Dears,

Well, I personally think that it is not a matter of native and non-native; on the contrary, it is how much you are able to change learning a foreign metalanguage a real habit that really grows in your students like the other aspects of growth. Additionally, the skill of engagement is a real facter that works in this regard

I prefer a native-speaker. Mostly the conditions of the learn situation are not modifiable for the learner, especially there is no choice between several teachers; vice versa it is more frequent that teacher get the chance tot choose between several learning groups.

I prefer a native speaker. I considered important some aspects like pronunciation and intonation and some times non native speakers don’t know how to work it with the pupils.

I am by no means saying that native speakers make perfect teachers, but I prefer a native speaker to teach me their language, and to teach via immersion.

I would prefer a native speaker as well. Not just to teach the technicalities of the language, but also any cultural components like use of words or slangs. 

That would be of interest to me. 

I agree with Victoria as well, to learn via immersion. 

I prefer native speakers. The native speakers will teach us the language culture and intonation of the language.

Dears,

Well, I personally think that it is not a matter of native and non-native; on the contrary, it is how much you are able to change learning a foreign metalanguage a real habit that really grows in your students like the other aspects of growth. Additionally, the skill of engagement is a real facter that works in this regard

A "perfect" L2 teacher? I think it's complex and the answer to that is definitely beyond the debate on one's nativeness and non-nativeness of the target language. For instance, who are the students?? Context and needs analysis plz. 

I have a concern about the term 'perfect teacher'. how can we decide if the teacher is perfect or not. being native speaker is good but is that all what a teacher needs to be perfect?? 

When you ask students to define what they want from an L2 teacher, you are always going to get an Ideal "Wish list" - the only problem is that you can never make everyone happy and It is necessary to be realistic in terms of what human resources are available, the culture and the context. In my youth, I taught all over S,E. Asia from Laos, Homg Kong, to South Korea & Japan and also in Manchester, U.K.and other European cities. I tended to ask the same question to my students and co-teachers and usually got very similar responses to the ones indicated in the first post. I have discovered that there are some teachers - both native and non-native speakers- who are truely excellent, yet might have less formal training that someone who has a Doctorate. If yiu have a teacher with the "Spark", it doesn´t matter if they are native or non-native speakers.

The advantage of a non-native speaker is that the teacher has already made or is making the cultural journey of understanding the culture both within the language, in the way it is worded, and outside of the language in the surrounding context. This is an advantage over the native speaking language teacher who to a great extent takes the language and culture for granted. If you are a native speaking teacher you cannot always see the water you are swimming in, metaphorically speaking. I can explain French and Spanish grammar far better than English as my native language grammar. This does not mean that native language speakers can not teach their own language; it just means that they could be deployed differently within the teaching activity, to model the language in conversation and it discussion of more complex political and social issues-so they model the language in active use as a more finished product. kind regards Dave

I believe that it is not a matter of having a native or non-nativeteacher. Simply because there is so much to teaching a foreign language than that. When it comes to the teacher of foreign language, several things need to be considered such as purpose for learning language, teachers expertise, teachers pedagogical knowledge ...etc.

That's true. But when I taught English in a French school, I could not explain English grammar as well as the French teachers even though we were all qualified teachers. However the French teachers could not manipulate English as well as me as an English native speakers. this meant that our teachers activities were different-i was more communicative and they were more analytical/explicative. But both complement each other. They could draw out cultural aspects of study that I thought were unimportant because I was too close to the culture. Dave

How many learners of foreign languages worldwide realistically have access to "native" speakers. My guess is a very small proportion of urban, even elite, learners.. i.e. the rich? What about the vast majority living in more rural or peripheral areas? I was involved with ELT in Latin America for over 25 years and in Brazil especially there is a certain impatience and annoyance regarding the emphasis some people put on a `native` speaker teacher, since 99% of teachers are non-native. Isn`t that where we should be focusing our efforts on professional development, language improvement, qualification, training etc? At the end of the day, I would want a competent, qualified, experienced teacher, irrespective of nationality. I am currently learning Chinese with a native speaker from China. She's not very good. I know non-native teachers of a variety of languages who, as successful learners themselves, know all the dangers and pitfalls, L1 interference issues, useful tips and shortcuts etc. Having said that, ALL OTHER THINGS being equal (i.e. competence, experience, methodological expertise etc.), native speakers can add interesting cultural elements and slang etc... not that a non-native couldn't do those things, but it would require long periods of exposure to the target culture, not always the case with NN teachers.

We should also consider what we mean by native speaker-do we mean standard language and pronunciation and people speaking that language since birth? In that case we inevitably conflate language with nationality and by extension ownership of that language by the nation in question.

We need to be more flexible than this. Language is spoken by people on the streets in all its varieties. If you learn French are you learning Parisian French or the French spoken in Quebec city, the pronunciation differences are enormous? So we have to be careful when talking of native speakers that we don't just mean the received pronunciation of the standard language. World English now means English spoken fluently in its own right between people of different nationalities-there is no native speaker. Dave

As long as the teacher has an excellent knowledge of the foreign language I need to learn, has the teaching skills that nudge and aid the students to learn well and has solid knowledge of the subject matter, I would not care about the teacher's L1. I learned several foreign languages (English, Malay, Indonesian, Lao) at my university in Russia from our excellent professors who were non-native speakers of these languages.

I do not worry if those who are going to put themselves in the place of who will teach another language is or is not native to it. What matters is the person's experience with the language if he is comfortable with conversation, comprehension, the written format and the language spoken in the daily lives of the citizens of that country. Understanding must take place in the latter two forms, understanding that the written language is different from the spoken language, since it accepts slang and abbreviations that the written language does not accept. Well, that's it! Grateful!

Native or Non-native speaker issue has been debatable but it doesn't matter when it comes to teaching a language because it all depends on the expertise, effectiveness and methods of the teacher. In many countries English has become an official language and one of the local languages as well. At various universities and other educational institutions we can see that many Teachers of English are able to teach though their L1 was not English. Some of them learnt it as L2 or 3 or 4 too, but they gained command over the language by studying, speaking, writing and practising rigorously. On the whole, language has no boundaries at all.