This paper explored Thai tertiary students’ views toward the notion of whether TETs can teach English pronunciation on the basis of two cross-validated data elicitation methods: the MGT and semi- structured interview. The findings from both indirect and direct methods revealed that the ideological construct of native-speaker idealization did influence the participants’ perceptions of NETs and TETs in relation to pronunciation learning and teaching. In this study, the native-like variety was judged as being intrinsically more powerful than the non-native one, and NETs were seen by the majority of participants as ideal English teachers and better qualified in pronunciation teaching. In contrast, TETs were often associated with negative attributes (traits) and were not treated favourably as the promising models for assimilation in pronunciation learning. Only a small number of participants could perceive the contributions that TETs can bring to the profession or TETs’ strengths and advantages in pronunciation teaching. Thus, it would be fair to conclude that native-speaker norms are still deeply entrenched in ELT in Thailand, and TETs are still professionally marginalized or perceived as the second best when compared to NETs in the field of pronunciation teaching.