Judith Tanka

NNEST of the Month
February 2010

jtanka [at] unex [dot] ucla [dot] edu

Ana Wu: Could you tell us your background and explain why you wanted to be an educator?

Ms. Tanka: I was born and spent the first 17 years of my life in Budapest, Hungary. When I immigrated to the U.S. in the late ‘60s, I was a teenager mainly preoccupied with learning the language, fitting into a new culture and then navigating a very different higher education system than what I had been familiar with. Becoming an educator didn’t occur to me until the confluence of some fortuitous events in my senior year at UCLA. One night I decided to sit in on an ESL class that my mother was attending at a local adult school. As a second language learner, I knew when I saw good teaching, and this wasn’t it. To my amazement, the teacher was a high school math instructor moonlighting in an ESL program, without any training or any inkling about how to help a group of working adults communicate in a new language. I remember being frustrated, thinking that I could do a better job teaching this class just by virtue of having been an ESL student myself. Then around that time, I happened to meet a graduate student who was completing her M.A. at UCLA’s TESL Department (now Applied Linguistics). When I found out that there was such a major as TESL, it was one of those ‘ah ha moments’ for me. It suddenly became clear that teaching ESL was what I wanted to do.

Ana Wu: You immigrated to the USA at the age of 17. Did you speak English when you first came here? How was your experience of adjusting to the culture and being accepted by your classmates?

Ms. Tanka: I spoke no English at all when we arrived here. I came on a Monday and enrolled in a local high school on Wednesday, where I was placed in the lowest level of their NES classes. “Non English Speaking” was the designation they used back then. My classmates were international students, of course, including a couple of Hungarians, who helped me overcome some of the initial and inevitable culture shock. I recall being bewildered by the entirely strange system of “class periods” where students would go to a different class taught by a different teacher each hour rather than staying together in one room, with teachers coming to them. Overall, however, the adjustment went quite smoothly, and I learned enough English to be mainstreamed after a semester. My American classmates were very welcoming, fascinated by a refugee from a communist country in their midst, inviting me for sleepovers – another strange custom I remember being puzzled by. Academically, I soon found most classes too easy, about two years behind what I had learned in my Hungarian high school.

Ana Wu: Your first textbook was Interactions I – A Listening/Speaking Book (now in the 5^th edition), first published in 1985 for the Interactions/Mosaic Series. Since then, you have written three successful books.

a.How did you first come upon the idea of writing a textbook? How long did it take from the time you started to write until it was published?

Ms. Tanka: Initially, a colleague and I had an idea for a completely different project – video based lessons on controversial issues. The idea grew out of our shared classroom experiences and successful conversation lessons that we thought publishers might be interested in. When we shopped the proposal around, one publisher showed mild interest but suggested that we temporarily shelve the project and instead join a group of authors to write the listening/speaking section of a new academic textbook series already slated for publishing. My colleague and I jumped at the chance – one of the best decisions I’ve made in my professional life.

The first manuscript (Level 1 of Interactions) took approximately a year to complete and an additional year in production before it was published. This seems to be the general time line for most textbooks, from the time the authors sign a contract. Of course much more preliminary work goes into it from inception until the signing of the contract.

b. As an experienced writer, do you still face challenges in your writings? If yes, do you think that these challenges are language/nativeness related? And how do you overcome them?

Ms. Tanka: My challenges in writing textbooks lie mainly in the area of trying to stay fresh and relevant to the ever-changing ESL market while keeping my materials methodologically sound. After living and working in an English speaking environment for over 40 years, my language abilities /non-nativeness have pretty much ceased to be an issue. Yet, I have not become entirely complacent about this; still, to this day, I feel most confident when I’m able to work side by side with a native speaker co-author.

Ana Wu: What advice would you give to NNESTs who want to get started writing a textbook?

