Ethnocentrism in TESOL:

Teacher education and the

neglected needs of
international TESOL
students
Dilin Liu

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This article argues that strong ethnocentrism exists in TESOL teacher
education in the Western English-speaking countries, and that teacher
educators in these countries have by and large neglected the special needs
of international students enrolled in their programmes. The article spe-
cifies the major needs of international TESOL students, and provides
suggestions about what TESOL teacher education programmes should do
to help meet these needs.

Introduction Of those enrolled in TESL/TESOL programmes in North America,

Britain, and Australia (hereafter referred to as NABA), a substantial
number are international students1, most of whom will in due course
return to their own countries to teach. In spite of their different
backgrounds and needs, these students are usually given the same
training as their native-speaker peers. This often results in a gap
between what they learn while abroad and what they face in their
teaching back home. Many find themselves less than adequately
prepared.

So far, the special needs of international TESOL students2 seem to have

escaped the attention of TESOL teacher educators, for I have found no
direct discussion about the issue in the literature. What makes this
neglect particularly striking is that one finds many studies on
international teaching assistants (e.g. Halleck and Moder 1995), and
TESOL even has an interest section devoted to them. While
international teaching assistants clearly merit our attention, interna-
tional TESOL students deserve equal, if not greater, concern because
they are our would-be colleagues whose work will, in turn, affect
hundreds and thousands of ESOL students worldwide.

The different treatment afforded to these two groups is no accident. Of

many reasons which might account for the overwhelming attention given
to international teaching assistants, the primary one may be the concern
that NABA college students' education could suffer, because these
teaching assistants often have language problems in English. In addition,
they may be influenced by their native teaching conventions and use
ELT Journal Volume 52/1 January 1998 © Oxford University Press 1998 3
 methods not practised in the West. I have no objection to training these
teaching assistants to become successful teaching staff in NABA
colleges. I appreciate such efforts, and especially applaud the recogni-
tion of differences in teaching between NABA and other countries.3
Unfortunately, though, such recognition appears to be missing from the
training given to international TESOL students.

Ethnocentrism in This 'double standard' with regard to international teaching assistants

TESOL teacher and international TESOL students suggests an ethnocentrism on the
education part of NABA TESOL educators in two ways. Firstly, it implies that
NABA TESOL training professionals give little consideration to the
millions of ESOL students international TESOL students will work with
after they graduate. Although most of us may not be conscious of such
discrimination, our practice undeniably reflects it. Secondly, our failure

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in training international TESOL students to distinguish between
teaching practice in NABA and other countries reflects a disregard for
differences in socio-economic conditions, educational ideologies and
systems, and other factors that help define teaching conventions. At
best, this neglect may stem from an urge to make international TESOL
students learn and practice back home the 'new' teaching methodologies
developed in NABA. While such an agenda might be well-intentioned,
its effects can be harmful, because it ignores cultural differences, and
encourages students to adopt ideas and practices that are valued in
NABA, but may not be very useful in their home environment.
This ethnocentrism is clearly evident in current NABA TESOL teacher
education, where 'methodological dogmatism' (Reid 1995: 3) fervently
promotes 'new' NABA methodologies, particularly those entitled
'communicative', while condemning tried and tested 'traditional'
methods still popular in many other parts of the world. In my view, it
is this dogmatism, and the ethnocentric ideologies behind it, that blind us
to the needs of international TESOL students.

Ignoring the The first important area where NABA TESOL teacher preparation has
needs of failed both international TESOL students and native-speaker students
international who plan to teach overseas is in its core programme: the courses on
TESOL students second language acquisition theories and teaching methodologies. As
L2 acquisition Kachru (1994) and Sridhar (1994) have pointed out, the dominant
theories and TESOL acquisition theories and teaching methodologies currently taught are
methodologies largely based on second language acquisition models found in NABA.
Most of the data used in developing these models were taken from
immigrants and international students studying in NABA, and little
effort has been made to collect information from other contexts in the
rest of the world (Kachru 1994: 796). The dominant L2 acquisition
paradigm thus 'leaves out vast millions of L2 users who learn and use
second languages in their own countries . . .' (Sridhar 1994: 801). In
other words, without suitable adaptation, many of the L2 acquisition
theories may be irrelevant, and as Holliday (1994a, 1994b) and Prabhu
(1987) have shown, many of the teaching methodologies may be
impractical or ineffective in non-NABA countries.

