Comparing Native and Nonnative English Tearchers' Self-Reported Perceptions of Pedagogical Knowledge in the Context of Teaching English as an International Language[Latin Thesis]

Zahra jahanshiri

With the high spread of English, it is highly required to critically examine the approaches and methods of teaching English in the context of teaching English as an International Language (Sharifian, 2009). Considering the importance of teachers' role in the effective application of EIL (MacKay, 2002), this study aimed to explore inner, outer, and expanding circle native and nonnative English teachers' self- reported perceptions of Pedagogical Knowledge (PK). Moreover, the study explored the teachers' view regarding the advantages and disadvantages of being a native teacher and whether being a native teacher would affect the Pedagogical Knowledge. For the purpose of this study, the data were collected using a Pedagogical Knowledge questionnaire which is conducted by Dadvand (2013) and a semi-structured interview. To this end, in this mixed methods study, 64 teachers belonging to inner (14), outer (14), and expanding (36) circle countries were selected. To collect the qualitative data, nine native and nonnative teachers who completed the questionnaire participated in a semi-structured interview. The results of the questionnaire were then analyzed through Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to determine if there were significant differences among the three groups in the context of EIL. The findings revealed that the participants in the three groups had a high perception of pedagogical knowledge and there were significant differences between inner, outer, and expanding circle teachers in terms of total pedagogical knowledge except for the subscale of knowledge of learners . The majority of the participants considered English as a means of communication and did not find it necessary to become familiar with all varieties of world Englishes. Most of the native teachers were of the belief that nonnative teachers know the difficulties of the students and can better guide the students in the process of learning English as an International Language. To nonnative teachers, native teachers have advantages with regard to the speaking, pronunciation, and self-confidence. All the teacher participants claimed that being a native or nonnative teacher is unimportant and what matters the most is to become familiar with some theoretical and practical aspects of teaching in various contexts. These findings have implications for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in that familiarity with the teachers' perceptions of PK, teachers' teaching in inner, outer, and expanding circle countries, can pave the way for them to become familiar with different varieties of English and the type of knowledge required in those contexts.