Linguistic strengths

Almost all the studies conducted so far indicate that NESTs are often respected as models in the English language learning process (Tang, Reference Tang1997). Medgyes (Reference Medgyes1992: 342) argues that the NESTs’ linguistic competence constitutes an “advantage… so substantial that it cannot be outweighed by other factors prevalent in the learning situation, whether it be motivation, aptitude, perseverance, experience, education or anything else”. This is particularly evident in helping students improve pronunciation and speaking. In investigating Chinese university students’ perceptions of NESTs, Rao (Reference Rao2010) found that the students were so engrossed by the NESTs’ authentic pronunciation and intonation that they could not help imitating NESTs’ ways of speaking. Likewise, the Chinese secondary school students in Ma's (Reference Ma2012a) study used the words “real”, “more pure”, and “orthodox” to describe NESTs’ oral English. Ma found that the students’ enthusiasm to improve oral proficiency was greatly stimulated by NESTs’ pronunciation and speaking skills.

In addition to authentic pronunciation and intonation, NESTs’ idiomatic use of the English language is another linguistic advantage that NESTs exhibit in Chinese EFL teaching. For example, many students in Rao's (Reference Rao2010) study reported that they benefited from NESTs’ critical information about usage of the language. They commented that NESTs could provide an insider's linguistic knowledge of the target language community, and that the students could learn subtle differences of usage from NESTs’ classroom teaching. Similar results also appeared in a study by Ma (Reference Ma2012a), who stated that NESTs’ stock of colloquial expression, idioms and phrasal verbs contributed to the improvement of Chinese students’ efficiency in learning English.

The final linguistic benefit that Chinese students can obtain in a NEST's classroom is a real life communicative environment. In an English class offered by a NEST, students have to speak English because there is no other way to communicate (Ma, Reference Ma2012b). Ma's (Reference Ma2012b) study also found that many Chinese students regarded the mere presence of a NEST in a classroom as a motivating factor. They commented that their interest in improving English was drastically increased when speaking directly to NESTs.

Cultural familiarity

As an indispensable part of second language acquisition, cultural knowledge of the target language is of vital importance in helping students have a thorough understanding of the English language. Since NESTs were born and grew up in English-speaking countries, they are generally viewed by EFL students in China as authentic, walking, breathing resources about English culture. This is evidenced in Rao's (Reference Rao2010) study, in which NESTs were found to be possessed of a particularly acute awareness of cultural elements in their EFL teaching, and that they could tell students about their culture, traditions, history and people. In Ma's (Reference Ma2012b) study, the participants illustrated how the NESTs assisted them in understanding more about the West's culture and learning appropriate ways to get along with Western people.

Cultural awareness and knowledge are especially important for an English reading course in EFL contexts. The findings in a recent study by Chun (Reference Chun2014) showed that NESTs were “more competent not only at providing cultural knowledge, but also teaching reading skills despite linguistic constraints” (p. 575). This was attributed to the fact that the subjects in his study were university students, and that almost all the texts used for teaching these university students were directly or indirectly adapted from the English publications in the West. Chun argued that NESTs’ rich cultural knowledge enabled them to “explain cultural nuances and provide the necessary background knowledge of those texts” (p. 575).

Pedagogical strengths

A number of studies have found that classes taught by NESTs are often seen as having a friendly, relaxed and lively atmosphere (Tang, Reference Tang1997). Such a classroom atmosphere, according to Medgyes (Reference Medgyes1992), mainly originates from their flexible teaching methods. As products of well-developed educational systems in English-speaking countries, NESTs have been exposed to a variety of advanced language teaching methods and techniques. When they are engaged in language teaching, they tend to teach in the way as they were taught in their own home countries. The findings in Rao's (Reference Rao2010) study demonstrated that NESTs employed a variety of modern teaching methods, which helped create a lively learning environment.