Ms. Tanka: I would give the same advice to NNESTs as to anyone else who wants to write a textbook: draw on your teaching and your own language learning experience as to what works in the classroom. Then survey the textbook market to see if existing texts already address what you’re proposing to write. In other words, is there another book or multi-media program that does it just as well or better than what you can produce? My second advice is to team up with a co-author or a team of authors, preferably people with compatible temperaments, work ethic and creative ideas. For NNESTs, a native speaker co-author provides an added advantage. I’ve found the give-and-take between my coauthors and me tremendously rewarding, creatively energizing and ultimately resulting in a better product.

Ana Wu: You have been working at the UCLA Extension American Language Center for 30 years. As a previous Acting Director and current member of the Recruiting Committee, what advice would you give to NNES applicants when applying for a job (from writing a letter to preparing for an interview) at an IEP institute?

Ms. Tanka: Since a resume provides the first impression of a candidate, I can’t overemphasize the importance of proofreading a resume and cover letter before sending them. As an NNES, I have never sent out a resume without asking a native speaker (or two) to look over what I’ve written, if for nothing else than to spot possible typos. Errors in these introductory documents can be an immediate turn-off, perceived as a sign of sloppiness or downright incompetence. I’m not saying we’ve never interviewed candidates who had spelling errors or missing articles in their writing, but these errors definitely act as red flags. On the other hand, do not try to sound overly polished in your writing, lifting paragraphs from ESL methodology texts, elaborating extensively on your teaching philosophy. You will have plenty of chances to discuss your views on classroom methodology during the interview. I think the same qualities that make you a good classroom teacher should shine through during the interview: be personable, confident, sincere and knowledgeable. These qualities are not language dependent. Treat the interviewer as a colleague who is familiar with and sympathetic to NNESs’ challenges. We know that most NNESTs bring a wealth of experience to the job, so we’re willing to overlook minor errors or a slight accent if you’re a good fit for the job. On the other hand, don’t take it personally if you are not hired due to lack of accuracy/fluency in English. In IEPs, there is heightened sensitivity to customer satisfaction; rightly or wrongly, our students expect (and often demand) to learn from instructors with native or near-native English proficiency, and our hiring practices reflect this market demand.

My final advice regarding the interview process is to learn as much as possible about the prospective job and institution ahead of time. My last question during an interview is usually, “Do you have any questions for me?” I’m always most impressed with candidates who have specific questions to ask about our curriculum, schedule, faculty and working conditions; it shows that they’ve gone to our website and done their homework. In other words, they’ve invested some time as a sign of sincere interest.

Ana Wu: Thank you for this interesting interview!

Florence Lai Ping Ma

NNEST of the Month
January 2010

florencelpma [at] hotmail [dot] com

Ana Wu: Could you tell us your background and how you became an educator?
Ms. Ma: I was born and brought up in Hong Kong. I got my BA degree at the University of Hong Kong in 1985, majoring in English Linguistics. Among the units I took, I found Applied Linguistics particularly interesting and fascinating. In this unit, the lecturer introduced various types of English teaching methodologies, including the Communicative Language Teaching. I was amazed to find that there were so many different theories and methods behind English teaching and learning. In my final year, I had an opportunity to work as a substitute teacher for a friend who taught Chinese at an evening institute. Students were all mature and for various reasons did not have the opportunity to finish secondary school when they were younger. Most if not all of them had to work during the day and attend classes in the evening. Therefore, most of them looked exhausted and yet were highly motivated to learn. Although I only taught a few lessons, I was moved by their enthusiasm towards learning and decided to take up teaching as my future career.

To better equip myself to be an English teacher, after graduation, I enrolled in a one-year full time Diploma of Education program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The course was not just theoretical but included practical micro-teaching sessions and a practicum module. After completing the program, I started teaching English at a secondary school. After teaching for a few years, I took up the role of an English panel chairperson and supervised about fifteen English teachers, including one NET (Native English Teacher) [1]. This partly accounts for my interests in the NNESTs issues. I had worked in two different schools for a total of fourteen years before migrating to Australia in 2001.

