My husband and I are both English teachers in Brazil. He is a native speaker and is constantly asking me how I teach or would teach a particular piece of language. He is also often after my ideas 😂😂, not to mention he sometimes doesn’t know some more complicated structures of his own language. He’s a great teacher though and so am I, we just have different skills...

I believe you both are excellent English teachers

I've been teaching English to the Japanese for the past four years, and I can tell you that I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Kiczkowiak. The problem lies in the education system that produces poorly qualified teachers and puts too much emphasis on the assessment tests (such as Eiken). Students are not trying to learn English, they are only studying to pass an exam which will help them enter a good university later on. Even if a student actually wants to learn the language, they can't get much value from their English teachers (who often teach them incorrect English). That's the tragedy of the Japanese education system, and no number of native speakers will help them solve that problem.

I absolutely loved this video! As a non-native teacher of EFL I admit that I often feel insecure.

Kiczkowiak is full of good arguments. This debate is just amazing and I was delighted to watch it. I'm not a teacher, I'm just a student who thought native English teachers were better until I saw this video. I take my hat off to him.

Interesting and true 100%. As a native English teacher I undoubtedly have an advantage. Interestingly, I often think about my own experience learning Italian and often use it as a reference for certain issues my Italian students have with their English learning.

I’m an English teacher based in Italy, I’m Italian, and I can confirm from first-hand experience that this prejudice still very much exists. Thank you so much for trying to spread the word with this video! I do agree that apart from general ignorance and preconceptions the school system is the problem too, at least in Italy, where English classes in primary schools are still taught in Italian by public school teachers who are asked to teach a language they don’t know well. Plus, as you said, native speakers are all believed to be C2! Most of my native-speaker colleagues say it would impossible for them to pass Proficiency well with no preparation. We do feel inferior though, because of this pressure, at least some of us do, thanks for trying to cheer us up :)

Thank you! I am dealing with lack of confidence as well as a non-native English teacher

I have taught beginner French to Elementary & Middle School students for many years. The students love the fact that I've had struggles & also that I understand where their potential areas of difficulty may be. I can understand & explain certain things that a francophone would never understand...ask any native-speaker of any language that has gender/neuter how to figure out the masculine or feminine and you get blank looks and they "just know" - they have absolutely no idea how to help someone learn this concept...I can offer insight that a native-speaker doesn't necessarily have. (***I am just speaking from my experience & I specialize in teaching beginners as well...I would not be the right teacher for more advanced students...)

How did I miss this? :) By the way, the Czech teacher Marek talks about in the interview is probably me. I took one of Marek's courses and it helped me land an English teaching job in a language school in London, which was a massive moment in my careeer. But yeah, he is absolutely right. I still have my insecurities, but at least now I know it's possible and people like Marek have really helped me realize my strengths as a non-native English teacher and boosted my confidence big time.

This guy is absolutely right about everything that we not native speakers teachers face when we try to get a job abroad, South Spain in particular is exactly like that, the natives here are very strict that they want a native English teacher, even if they don't know the basic English knowledge to judge a teacher if they hear one. Very frustrating, 👍👍👍great video 👏👏👏👏

Marek Kiczkowiak was great. Very Knowledegable. it's no wonder to me; he's dedicated his life to languages. Thank you for the Interview Canguro Jack your are doing amazing having all of these all-star guests.

Great interview - as a native teacher I want to be hired on the basis of my teaching qualifications and exp and not just because i'm a native. I worked hard to finish my degree, complete the CELTA course and build up my work exp

Marek is definitely an inspiration to many teachers

I really like the idea. Thank you for this interview!

I love this interview 😍. . Thanks for bringing us to light.. Very well said.

Thanks a lot! Dziękuję bardzo!

Excelent interview. Thank you!

Good job, young men. I enjoyed the interview a lot.

Thanks for bringing these stuff to the table as always you shock us with incredible amazing ideas, you and some teachers will make a difference in languages teaching thanks

a great video I've watched to the end thank you Marek and Canguro English

Amen! Thank you.... Thank you.... Thank you! 1000% in agreement. Love your channel! Kudos sir!