In addition, NESTs’ new and creative classroom activities have also contributed to the development of a relaxed classroom atmosphere in their EFL teaching. The participants in Ma's (Reference Ma2012b) study reported that they enjoyed being taught by NESTs because they found it interesting to participate in the games, role plays and debates organized by these teachers. Similarly, Ma (Reference Ma2012b) found that NESTs had more fun ideas, and were adept at creating a fun learning environment by storytelling, sharing life experiences, or making jokes in classes. Rao's (Reference Rao2010) study found that the Chinese students’ motivation to learn English was increased by NESTs’ use of visual aids, pictures and multimedia equipments in classroom.

Insensitivity to students’ linguistic problems

Of all the problems that NESTs encounter in Chinese EFL classroom, insensitivity to their students’ linguistic problems is considered as the most serious obstacle (Rao, Reference Rao2010). Two factors may have contributed to this problem: one is NESTs’ lack of experience of learning English as a second or foreign language, and the other is their ignorance of the students’ mother tongue. Learning a second language is universally recognized as a long and complex process in which learners are expected to confront various difficulties. However, since English is their mother tongue, NESTs have not gone through the process of learning English as a second language. Therefore, they lack insight into the typical problems of their students, and cannot anticipate or prevent certain language difficulties encountered by Chinese learners of English. In the teaching of grammar, for example, the students in Ma's (Reference Ma2012b) study found that NESTs knew what was wrong in their students’ grammar exercise answers, but they could not explain why it was wrong or tell them what they should do to prevent it in the future.

The second factor that makes many if not most NESTs less aware of students’ linguistic problems is their ignorance of their students’ mother tongue. For a long time, a heated debate has been going on concerning the function and use of students’ first language in the process of second language acquisition (for a recent survey, see Cook Reference Cook2010). However, there is growing realization that the EFL students’ first language is not a problem but a resource in helping them learn a second language (Medgyes, Reference Medgyes1992). Although EFL students in China benefit a lot from NESTs’ authentic oral English, they find it hard to adapt to English medium instruction without any use of their mother tongue. One student in Ma's (Reference Ma2012a) study commented on being taught by a NEST like this, “Because she didn't know about Chinese or Cantonese, she used more and more difficult words to explain easier words” (p. 293). Such an explanation of a new word would, of course, lead to more confusion rather than understanding.

Conflicts in teaching and learning styles

‘Learning styles’ refers to habitual and preferred ways of learning (Keefe, Reference Keefe1987). Keefe's research (1987) shows that people from identifiably different cultural groups overwhelmingly exhibit certain learning style preferences. In research conducted worldwide, NESTs are repeatedly found to be equipped with global, open, intuitive-random and hands-on teaching styles while Chinese students are reported to have analytical, closure-oriented, concrete-sequential and visual learning styles (Oxford, et al., Reference Oxford, Hollaway and Horton-Murillo1992). The findings in the study by Rao (Reference Rao2010) have provided additional evidence corroborating these previous research results. For example, most Chinese students in Rao's study reported that they felt uncomfortable with NESTs’ global style in their reading class. One student complained that “foreign teachers often asked us to use holistic strategies such as guessing or inferencing, to search for the main ideas, but seldom paid attention to the analysis of linguistic details” (p. 64).

Another NEST practice identified as incompatible with Chinese learning style is the preference for what Oxford et al. (Reference Oxford, Hollaway and Horton-Murillo1992) refer to as an ‘open’ teaching style. Traditionally, Chinese students are considered as having a closure-oriented learning style, which is to say that they tend to avoid ambiguity and expect an accurate and authoritative answer to any question in their learning process (Oxford, et al., Reference Oxford, Hollaway and Horton-Murillo1992). However, Chinese EFL students often feel disappointed when they ask NESTs’ questions. One student in Rao's (Reference Rao2010) study reported, “Whenever I ask a foreign teacher a question, he or she would provide me with multiple correct answers” (p. 64). Although some students with high English proficiency in this study commented favorably on NESTS’ heuristic ways of teaching, they noted that it was difficult for students to accept them in the Chinese examination-oriented education background.