In 2003, I completed my Master Degree in Applied Linguistics (TESOL) at Macquarie University, Sydney. Following this, I worked as an ESL teacher at NCELTR (National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research) in Macquarie University, teaching general and academic English to international students. I also taught various English programs for immigrants at two TAFE (Technical and Further Education) centres. Later, I obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Linguistics Research. My research topic was on the investigation of the attitudes and uses of the L1 in supporting a group of Chinese adult immigrants enrolled in one of the AMEP (Adult Migrant English Program) centres in Sydney.

In 2006, I decided to pursue a higher degree and I am now a PhD candidate in Macquarie University. My research project investigates the perceptions of LETs (Local English teachers) and NETs (Native English teachers) in Hong Kong from student and teacher perspectives, and examines the perceived and actual teaching behaviour of these teachers by obtaining data from questionnaires, interviews and video-recorded lessons in three secondary schools in Hong Kong.



Ana Wu: You have been teaching for 18 years, having also worked as a supervisor in Hong Kong, and finally gone back to a postgraduate program in 2001. You received the Vice-Chancellor's Commendation for Academic Excellence for your Master of Applied Linguistics program at Macquarie University in October 2003, the Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship in 2007, and the Higher Degree Research Excellence (HDR) Award at the Human Sciences Faculty HDR Research Showcase in 2009 (This award is for an outstanding HDR student in each of the five departments in the Human Sciences Faculty at Macquarie University). Also, you were the 2009 TESOL Award for International Participation at TESOL award recipient. Since then, you have given presentations about NNEST issues at ALAA (Applied Linguistics Association of Australia), AAAL (American Association of Applied Linguistics), and TESOL.

a. What keeps you motivated and inspired? Have you ever been burned-out?
Ms. Ma: There are two things that keep me motivated and inspired. First, I am always impressed by those students who are eager and willing to learn. Their enthusiasm leads me to prepare my lessons better so as to create an ideal learning atmosphere for them. Second, I always like to reflect on my own teaching by discussing teaching methods with my colleagues. In this way, I can get some new teaching ideas. I found that I sometimes got so used to my own teaching styles and just stick to them. It is really inspiring to examine how other teachers teach in a different way.

When I worked in Hong Kong, the workload was very heavy. There were so much marking: student newspaper commentary, composition, dictation, workbooks etc. I was almost at the verge of ‘burning-out,’ but I don’t think I have ever really experienced being ‘burned-out’ at work.

I think some of my personality traits have helped me a lot along the way. I don’t think I’m a perfectionist but I always do my personal best in my study and at work. ‘Aim high and score high’ is always my motto. Also, I seldom give up whenever I meet some difficulties or challenges. I still remember how upset I was when I knew that I could not get permission from an institute to collect data for my previous PhD research topic. Since the topic was very specific, I couldn’t collect any data from other institutes. At that time, it was about six months into my candidature and I have already done a lot of literature review on this topic. However, I had no choice but to change my topic. It was a little setback for me but I think my persistent personality has helped me pass through such a difficult time. Looking back, I was glad that I had to change my topic because now I'm working on a topic about NNESTs issues, which I’m very interested in and fully enjoy. 




b. You decided to pursue a master degree after having taught for 14 years. How did you feel at first being a student again? Did you have problems being among classmates with less or no teaching experiences, or being taught by professors with less professional experience than you?
Ms. Ma: I still remember how much I enjoyed the first lecture of my master degree program at Macquarie University. In the lecture, I just sat there feeling very relaxed as a student again and I think it was because I didn’t have to prepare lessons as a teacher. On the first day, when the lecturer started explaining the course requirement, it was only after half an hour that I suddenly realised that I should have taken out my pen and jotted down some notes. Having been out of university study for so many years, I almost forgot that I needed to take notes in a lecture!

The master program I enrolled in was for teachers with some English teaching experience. Being among classmates with less experience was not a problem at all because each classmate had their unique teaching experience with different types of learners in different contexts. Even if some did not have much experience, their own learning experience was still valuable and could be of valuable contribution to group discussions. Most of my lecturers had a lot of professional experience in teaching English in various places such as Thailand, Japan and Vietnam. Besides, they all had their own expertise in the field of Applied Linguistics such as Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, Language Assessment and Second Language Acquisition. I have learned a lot from them.



