Students’ Perceptions toward Non-Native English Speaker Teacher (NNEST) in Teaching Pronunciation
Tirza Agata
ABSTRACT
In teaching pronunciation, Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) have been commonly believed more superior than NNEST, mainly because of their L1 background knowledge as native speakers. Many previous studies about NNEST have compared the traits of NEST and NNEST in teaching speaking. The previous studies, however, have also indicated positive results toward NNEST in teaching speaking in terms of students’ attitudes, perceptions, and achievements. Thus, further explorations focusing on NNEST and pronunciation are still relevant to be done. Related to this, the present study aims to find out students’ perceptions toward NNEST in teaching pronunciation in an EFL context. This study applies a survey research design using a questionnaire. The research participants are 126 first-year-students of the English Language Education Program of Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Central Java, Indonesia. Considering the teaching and non-teaching aspects, the result of this study reveals that NNEST can be considered as good as NEST in teaching pronunciation. Interestingly, it is also found that the EFL students prefer NNEST to NEST to teach them pronunciation because of the non-teaching aspects that the students experienced in the classroom.