Unfamiliarity with local culture and educational system

Though NESTs’ solid knowledge of English culture facilitates their EFL teaching, they often know little about Chinese cultural values. As EFL teaching in China is deeply rooted in the Chinese context, a lack of knowledge of Chinese culture may hinder NESTs from teaching English effectively. Ma (Reference Ma2012b) found that NESTs, due to their unfamiliarity with the cultural background of Chinese students, did not know what the students liked or disliked. As a result, the games, tasks and activities that they designed for the Chinese students were often perceived as either too easy or too difficult. Ma also reported that the cultural differences between NESTs and local students made them less comfortable with talking to each other.

Similarly, a lack of understanding of the Chinese education system may also lead to some problems in NESTs’ classroom teaching. In China, teachers are regarded as authorities and good examples for students to follow; thus Chinese teachers are supposed to behave appropriately both in and outside classroom. However, the participants in Rao's (Reference Rao2010) study reported that they were astonished by some NESTs’ casual behavior in classroom, such as “he rushed into our classroom and sat on the table”, “took off his glasses and started cleaning them on his new shirt” (p. 65). Additionally, many students in this study mentioned that some NESTs did not follow the school syllabus and failed to match their instruction with the school's expectations or with the students’ needs.

Providing NESTs with a local pre-service training program

Although English teaching in EFL contexts may share many things in common, it also varies in one way or another in different countries. Therefore, it is of vital importance for local Chinese schools to offer a training program for NESTs before they start working. Given opportunities for attending to lectures, discussion, and classroom observation in this program, NESTs could be helped to understand local EFL teaching practices, explore successful teaching strategies and reflect on issues specific to their own EFL teaching in China.

Several approaches could be taken to make NESTs aware of difficulties in their new teaching positions and adapt themselves to Chinese EFL teaching. First, they could be offered an introductory course about the general EFL teaching situation in local schools in China. For this purpose, lectures could be delivered to inform NESTs about the following issues:

1. 1. an overall introduction to the school (e.g., history, population, hierarchy, culture);

2. 2. the general situation of teaching English at the school;

3. 3. students’ characteristics and preferred ways of learning;

4. 4. expectations from the school and parents.

Such an introduction would provide NESTs with an opportunity to understand ‘why students in a particular country want to learn English; what the policy of the government of the country regarding English is; what constraints on the teacher's innovativeness might exist and what social, cultural, and academic adjustments the prospective teachers will have to fit into the existing setup’ (Govardhan, et al., Reference Govardhan, Nayar and Sheorey1999: 124). It would also enable them to gain ‘the ability to assess the propriety, feasibility, applicability, and practicality of any one or all of the methods against a certain set of political, socialcultural, and pedagogic situation that they are going to be working in’ (Govardhan, et al., Reference Govardhan, Nayar and Sheorey1999: 123).

A second approach could be for the schools to organize opportunities for NESTs and NNESTs to meet and exchange opinions and ideas on EFL teaching. Such discussions should mainly focus on topics such as:

1. 1. details of the curriculum and where the NESTs’ and NNESTs’ courses fit in;

2. 2. the types and schedules of English examinations that students are required to take;

3. 3. the roles of the textbooks in the curriculum (e.g., Is it necessary to cover everything in the textbooks? Are examinations based on textbook content?);

4. 4. the types of teaching methodology students are used to.

At the beginning of a discussion, local EFL teachers should explain to NESTs what they normally do in their teaching practice, and then seek NESTs’ opinions on this. Next, the two groups of teachers should work out a teaching model that suits both groups of teachers. Such interactions between NESTs and NNESTs would enable them to understand each other and work together to address such issues as culture clashes, conflict management, interpersonal communications and classroom performance.