Ana Wu: You immigrated to Australia when you daughter was 9 years old, starting a part-time study for a master degree in Applied Linguistics. What were your challenges and how did you deal with them as you immersed in a new culture, balancing family and studies?
Ms. Ma: One of the main challenges was that we had to settle down in a very short period of time since we arrived two weeks before the school year started. We had to find accommodation and a school for my daughter within those two weeks. At that time, we had no friends or relatives in Sydney. Luckily, my best friend in Hong Kong had a church friend living in Sydney, and he kindly offered to drive us around to find accommodation, enrol my daughter at a local primary school, and help us settle down.

Balance between family and study is always not easy to achieve. I have so many roles to play and they all take time. We used to have a domestic helper in Hong Kong and we did not have to do any housework. As a mum in Australia, I find myself also being a driver, a tutor, a chef, a laundry cleaner… There is so much housework to do and it all seems like an endless job! Luckily, my husband and I share the workload. We have some sort of a duty roster for each semester, but we are also very flexible and understanding. If I’m busy with conference presentations or meeting deadlines for paper submission, he’ll take up a bit more and vice versa.



Ana Wu: How do you compare being an NNES teacher in Hong Kong with being an NNES instructor in Australia, in terms of students' and peers' expectations, your lesson planning, and professional responsibilities? Also, do you feel you have more job security now?
Ms. Ma: When I first started teaching General English to international students in Sydney, I was worried that they would not prefer to have me as their teacher because I’m an NNEST. I thought that since they came over to Australia to study English, they would expect to have a teacher who had ‘blonde hair and blue eyes.’ To my surprise, I found that students did not seem to mind about this. With more experience, I found many students had some positive responses to my teaching. Although I do not have an Australian accent, I have had a lot of experiences as an English learner myself and these experiences help me understand their learning difficulties and I can become more empathetic with them. Sometimes, my colleagues would express frustration at the lunch table about how students could not understand even very simple things. I found that I was empathetic to students as I fully realised how difficult it is to learn another language, especially when the graphology and grammar rules are very different between the L1 and L2.

Regarding peers’ expectations, in Hong Kong, I found that teachers were expected to adhere to the scheme of work. There was a particular part of the syllabus that we had to cover or certain textbook chapters to teach within a certain period of time. However, in the English centre that I worked at in Sydney, there was more flexibility and freedom. I was given some learning outcomes that students had to achieve and I was free to use whatever teaching materials I found useful and appropriate for my learners.

The professional responsibilities are very different. I remember I had a calm and quiet tea break on the very first day of teaching in Sydney. In Hong Kong, I was usually surrounded by students at recess and there was usually a long queue of students who I had to see, chase some lazy ones with homework, discuss school activities with student leaders…no time for a break at all! As an English teacher working at a secondary school, I was not just a teacher, but also a role model for students, helping them to grow up as responsible citizens and independent young adults. When students have some personal problems, they always come to us to seek for advice.



Ana Wu: You have done research and given presentations on student perceptions of native English teachers and local English teachers. In terms of teaching style and priorities, how different are the NNES from the NES? What are the pedagogical implications?
Ms. Ma: In my research project, I collected some open responses from a questionnaire completed by 196 secondary school students in Hong Kong, and the findings showed that there are three main differences in the teaching style of local English teachers (LETs) and native English teachers (NETs). Firstly, there’s a difference in terms of teaching approach. NETs were found to be using more activities and games, putting more emphasis on interaction and developing students’ communication skills in teaching while LETs adopted a more traditional approach, focusing on teaching grammar (26.2% of all cited differences). Secondly, the difference lied in the classroom atmosphere. NETs’ lessons were considered to be more interesting, lively and relaxing than those of LETs (23.7% of all cited differences). However, interestingly, about 5% of all the cited differences stated the opposite. Some respondents thought that LETs could create a more interesting and lively classroom atmosphere. Finally, the difference lied in the language for classroom instructions. NETs could use only English for communication while LETs could have access to students’ L1 for explanations (18.2%).

