Native speaker saviorism: A racialized teaching ideology

The notion of native speakerism describes the tendency to privilege and uphold “native speakers” as inherently more qualified to teach English on the arbitrary basis of linguistic birthright. In spite of the widespread recognition and critique of native speakerism within TESOL, it remains pervasive in professional practice, most evident in inequitable recruiting and hiring practices of English language teachers in a variety of global contexts. In this article, we propose that the imperviousness of native speakerism results from the enduring ideological commitment to what we call native speaker saviorism, which reflects the long-standing assumption that the White community can “save” peoples of color by teaching them English. As an illustrative case study, we analyze a series of responses to the financial precarity of the English language teaching profession in South Korea following governmental budgetary cuts starting in 2014. The analysis foregrounds the ideologies of racism in the form of White normativity and White saviorism that construct, legitimize, and rationalize the need for native speakers of English in South Korea. The analysis is followed by a series of recommendations for moving beyond native speaker saviorism in language teaching.