At the final stage of this training program, it would be advisable for local schools to invite NESTs to observe some classes being taught by local EFL teaching experts. This step is crucial for NESTs to know exactly what really happens in an EFL classroom in a Chinese school. By observing what local EFL teachers do in the classroom, NESTs can gain an understanding of how successful NNESTs manage the demands of their teaching context. After observing a class, NESTs could reflect on how the local EFL teaching is affected by such factors as teacher preparation and classroom management, and by the students’ preferred learning styles and cultural values, and consider how they might take these factors into account in their own teaching.

Adopting a team teaching approach by NESTs and NNESTs

Extensive research has been conducted to find out how to make the best use of NESTs in EFL contexts. Given the above discussion of the relative strengths and weaknesses of NESTs in the Chinese EFL context, we would argue that a team teaching approach by NESTs and NNESTs may be the most promising strategy. NESTs possess native language authenticity, cultural familiarity and new methodological insights in EFL teaching. These strengths, according to Carless and Walker (Reference Carless and Walker2006), are generally the relative weaknesses of NNESTs, whose own strengths, on the other hand, reflect the relative weaknesses of NESTs. Medgyes (Reference Medgyes1992) found that NNESTs were more sensitive to students’ needs and problems, more able to anticipate students’ difficulties in learning English, and they could take advantages of students’ mother tongue to explain complex language points. In addition, NNESTs are more familiar with local syllabi and examinations (Tang, Reference Tang1997). Ma (Reference Ma2012b) also emphasizes that NESTs and NNESTs’ strengths and weaknesses are complementary, and that this complementariness lays an ideal foundation for them to carry out a team teaching approach in the EFL classroom.

The first step for good team teaching is to set up an equal relationship between NESTs and NNESTs. As stated above, both NESTs and NNESTs have advantages and disadvantages in EFL teaching, and neither one is inherently superior to the other (Ma, Reference Ma2012a, Reference Ma2012b; Medgyes, Reference Medgyes1992). To work together successfully and harmoniously, NESTs and NNESTs should maintain friendly relationships and treat each other as fellow teachers on equal terms. They should see to it that each team member has an equal say in what they should teach and how they should teach. One essential step to ensure a successful implementation of these measures is a sensible pairing of NESTs and NNESTs. Instead of being appointed to work in a team randomly, team teachers could be granted opportunities to select their own teaching partners. This would make it easier for a teacher to pair up with another teacher whose personal and professional qualities are compatible with their own.

Following the establishment of an equal relationship, NESTs and NNESTs should get together to discuss and negotiate ways for carrying out their collaborative teaching. They should, first of all, set up the goals and objectives in their team teaching and schedule regular meetings before they teach. Next, both groups of teachers should decide how team teaching is to be implemented. Instead of following fixed ways of teaching in a team, team teachers should have multiple team teaching approaches to meet different pedagogical needs. They should keep themselves open to any number of possible team teaching styles, depending on the combinations of individual team teachers.

Finally, team teachers should work out a team plan for their classroom teaching. They should first learn how to make their knowledge explicit and accessible to their team partner. For example, since NNESTs understand the constraints that teachers may experience in the Chinese EFL classroom, they will be best placed to assess how to meet both teachers’ and students’ expectations. Similarly, as native English speakers, NESTs are in a better position to know what is appropriate in contexts of language use and to contribute their vast understanding and knowledge of English discourse. The next thing for them to do in team planning is to work out the detailed teaching methods and procedures needed to cope with different teaching tasks for a specified student population. They should, according to Vaughn, et al. (Reference Vaughn, Schumm and Arguelles1997), take the following issues into consideration:

1. 1. What are students going to be taught?

2. 2. What materials are needed?

3. 3. What kind of role does each teacher perform?

4. 4. What responsibilities does each teacher take when implementing different teaching tasks?

5. 5. How will co-teachers evaluate students’ learning?

6. 6. What follow-up measures should be taken to help students who need further attention?

Additionally, agreement on the teaching content and types of teaching activities will need to be reached through patient negotiation.