As LETs and NETs have different characteristics of teaching and put emphasis on different aspects of language learning, collaboration between these two categories of teachers can enable them to learn from each other and improve teaching effectiveness. Additionally, learners may benefit more from learning English through both rather than one category of teachers. As LETs can access to students’ L1, this is a valuable asset to help their students enhance understanding in lessons through vocabulary and grammar explanations. Therefore, the role of the L1 in English learning should be examined further.


Ana Wu: Thank you for this interesting interview!


[1] Under the Native English Teacher Scheme in Hong Kong, each EMI (English as the medium of instructions) are entitled to have one NET and Chinese medium ones can employ two NETs. At the moment, there are about 900 NETs working in Hong Kong, teaching in both secondary and primary levels.

Ryuko Kubota

NNEST of the Month
December 2009

ryuko [dot] kubota [at] ubc [dot] ca

Ana Wu: Could you tell us your background and why you decided to become an educator?
Dr. Kubota: As a child growing up in Japan in the 1960s and 70s, I always wanted to become a teacher, perhaps because some of my family members were teachers. In high school, I was fortunate to have an outstanding English teacher, Mr. Tokio Watanabe, who is now a professor of teacher education in Japan. He provided us with quality instruction in the classroom, encouraged us to read a lot in English, and taught us with such enthusiasm and a sense of humor. His teaching was inspirational.

I eventually became an EFL teacher in Japan. My first job was to teach English at a public junior high school in a rural area. I had always wanted to study abroad to develop my language and teaching skills. But at that time, opportunities for study abroad were much more limited than now, and teachers were not allowed to take a leave of absence for professional development.

Eventually, my passion for professional and personal development outweighed job security and a traditional life path. I quit my teaching job and obtained an MAT degree in TESL from the School for International Training in Vermont, USA in the mid 1980s.

Another dream of mine was to teach in an immersion setting. I got a teaching position at a private international school in Tokyo, where English was used as a medium of instruction for both Japanese and international students. But my teaching experience turned out to be quite frustrating because of classroom management issues and my sense of incompetency in teaching native English-speaking teenagers.

One day, I got a job offer to teach Japanese as a foreign language to undergraduate and graduate students at Monterey Institute for International Studies in the US. Actually, I had been interested in teaching Japanese for quite a while––I had taken some non-credit teacher preparation courses. By this time, I felt quite unconfident as an ESL/EFL teacher and also frustrated by the lack of opportunities to implement communicative language teaching. I thought, “If I taught Japanese, I wouldn’t have to feel linguistically incompetent, plus I could use a communicative approach.” This was a big career turning point. From 1988 to 2008, I taught Japanese as a foreign language in California, Toronto, and North Carolina.

My teaching experience at Monterey Institute for International Studies was fulfilling and I wanted to obtain a doctoral degree in order to get a permanent position as a Japanese language instructor in higher education. I completed my doctoral degree in 1992 at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

As far as my experience in teacher education goes, I was hired in 1995 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to develop a teacher education program for K-12 Japanese. There I prepared teachers of K-12 foreign languages in general. Around 1998, a need for K-12 ESL teacher education became apparent, and I was asked to reinstate a teacher preparation program. My experience of teaching in Japan as well as graduate training in bilingual education facilitated this experience. I currently prepare teachers and researchers of ESL/EFL at the University of British Columbia in Canada.



Ana Wu: So you have taught as both a native and nonnative teacher. How has your experience influenced the ways you understand native/nonnative issues?
Dr. Kubota: My experience has given me realistic expectations. I have observed many native and nonnative teachers of Japanese as well as other languages including ESL.

There is an implicit assumption that native teachers are superior. But this is an absolute myth. Some native teachers I observed lacked pedagogical skills and their students’ learning outcomes were quite limited. But other native teachers had excellent teaching skills. The same has been true for nonnative teachers. Some nonnative teachers provide poor instruction with limited linguistic and pedagogical skills, while others are outstanding. Effective nonnative teachers are proficient but not necessarily “native-like” in the target language. They engage learners in meaningful communication, hold high expectations, and create great rapport with them.