I have always looked for a native teacher of my target language, but this may change after watching this youtube blog. My English is good enough for what I need to do. I follow “Canguro English”, and even though I am not interested in studying English. I follow his youtube blogs, just because I enjoy what he says and his post have interesting content about learning languages in general: he cites journal articles about language learning and he interviews people on the topic. His approach to learning languages makes a lot of sense after I listen to him. I just watched his video published on September 4th, and he touches on a very interesting topic: non-native English teachers.

He’s awesome! He helps us a lot as NNSET here in Brazil. 👍🏻

I am grateful towards both of you for being honest and measuring the aptitute of the teachers in the right way. I wish every employer was like you

Thanks Christian for opening up a new "world" to me. I'm from Italy and I'm a teacher of English in intermediate courses. I'm certainly going to use some of the interesting tips this site suggests. Your advices for teachers are great! Best channel

Hi. I'm really glad that I found this video. It is a very inspirational video for me. I can't remind myself when I watched something insightful. I started job as an English teacher and I really want to develop myself for me and my students. Thanks for sharing Canguro English, your interviews are great!!!

As an English teacher, I'm delighted listening to you guys debating it so natural and solid, thanks a lot!

completely agree!! super interesting and rich conversation

10:42 ...this is a very important question for self *WHO DO YOU WANT TO COMMUNICATE WITH ?* Family ? Friend ? Business? School ? work ? community ? or some of the above or all of them???

100% I agree!!!!! Thank you so much 👍 Canguro English is the best, thanks😊👍🙌

I agree with the speaker. I Very few native speakers are fluent in a foreign language. We, are good examples for our students!! We have gone through difficult exams and we can inspire our students!!I had students who came to me after native speakers! They could compare us and saw everything very well!

A million thanks to you 🌞

Thank you, Christian. This is very motivational for us, non-natives, who struggle to find a way into the market.

Greetings from Vietnam. I've always felt so insecure teaching a language that is not my own, and this video blew my mind. Thank you for shedding the light on the matter.

Very nice explanation. Not only does it bring a lot of important facts on teaching English, but also inspires non-native teachers to keep on going. Thanks for that!!

i have been teaching english for 30 years and I am not a native speaker . I love what I do and I try to improve every day. Thanks for the video.

My respects for you two!

Marek Kiczkowiak, I liked when you put it that way😍

Thank you very much for sharing your insights! Btw, hats off to Marek for his pronunciation nailed to a tee!

I don't know why I hit the like button before I watch the video. much love from Egypt

the most important thing about having a native teacher is the pronunciation and the accent.

Great content, thanks a million!

This is exactly what I explained to my new learners yesterday as they were quite confused about me being French and teaching English :) I really love your channel and your ideas Christian, thanks a lot for sharing your experience with us, it helps a lot to gain some more self-confidence as a non native speaker and teacher :)

Great interview! full of real information. Being an English teacher is not based on your citizenship or as a native speaker, but on your ability to understand your students as a non-native english speakers also. Therefore, as a non nnative english teacher, u know how to adjust your level of teachings and what understand your students' needs. I couldn' t count how many locals i met here in US, who have bad english grammars and compositions.

Great as always 👏👏👏👏👏👏

I really love your videos. Thank you

its so interesting, he makes sense!

Fantastic guy!

Great video. I think they have advantages Andrés disadvantages. Pronunciation And accent is very important yo me. But the nonnativd knows the way yo lean the language, which is important too

I totally agree 100% with everything Marek said ! As a NN English teacher and employer I ‘ been in constant seek of recognition and approval on my language and teaching skills ! That ‘s why most of 50% of my teachers at school are NN and those who are , have been perfectly qualified before working with me . Hopefully teachers equity is a reality in the future . Thanks for this talk! Really necessary !!

Please, translate & subtitle this video in Spanish, Korean, Chinese etc and distribute it to every ESL teacher, school, and student in the world.

Dear Christin, you do such a good job creating your videos. I really appreciate them. They help me to set my mind set :o) I believe in a good way. Thank you very much. Please continue.

Valid point - Non-native English speakers can and should teach native English speakers a lot about English!

Thanks for sharing these ideas! I'm an English teacher from Argentina and I've felt a bit downgraded in front of native teachers, but this interview changed my viewpoint. Thanks a lot! And for sure La Casa de Papel is not easy to follow. I had to get used to its way of speaking too and then I enjoyed the Spanish modisms I learned!!

