The Role of NESTs and NNESTs in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language

The teaching of English as a second/foreign language is carried out by two groups of teachers: native-English-speaking teachers and non-native-English-speaking teachers. Although both groups of teachers have certain advantages in certain contexts, it has been a widely held belief that native-English-speakers are better teachers, a belief that has no empirical evidence. This belief may result in unfair hiring practices for and discrimination of non-native-English-speaking teachers. This paper aims to explain the reasons that led to the blurring of the dichotomy between native and non-native-English-speaking teachers, the advantages of local teachers in the Turkish context, and that a qualified language teacher should be equipped with necessary training and methodology knowledge as well as being a highly proficient user of the English language.