This means that the label of “native speaker” does not index absolute power. In addition, the perceived superiority depends on the context where complex relations of power exist. For example, imagine a school system in the US that values core subject areas over foreign languages and exhibits subtle racism and linguicism against nonnative non-white teachers. Who is likely to be hired as a teacher of Japanese: a nonnnative white teacher who has a teaching license in not only Japanese but also social studies or a young native speaker of Japanese from Japan who is a nonnative speaker of English (see Kubota, in press)?

On a practical level, we need to encourage nonnative teachers to develop their linguistic and pedagogical skills. At the same time, we must address larger social issues, including different forms of racism, which perpetuates the racial, cultural, and linguistic hierarchy of power and prevents students from having valuable opportunities to learn about diverse views and human experiences. In this sense, nonnative teachers need to play an activist role.

We should think about who really suffers from unfair hiring practices. Of course, nonnative teachers suffer from discrimination, but those who really suffer are the students. If students work only with white native teachers, they can only receive a partial worldview. Any teacher can talk about experiences and views of the Other, but lived experiences of the Other told by those who have actually gone through them carry a different nuance and symbolic meaning. Students can greatly benefit from nonnative speaking teachers of English in understanding where they are positioned in complex relations of power and explore how they want to engage in this positioning.

Through teaching and learning English, racial and linguistic hierarchies can be either maintained or transformed. In other words, ideologies of the superiority of English, native speakers, whiteness, and Anglo culture can be either reinforced or challenged. ESL/EFL teachers, regardless of native/nonnative status, need to be cognizant of the role that they play in the ideology construction and reconstruction.



Ana Wu: You have served on the editorial advisory board for TESOL Quarterly and Asia Pacific Journal of Education. In 2006, with Angel Lin, you edited the TESOL Quarterly 2006 special topic issue, "Race and TESOL."

a. Why is it necessary to discuss and include the topic of Race when teaching ESL/EFL? How is this topic specifically important in our NNEST community?
Dr. Kubota: I realized the need to address issues of race when I received a criticism of my article (Kubota, 2001), in which I argued that the binary cultural image of Self (e.g., American students) and Other (e.g., Asian students) stems from discourses of colonialism and that racism is a legacy of colonialism. To this argument, I was criticized as labeling ESL teachers and applied linguists as racists.

As I argued in my rebuttal (Kubota, 2002), there are different levels of racism. The term racism usually evokes individual bigotry. But racism exists in the forms of institutional and epistemological racism. The hiring practice that I alluded to earlier is an example of institutional racism. The fact that “speaking English” evokes the image of conversing with white native speakers of English is an example of epistemological racism, which has to do with how our knowledge is structured by racial biases.

It is important to name racism in various educational practices within our field rather than pretending that it does not exist because ESL/EFL teachers cannot be racists. As our field is making a social turn, issues of race and ethnicity need to be examined more explicitly, keeping in mind that they always intersect with other social categories such as gender, class, language, and sexual identity.



b. On the topic of race and nativeness, what do you think needs further research and investigation?
Dr. Kubota: As I just mentioned, race intersects with other social categories which include language. Nonnative speakers are often viewed as people of color. But as our NNEST IS membership demonstrates, there are many white nonnative professionals. Likewise, there are many native English-speaking teachers of color. In North America, racial dynamics especially position Asian teachers as perpetual foreigners. There is a chronic underrepresentation of black professionals of ESL/EFL.

We should further investigate racial identities of teachers, their instructional and institutional experiences, the students’ engagement with them, and wider political issues that affect all these topics. We should also bring research to public engagement. We should make efforts to communicate the knowledge generated by research to the general public and policy makers so that more equitable policies are developed, supported, and implemented.



c. If you were to name a (or a few) seminal paper on the topic of race and nativeness, what would that be?
Dr. Kubota: The special topic issue of TESOL Quarterly you mentioned contains articles on race and TESOL in various geographical and instructional contexts. The book edited by Andy Curtis and Mary Romney (2006) is an excellent collection of personal essays by TESOLers of color. Our new book (Kubota & Lin, 2009) contains empirical and theoretical chapters relevant to the broader field of second language education. Please refer to the list of references at the end.