What a lovely talk, very good. I am a colombian teacher living in Ireland, I had to stop teaching here, since I am not native (my accent is quite good, since I was raised in Illinois), I have a BA in TEFL, an MA in Higher Education, an MA in Applied Linguistics to TEFL, Im doing a Phd in complex thinking, I also have C1 certificates, the TEFL Diploma, the TKT certificates, other stuff and about 11 years of experience. Although, it seems like all you need to teach is a 6 months TEFL diploma and an English Speaking passport. At the moment, I can only teach through my social media (tiktok, instagram, facebook and youtube), or online in colombian academies, while putting up with racist comments because I shouldn't be teaching for not being a native speaker. I had to get used to my new social care worker role! All the best.

it is true, I learned the majority of vocabulary from non native English speakers and I think they are good speaker because they look up the new words, word form ...etc

Your English is excellent

Thank you for these videos, they help me a lot to practicing my english! I would love to have the real transcript, it would be great : ) Brian

I had classes with a native speaker teachers 20 years ago at school, still I got pretty good pronunciation. Which I am very happy to use in a daily business.

I found in KZfaq English Galaxy, teacher isn't a native English speaker but hi has a good system and it helps mi to learn English :)

Terrific! I am brazilian and my Germany Teacher is Serbian. Doubts I can ask her in English - Amazing...she has a perfect english and germany😎

Straight to the point

Interesting subject, and I agree with most of what was said. I do however have a problem with the point made about "crap teachers" in public schools. I am a native English speaking teacher in University in France and I have a lot of students who have quite good grammatical skills, but are "crap" at speaking. And I don't think this is because of bad teachers, I believe it's a problem of class sizes in public schools. Even the most brilliant teacher would find it almost impossible to help 30+ students in a class to practice their speaking. How in the world can you expect any teacher to communicate and pass on information especially in a language class with over 30 students? I think this is the real reason some adults say they wished they had a native speaker. But native speaker or not, a group of 30+ students is not an easy thing to manage.

I had a German tutor before and he came from Poland. I really couldn't tell the difference between him and a native speaker when he spoke.

It's a very interesting interview. For me, everything that was said is 100% true. IMO the most important is a fact that a proffessional non native English teacher had to come through all those processes of learning which their students have to come through and they know how to help them to make it. And if someone feels concerned about all those nuances the native English speakers know I bet that a native speaker from Texas doesn't undrestand what Cockney from London says. :)

This is great and it needs to be exposed to all the English learners. I have met pretty good non native English teachers who have been able to get their objective across in a classroom way better than a native speaker. Why is this? As you have mentioned, just because you are native, it does not make you an English teacher. I'm an English teacher myself and many of my students have had many native teachers and they end up leaving their class because the native speaker was not able to teach. Great discussion!! definitely need to break through this obsession.

I love how this video itself is in English.

Christian your work is always amazing. Thanks for all the effort you do for helping us learning English. I completely agree with that you don't need to be a native English speaker to teach English but if a native English speaker learns the rules, learns grammar and learns how to teach he will always teach English better than a non-native English teacher. That's my view, I might be wrong, but I've been taught by both and that's my conclusion. By the way, this September I will start a new English course B2.1. Kind regards from Tenerife, Canary Islands.

My simple answer is that if you are native you make it better because of that is your product and something special for you and for your culture. Like French wine and Dutch cheese ) but l tasted excellent wines in Georgia) l think you got my point! Regards

Fascinating concepts. This reminds me of two former professors I had. One taught German as a bilingual approach and the other taught Spanish as a bilingual approach. Both did agree one several points about language learning. If you want to improve your native language skills in English, than learn another language. While living in Germany some years ago and attending a Goethe Institute certified German Language Teaching School, all of the students were from other countries and were there to learn the German Language. So to learn the German Language you more often than not needed a bi-lingual dictionary. Also available to some students, were the English Language classes, being also bi-lingually taught, from German to English. Now the English Language being used was the "Queen's English. The books being used were the Langensheid Series, throughout the school. So If you were learning German as a second language, one used this publisher. If you were a German Language student learning English, you would also use this publisher. I was curious how the books and instructional materials were put together. The teachers at the school for teaching English were all non native speakers. Rather they were German Teachers who had a highly skilled ability to be a teacher and who had learned the English Language very well. Of course many of the idiomatic expressions and the way many words were spelled were the UK's version rather than the North American versions of Canada or the USA. So a few times I did have the opportunity to sit through these classes of students learning English. I was fascinated by the process. This was about 20 years ago. I am in agreement with all of your premisses on teaching language skills of a foreign language to a student. Why did I want to improve my German Language skills? It was for the usages of reading the texts and journal articles of the Natural Sciences to earn my advanced degrees. Then also to be able to use those language skills to learn more about all other kinds of activities and knowledge bases one can only learn, by knowing another language. For instance, knowing German makes learning Danish much easier. Being able to travel throughout 4 other European countries with ease is a huge bonus.

