ELT Recruitment Websites, Whiteness, and Inner-Circle

Ownership of EnglishLindsey IvesTodd Ruecker

Department of EnglishUniversity of New Mexico

Research Questions and Background Framework: Critical Discourse Analysis Methodology Findings

Overall trends TEFL Heaven Hess Language Institute

Discussion/Conclusion

Overview

What characteristics are commonly attributed to the ideal candidate? Are individuals excluded explicitly or implicitly?

What benefits are emphasized to prospective English teachers?

What characteristics are attributed to target teaching countries?

Research Questions

Native speakerism: “an established belief that ‘native-speaker’ teachers represent a ‘Western culture’ from which spring the ideals both of the English language and of English language teaching methodology’’ (Holliday, 2006, p. 6).

Native Speaker Privilege

Extensive work on NEST privilege: Hiring prejudice (Canagarajah, 1999; Thomas, 1999)

Student preference (Butler, 2007; Timmis, 2002)

Legal discourse (Ruecker, 2011)

Racism and native speakerism (Kubota & Lin, 2006; Shuck, 2006; Rubin, 1992)

Native Speaker Privilege

A few studies on recruitment discourses Selvi (2010)

38 ads from TESOL Career Center and 211 from Dave’s ESL Café

60.5% of TESOL ads and 74.4% of Dave’s ESL ads had NES requirement

Other requirements: variety of English, location of degree attainment, residence/citizenship

Background

A few studies on recruitment discourses Lengeling and Pablo (2012)

Analyzed 39 ELT recruitment documents, mostly from Mexico

NES consistent requirement Other characteristics: ideal teacher young,

English is easy to teach and learn, and that teachers are able to teach in beautiful and exciting places.

Background

Characteristics of CDA: Uncovers the ways in which discourses

create/recreate power hierarchies in society Recognizes that micro interactions reproduce

macro structures Can focus on both visual and textual Can focus on sentence level or more broadly

on larger sections of discourse

Theoretical Framework

Fairclough, 1993; 2010

Google search terms: teach English, teach abroad, teach EFL, english schools [name of country], teach English [insert country].

Selection criteria: The site was in English, meaning it was targeted towards

foreign teachers The site was a recruitment space for specific schools or

programs, often partnered with a TEFL certification program, not a repository of freely posted ELT ads (e.g. Dave’s ESL Cafe)

The selected sites recruited for teaching jobs in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, or Thailand.

Assembling the Corpus

59 sites selected for analysis: 7 TEFL certification sites 6 global recruitment sites 7 sites oriented towards cultural exchange/gap year 5 school sites recruiting for multiple countries 15 Korean-specific recruitment/school sites 5 Taiwan-specific recruitment/school sites 8 Japan-specific recruitment/school sites 6 China-specific recruitment/school sites

Assembling the Corpus

Based on a preliminary review conducted separately, we developed a list of topoi: Teacher Qualifications Benefits Work Environment Country Description

Developed a matrix with 20 characteristics centered around these 4 areas.

Completed with the help of WebCorp, a web corpus analyzer.

Analysis

NES requirement on 81% of sites “WE DO NOT ACCEPT APPLICATIONS FROM

NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS AND THOSE NOT RESIDENT IN JAPAN” (capitalization in original) (Modern English, Japan).

“Please also note that it is a requirement from our partner school for you to be native English speaking” (ETA).

Overall Trends – NES Requirement

Alternative qualifications: “Those who are not native speakers, must display

greater qualifications for teaching English then a native speaker, and/or have met with us for personal interviews. A non-native will be scrutinized more before being employed, but once employed they are judged by their ability and their customer's satisfaction just as any other teacher is. We would rather have a non-native teacher who can inspire enthusiastic learning (and spending), than a native speaker who dulls the enthusiasm of our clients.” (Heart English School, Japan)

Overall – NES (cont.)

Immigration Requirements: Passport from U.S. Canada, Ireland, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa

“We seem to get a high amount of applicants from the Philippines. While we appreciate your enthusiasm, we cannot change the rules of the Korean Immigration department.” (Asknow.ca)

Overall Trends – Country of Origin

Picture requirement: Helped assess the “right candidate” “If you look old, grey haired, bald, or tired

looking, then job offers will be minimal. It does not seem to matter to employers that you were highly qualified or have excellent previous teaching experience” (Teachkoreanz).

