Keynote Speakers
Dr Sean Sutherland
Dr. Sean Sutherland is a senior lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Westminster. His work focuses on discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca. He holds a Bachelor of Journalism (1994) and a Master of Applied Language Studies (2001) from Carleton University, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics (2010) from King’s College London. Before entering academia, he worked as a newspaper reporter in Ottawa, Canada, and later as an English teacher in Seoul and Tokyo, experiences that shaped his interest in the study of language in use. He joined the University of Westminster in 2008, where he teaches modules in discourse analysis, language and texts, and sociolinguistics. He is also the author of A Beginner’s Guide to Discourse Analysis (2016).
Abstract
There is a long-held assumption that native speakers represent the ideal model for language teaching. Despite sustained critique from applied linguistics, native‑speakerism continues to shape hiring practices, professional hierarchies, and classroom expectations. The presentation revisits the linguistic and conceptual instability of the native–non‑native distinction and demonstrates how reliance on ‘nativeness’ as a professional criterion obscures the diverse competencies teachers bring to their work.
The keynote outlines the perceived advantages often attributed to native English‑speaking teachers, while highlighting evidence that these benefits are frequently overstated, context‑dependent, or offset by significant limitations. In contrast, non‑native English‑speaking teachers contribute valuable pedagogical, linguistic, and cultural expertise arising from their own experiences as successful language learners.
To illustrate how native‑speakerism persists in contemporary educational settings, the presentation will also introduce a small set of recent job advertisements from China that explicitly reference nativeness as a hiring requirement. These examples provide a timely snapshot of ongoing global inequalities in ELT. The keynote concludes by advocating for hiring and training practices that prioritise expertise, contextual knowledge, and pedagogical effectiveness over native‑speaker identity.