The Perceptions of Chinese ELT Stakeholders on the Employment of Foreign English Language Teachers

This article reports on part of the findings of an investigation into the perceptions of Chinese English as a foreign language(EFL)education stakeholders on native-speakerism.Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 26 students,14 teachers and eight EFL program administrators from six Chinese universities.The analysis of data reveals that the three groups of participants as an entirety expected their universities to hire native English speaker teachers(NESTs),particularly those from Britain and/or America and a certain proportion of them expressed preference for white native English speaker(NES)teachers.The vast majority of the students and teachers were also found to be unaware of workplace inequalities between NNESTs and local Chinese EFL teachers,contending that NESTs deserve better treatment.Although many administrators displayed critical awareness on this issue,they argued that the inequalities need tolerating for the well-being of their EFL programs.All these findings are indicative of the persistence of native-speakerism among Chinese ELT stakeholders and by extension the tenacity of this chauvinistic ideology across the terrain of EFL education in China.