I learned a lot, of Spanish, from an American, that could not speak Spanish....yet had a grasp on the structure, of that language....and patience....

Now at our days we have a lot of tools to learn english. Sometimes find someone that explains something in your language, and in the sense and differences between the language that you speak and the language that you want to learn. But hearing an native english speaker daily, have an subconscious influence. I realize that suddenly I'm talking like an educated Australian. Ha ha ha.

I completely agree. Non English native teachers have other advantages , for example, we know what it is like to learn English being Spanish so we are a huge help to Spanish students of English as we can understand our sts' problems as we have been through the same process. Moreover chances are that when our sts have to use English most of the people might be non native speakers because English is a GLOBAL language therefore it is better to be used to all kinds of accents. Excellent video

Being a native speaker would be a good starting point when looking for a teacher. I think we could agree that for every non-native speaking teacher there is an equally skilled native speaking teacher. Therefore, if I had the option, I would choose the latter to also benefit from their better understanding of the language and it's details.

Hi There This guy has many really persuasive thinking. First at all, It's totally true that, as an former English learner, he perfectly knows all the difficulties students are able to meet , cope and overcome . Secondly, it's also true that people who learned English with non-native English speakers in 1970' French school like me, prefer native speakers to teach us English. However ,I wonder why English training was so bad in 1970' 1980 1990 in France. I am not sure that the bad teaching comes from the inability of teachers but from the severe rules they had to obey. Thirdly, I think he is right when he says that knowing the little particularities that just an English native speaker can pass on ,doesn't bring us any advantage when we talk to non- native speakers. Finally, this guy convinced me. Hats off.

What about pronunciation? Maybe that's one of the strongest argument for students to choose a native language professor. By the way, thank you for the very interesting interview You provided.

Great video! Thanks. Now I have 100s of ideas of what I can do as a nnes to get better paid jobs.

Chris, I have a curiosity...Why You used "scenario" instead of "scenery" un 29:01? I use "scenery" with My students a Lot, but I feel I will like "scenario" too! Kisses from Perú!

I went to the site .. there is a 30 euro Teflequity course offer = a new niche, like the Neurolanguage coaching. Anyhow AI is imho ready to put these innovations to sleep. Like a voiceover app that would amplify your speak and dub it in your preferred (lady from Belfast) voice. I would teach so despite the fact that the pupils will never meet her accent peer.

Hello, Best teacher! explain about the Iranian protests and the plane crash.Please

Could you please give us the link to Marek's blog?

… and the Spanish expressions depends on where you live, South America's expressions are kind of different from Spain and also from their own countries.

Hoy en español: he tenido esta misma conversación un montón de veces con los dueños de las escuelas de ingles donde he estudiado. Y estoy tan de acuerdo con vosotros...

I´m an Argetinian English teacher, giving the first steps in teaching online. I admit I really felt so discouraged when I saw the huge demand of native teachers .... No doubt, they´re overvalued. I totally agree with Christian´s and Marek point of view.. I just didnt know was feeling inferior for no real reason! Thanks so much, Christian, for bringing up this topic.! Now I´m empowered and proud of being a passionate non-native speaker teacher again. Thank you. :-)

Here, in Spain the government doesn't need to import native speakers to teach English, because they come by themselves. Here, specially in "Levante", the mediterranean seaside, a lot of of english people is settled. They come here following the sun, the warm sea, the low prices, the good food. I can say that I like them very much, they are so funny and friendly. And of course a good number of them are teaching English! Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree about what you are telling us, this is only a comment that I want to share. ;) Thumbs up!