“As mentioned elsewhere, it is difficult for non-Caucasian people to find employment teaching in Korea. There is an image that most schools have in their head of who they want to hire” (Asknow.ca).

Overall Trends - Appearance

85% sites had degree requirement, typically from any field

14% required related experience 31% emphasized no experience needed Ideal teacher

Enthusiastic on 83% of sites Flexible 64% “teachers should be open minded, flexible, positive,

enthusiastic and have a passion for teaching.”

Overall Trends – Other Requirements

Site 1: TEFL Heaven

TEFL Heaven:Marketing Discourse

“A Teacher’s Life” video Focus on recruit’s needs rather than

institutional requirements “If you are new, you will like. . .” “If you have a desire to teach English

abroad. . .” References to travel and pleasure

“Ticket to travel” “Paradisaical bliss”

TEFL Heaven— Images

176 Images from the site: 12 of local people of individual training

participants 13 of individual training participants 15 of individual or groups of teachers 21 of individual or groups of students 49 of teachers and students together 66 of participants having fun/ generic images

of sites, beaches, etc.

Site 2: Hess Educational Organization

Catering to inexperienced teachers: “We pick you up from the airport, provide complimentary hotel accommodation, and guide you through more than 70 hours of theory and practicum training before you teach.”

Exotic travel lifestyle: life “filled with fireworks, kung fu, red lanterns, karaoke, hot springs, pushcart vendors, tai chi, fried rice, cute kids.”

Hess: Marketing Discourse

Discussion

Colonization of education by marketing discourse (Fairclough, 1993) Flashiness of advertisements Students as consumers

Whiteness as “cash value” (Lipsitz, 2006) Country requirements, exclusion of places like

India, Philippines Exchange value: travel, accommodation, salary, job

guarantees, culture Exoticization of cultures

Decentralize white and native speaker normativity in classroom Engage in critical discourse analysis Read about and discuss white/native speaker

privilege Native and nonnative speakers should work

together Harness native-speaker/white privilege to

make institutions question their practice

A Few Recommendations

Butler, Y. G. (2007). How are nonnative-English-speaking teachers perceived by young learners? TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 731–755.

Canagarajah, S. (1999). Interrogating the ‘‘native speaker fallacy’’: Non-linguistic roots, non-pedagogical results. In G. Braine (Ed.), Nonnative educators in English language teaching (pp. 77–92). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum As- sociates.

Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: The universities. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 133-168.

Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. New York: Routledge.

Holliday, A. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Thomas, J. (1999). Voices form the periphery: Non-native teachers and issues of credibility. In G. Braine (Ed.), Non-native Educators in English Language Teaching (pp. 5-13). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kubota, R., & Lin, A. (2006). Race and TESOL: Introduction to concepts and theories. TESOL Quarterly, 40(3), 471–493.

References

Lengling, M. & Pablo, I. M. (2012) A critical discourse analysis of advertisements: inconsistencies of our EFL profession. In R. Roux, A. M. Vázquez, and N. P. T. Guzmán (Eds.) Research in English language teaching: Mexican perspectives (pp. 91-??). Bloomington: Palivo.

Lipsitz, G. (2006). The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profit from identity politics. Temple University Press.

Ruecker, T. (2011). Challenging the native and non-native English speaker hierarchy in ELT: New directions from race theory. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 8(4), 400-422.

Rubin, D. L. (1992). Nonlanguage factors affecting undergraduates’ judgments of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants. Research in Higher Education, 33(4), 511–542.

Selvi, A. F. (2010). All teachers are equal, but some teachers are more equal than others. WATESOL NNEST Caucus Annual Review, 1, 156-181.

Shuck, G. (2006). Racializing the nonnative English speaker. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 5(4), 259–276.

Timmis, I. (2002). Native-speaker norms and international English: A classroom view. ELT Journal, 56(3), 240–249.

References