That is, despite insisting that the questions concerning the relative value of NNESTs and
NESTs represent a false dichotomy which “may be conductive to forming wrong judgments
about the differences” (1992, p. 347) between NNESTs and NESTs, Medgyes’ argument
presupposes this binary contrast, and in fact rests on the advantages and disadvantages
between each group. Moreover, these merits and demerits are predicated on the remnants of
the native speaker benchmark via their derivations in terms of what they are or are not. This
shares similarities how the term nonnative, was conceived and defined in terms of
something that they were not, a native speaker. Although Medgyes’ 1992 article bought into
a comparative fallacy, his six assets raise important notions that practitioners, researchers
and teacher training programs (e.g. MA TESOL programs) should address. Shortly after
Medgyes, in 1999, Vivian Cook, an English linguist, proposed a groundbreaking idea that
viewed SLA from the perspective of the L2 learner.