I'm a student of English at a Polish university and one student in our group was from England. Apart from being very fluent, he knew almost nothing about grammar and other technical issues of the language and didn't have good marks. Mr. Kiczkowiak is right, but nevertheless I think every professional language school/department needs a native speaker or two :)

Resumindly, English is ours. It's our so important language, isn't? Universal communication is so important as our Amazônia!

Is there someone that had heard about "Pomodoro techniques", time management. Because I've heard about that in theory, but, I'd like to know more details and a real measure of results in a real project or personal perspective. Are these techniques helpful and useful for an endeavor meaning?

There are two more problems: the teaching system in Spain (covering certain contents but not really because students just promote to the following level anyway) and the lack of teaching training. I've never been taught how to teach my students. I know how they learn, but I have copied the way I was taught... Very scientific!

I am from a Chinese background. I believe that it might be easier for non-native teachers to guide students in the early stages for crossing the river. Once at advanced or intermediate levels, students trust native teachers more. At least native teachers pronunciation sounds more genuine.

I'm a little confused (perhaps I misunderstood), for a long time I had learned from Christian that we didn't need a teacher to learn a language, but now apparently we need a good teacher to learn a language, even if they are not native English speakers ... until now, I believed that languages can´t be taught, they can only be learned.. but from tomorrow I'll look for a non- native English teacher. 🤔

Hi Christian Can you explain me about weird and strange Which sentence I can use them? Can you give me two example

Native speakers are generally more effective teachers at an advanced level, whilst non-native English-speaking teachers are more effective at a preliminary level. Non-native teachers will better understand the challenges that come with learning English, be it grammatical or structural differences, whereas native speakers will have a much more comprehensive understanding of the subtleties in pronunciation as well as idioms and cultural references in conversations.

Sometimes teachers are good, but many students of public schools don’t have interest in learning languages. They see languages as just a school subject. Although you try to motivate them, not always you achieve a good result. Private schools are different and students who dedicate themselves as well. We try practical and inovative methods but depends on the students interests. Many of them come from disfunctional backgrounds or lack references, they feel forced to study, don’t do this for pleasure or to prepare themselves for a better future. It’s so sad, but It’s the reality of many young students. It’s not easy to teach a class with 30 or 40 students in public schools.

A friend of mine who grew up in the Usa, has worked as a teacher in an English Course School. After a TOIEC exam, I have gotten a grade higher than him. And most of the students claims he doesn't know how to explain grammar. It doesn't matter if u are native at all, but how able you are in teaching. I think so.

This is present not only in English teaching, but ANY language teaching, from Spanish to German. I understand the TEFL Equity perspective to an extent, but as someone who works in areas where there’s demand for native speakers (communications and TEFL) I see a big difference in the outputs of native and non-native speakers-that attention to detail and understanding of English at a native level is absolutely crucial, and absolutely not exclusive to “highly educated” English speakers (that’s a weird take, and I’ve never met ANY native Spanish speakers who need subtitles for Casa de Papel). I am also in Spain and many of my students come to me because they are extremely unsatisfied with their school-based instruction. The commonality is that ALL of these teachers are non-native, unfortunately.

Apart from being proficient in his own language a native teacher has to be fluent in another language to understand not only how to teach a language, but also how to learn another language to be able to relate to a student.

As foreign language learners, most of us will be thrilled more to imitate the original tongue. We are ready to go up to any extent to catch it up that attractive state. Then we will keep a false pride up on it too as the standard users of it and looking peevishly at its other users as the low-standard users. This mindset invites the big business into teaching a foreign language. Here, the native teachers are treated as a special avatar in this lucrative business. Non-native teachers are considered inferior in this business spectrum, how they are sound in the systems of that foreign tongue. To me, they are better teachers than the natives. Because these non-native teachers have acquired this new tongue with lots of effort. By which, they know the struggles and pitfalls of that second language acquisition that their learners will be going through during learning. They can suggest the right solutions to their struggles in this assimilation at ease. They can easily connect to their learners too. If the native user is a teacher, I can recommend, only when he or she should have already acquired at least the working knowledge of his or her learners' language. It is a give-and-take process.

Do you know anything about the Online TESOL Certification offered by NYU for $3,500? IS it worth it? I cant find anything about this. I dont want to spend that amount if it does nothing in the end different than a $19 certificate.