However, despite the vast number of non‐native teachers of English in the world,
numerous cases of discrimination against non‐native English‐speaking teachers have been
reported, especially in employment (e.g. Braine, 1999) and NESTs are preferred over
NNESTs when employment decisions are to be made. The discrimination impacts
negatively on the confidence of NNESTs, their identities as ELT professionals, and their
evaluations of their proficiency and pronunciation of English (Burns, 2005). Amin (1997)
also found how being non‐white influenced their relations with their students, as
expressed by a group of ‘visible minority’ women who were NNESTs in Canada. They
thought that some students equate only white people with native English speakers,
believe that only native speakers know ‘real’ English, and see only whites as ‘real’
Canadians. Braine (1999) also reports that at the master’s degree level, while most English
Language Teaching (ELT) jobs are restricted to intensive English programs, few non‐
native speakers (NNSs) have managed to break the unwritten rule ‘No non‐native
speakers need apply’