Ana Wu: Your publications have appeared in many journals such as, Canadian Modern Language Review, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, English Journal, Foreign Language Annals, Journal of Second Language Writing, TESOL Quarterly, TESOL Journal, World Englishes, and Written Communication.

As an NNES, what advice would you give to graduate students who are struggling with their academic writing skills? As a writer, what strategies have you employed to overcome writer's block and how do you deal with the frustration of working on multiple revisions? As an editor, what advice would you give NNES writers whose papers are rejected?
Dr. Kubota: Academic writing is always challenging for anyone, especially for beginning authors. As you get experienced, it becomes a bit easier. But for me, producing satisfactory writing still takes a huge amount of time and effort.

Academic writing includes various components, such as content, organization, argumentation, and mechanics. Of course, the idea that you present is the most important. As I mentioned earlier, nonnative professionals have their unique experiences and perspectives that are not shared by mainstream scholars. Nonnative scholars can capitalize on such uniqueness and bring in innovation and new directions to the field.

No matter how great your idea may be, a paper with a writing style too distant from conventions would not win reviewers’ approval. Appropriating the conventions to express your idea is necessary. One way of doing that is to find a good model––an article that is clear, convincing, and interesting––and closely pay attention to how the author organizes the article, builds his/her study on previous research, supports his/her arguments, and so forth.

There is an assumption that nonnative writers struggle more than native writers. But that’s a myth. Just like the nonnative teachers are as effective as or more effective than some of the native teachers, nonnative speakers can be outstanding writers in L2 as demonstrated by many of the leaders in our field. So my suggestion is to be confident and keep improving your writing.

Having to do multiple revisions is normal in academic publication. So don’t feel discouraged or frustrated. It’s important to be persistent and keep trying until your piece is accepted.

If your paper was rejected, read the reviewers’ comments carefully. If they are reasonable and worth taking into consideration, revise your paper accordingly and send it to another journal. But before doing so, read the overall focus and submission guidelines of the journal as well as a few articles published in that journal. Make sure your paper is a good fit with the journal.



Ana Wu: You have been a loyal and active member of the NNEST IS since its creation. This year, you were elected one of the NNEST IS Member-at-Large. You have seen our community grow and flourish, and also, struggle through challenging times that affected our membership. What makes you stay? Why is the NNEST IS important to you? What would you like to see its leaders and members do or initiate?
Dr. Kubota: NNEST IS has grown so much in such a short time, which is truly incredible. The amount of research on nonnative professionals has increased tremendously, as seen in the huge bibliography on our website (http://nnest.asu.edu/NewBibliography1.html). It’s quite exciting. While our presence has increasingly been recognized both scholarly and professionally, a bias against nonnative speaking teachers persists. It won’t go away overnight. We need to keep addressing these problems. At the same time, it’s necessary to develop our field further by constantly exploring new areas for scholarly investigation and professional advocacy.


Ana Wu: Thank you for this insightful interview!

Dr. Kubota: Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to share my views and experiences.


References:

Curtis, A., & Romney, M. (Eds.) (2006). Color, race, and English language teaching: Shades of meaning. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kubota, R. (in press). Rethinking the Superiority of the Native Speaker: Toward a Relational Understanding of Power. In Neriko, M. Dorr (Ed.), “Native speakers” revisited: Multilingualism, standardization, and diversity in language education (pp. 233-247). Mouton de Gruyter.

Kubota, R., & Lin, A. (Eds.) (2009). Race, culture, and identity in second language education: Exploring critically engaged practice. New York: Routledge.

Kubota, R. (2002). The author responds: (Un)Raveling racism in a nice field like TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 36, (1), 84-92.

Kubota, R. (2001). Discursive construction of the images of U.S. classrooms. TESOL Quarterly 35 (1), 9-38.