
Although both teachers and parents felt that studying with NESTs guarantees a promising future for their students, such practice was problematic due to the reported lack of human resources and questionable teacher qualification. One of the teachers even admitted that not every student had an opportunity to study with NESTs. This impracticality echoes Kachru's (Reference Kachru1991) argument that, whether or not it is desirable, practically speaking, it is simply not possible for non-native speakers to be in touch with NESTs, given the number of non-native speakers outnumbering native speakers by a significant ratio. It is, therefore, safe to say that there is a mismatch between the stated policy and the current practice. The message used in the advert should simply be understood as the school's intrinsic effort to attract customers. To make matters worse, despite NESTs being unqualified to teach English (as reported by one teacher), parents’ demands were powerful enough to blind the school to recruit them.
The parents were convinced by the school's advertised message because they believed that NESTs can be a better source of knowledge and can guarantee a brighter future for their children. In this regard, Fairclough (Reference Fairclough1993) maintains that one of the pressures in education is that academics tend to see students as customers. This ideology, according to Ruecker and Ives (Reference Ruecker and Ives2015: 751), positions students as customers and characterizes language education as ‘exciting interactions with enthusiastic native English speakers’. Furthermore, the demands of students and parents reflect ‘a metonymic connection to the social and economic power that comes with Western, white, first-world subject positionality’ (Ruecker & Ives, Reference Ruecker and Ives2015: 752).
Conclusion
Currently, one important pedagogic attempt for boosting Thailand's competitiveness on international stages has been to produce students with a good command of English, and NESTs, have become key figures among ELT practitioners in helping forge language education in Thailand. This paper attempts to investigate how stakeholders view the role of ‘nativeness’ in ELT and its relationship to language education in the context of the newly established ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The findings showed that the participants were aware of the role of English in the AEC. When asked to react to a school policy stating that ‘everyone can learn English with native speakers’, many stakeholders were positive about the policy, although in reality it was not practical due to a lack of human resources and teacher qualifications. Concerning the question of ideal English teachers as models for language education in the context of the AEC, all stakeholders tended to believe that the only correct model of language teaching is directly derived from native speakers.
Although approximating NESTs’ performance is considerably useful for those who want to identify themselves with the native-speaking communities, it should be noted that these learners of English ‘represent a small minority of the number of people learning English in Outer and Expanding Circle countries’ (Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick, Rubdy and Saraceni2006: 73). In the multilingual and multicultural context of ASEAN, at any event, ‘it must be understood that the vast majority of people in the region who are learning English are doing so with the express purpose of being able to communicate with fellow non-native speakers’ (Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick2002: 214). In the ASEAN context, the advent of the AEC will transform ASEAN into a community with a freer flow of people. This principally means that Thai English learners will have more opportunities to use English with other non-native speakers in their future interactions or future professional lives. Therefore, an appropriate pedagogic model needs to be based on the sociolinguistic reality of the context in which English is used. That is, a realistic pedagogic model should be associated with people's daily-life dealings, how people actually use the language and how the language really functions in the society both as an intra-national communicative medium within the country and as an international communicative medium within the region (Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick2002; Jindapitak, Reference Jindapitak2015).
Naratip Jindapitak is a lecturer in English at Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand. He is now doing a Ph.D. in Teaching English as an International Language at the same university where he is teaching. He enjoys reading topics related to NESTs and NNESTs since this issue has both direct and indirect impacts on ELT practices employed in schools and universities worldwide. His research interests also include issues related to world Englishes, English as a lingua franca, and language attitudes. Email: naratip.jin@psu.ac.th
