Barbara Seidlhofer Analysis

Introduction
Barbara Seidlhofer, in her paper, analyses the status of non-native English teachers, and tries to understand whether or not exists a superiority of the NESTs over the non-NESTs. This essay will respond to Seidlhofer's points underlying why is she right in defending the non-NESTs. Moreover, it is important to pay attention to some issues that are taken for granted in her discussion, such as the effective existence of the so-called “native speaker”, and the cultural reasons for which there is such a misperception of the non- native speakers.

“The native speaker is dead!”1
The first point to consider is, who is the native speaker? All the debates around the theme of EFL teaching are based on the distinction between natives and non-natives. The main question is, who is really considerable a native speaker of English? Is the boundary so strict? Is it possible to find a precise and restrictive definition? Davies stands that “among the criteria for 'native speakerhood', the most often cited and, at first glance most straightforward one is birth.”2 Through it all, analysing different cases, it is inevitable leading to the conclusion that language identity is not always determined by birth, and that there are too many different variables to make birth a sufficient condition. As Medgyes suggests, “another problem has to do with the fuzziness of geographical entities. Which countries qualify as English-speaking countries?3 “Faez (2007) confirmed that linguistic identities are complex, dynamic, relational, dialogic, and highly context-dependent.”4 Therefore, the question is more difficult than it may appear, the only solution is to enlarge the ownership of English to all the people that can speak it proficiently, and that are...

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...o try not to generalize, not to create prejudice and struggle to get more qualified teachers, whatever their original country is. As Medgyes stands:” It is becoming a generally accepted view that outstanding teachers cannot be squeezed into any pigeon-hole: all outstanding teachers are ideal in their own ways, and as such are different from each other. The concept of the ideal teacher resists clear-cut definitions, because there are too many variables to consider.26 Personally, I think that the best solution can be found in schools where NESTs and non-NESTs coexists, in which different kind of teachers, all proficient and qualified, are involved in different classes depending on students' needs, but also schools in which there is dialogue and in which this two categories of teacher can work together and help each other with their mutual shortcomings and weaknesses.