Dilin Liu
To illustrate the point, let us look at Asian countries, with China as a
primary example. As in most non-NABA countries, English language
education in Asia generally takes place in state-run institutions, at
elementary or secondary schools, and at tertiary level. English is treated
as a required academic subject, rather than as an tool for survival in
business and education, as is usually the case with ESL in NABA. Being
part of the state education programme, English language education is
often shaped by rigid and mandatory top-down educational policies, and
by teaching practice sanctioned by tradition. Although some changes
have taken place, English teaching in most of Asia still tends to mean
teaching grammar, reading, and translation. This practice has been
perpetuated by state-run tests (such as college entrance examinations)
which mainly measure grammatical competence (Campbell and Zhao
1993).

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In cultures with a long tradition of unconditional obedience to authority,
a teacher is not seen as a facilitator but as a 'fount of knowledge, which
is delivered without any concession to students and which students must
struggle to attain' (Holliday 1994a: 59). Thus, English teaching in Asia is
still dominantly didactic, product-oriented, and teacher-centred (Camp-
bell and Zhao 1993). The pervasiveness of such teaching practices is also
a result of limited educational resources. Lack of funds and teachers has
led to classrooms crowded with as many as 70 students (Hodson 1994),
and with little or no audio-visual or other teaching equipment. Of
course, the reason for large classes in Asia is not merely economic. In
wealthy Taiwan, the average class in state schools still has between 40
and 50 students, due to the belief that large numbers can be taught well
with predominantly lecture-style teaching. Finally, the class time per
week for English is limited to about 2-4 hours, far fewer than in
NABA's intensive ESL programmes. While such limited class time may
be just enough to help students understand how the language works, it
does not allow them to practice using it. These factors have made
English education in these countries very different from that in NABA.
In the West, teaching is process or discovery-oriented. Interaction,
group work, and student-centredness are the order of the day in classes
whose normal size is under 20 students, and which usually have far more
resources than their Asian equivalents. Furthermore, ESL is taught
mostly as an instrument, and much ESL education is run 'commercially'
(Holliday 1994a: 13). Developed in such different cultural and economic
milieux, NABA's teaching methods, materials, and programmes often
face resistance or even rejection in Asia, as shown by Burnaby and Sun
(1989), Canagarajah (1993), and Pennycook (1989). By the same token,
many trained NABA native speakers who go to teach in Asia find
themselves insufficiently prepared for the job they have been sent to do.
Some even return home without fulfilling their contract rather than
compromise their 'pedagogical integrity' (Cahill 1996: 5).
Asian teachers and students do not blindly resist or reject whatever is
offered by NABA. On the contrary, they welcome wholeheartedly
Ethnocentrism in teacher education 5
assistance from the outside world. As Dong (1995: 56) writes from the
perspective of Chinese teachers of English, 'We need more help.
Readers and learners in China need more help.' But before NAB A
English educators can really render useful assistance, we should change
our attitude and work hard to ascertain what is really needed.
Otherwise, our efforts may be in vain. Hodson's (1994: 21) reflections
on the teacher training course she offered in Thailand are especially
illuminating: 'The course focuses on ESL because the resources and the
practicum offered are in an ESL situation, not an EFL situation. Many
of the students intended to use their teaching skills in an EFL situation
but the differences required by the EFL situation are largely left to the
students to investigate.'
Without significant changes, NABA TESOL teacher education may do

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international TESOL students a great disservice. As Canagarajah (1993)
and Pennycook (1989) indicate, NABA-trained international TESOL
students often return home to face not only the problem of modifying
their methods and techniques, but also the conflict between their newly
acquired ideas and those still firmly followed by local professionals.
NABA TESOL teacher educators should abandon ideological and
methodological dogmatism and work with international TESOL
students to adapt and develop methods and techniques that will work
for them. Berns (1990), Holliday (1994a, 1994b), and Prabhu (1987)
have made sensible suggestions on how to modify NABA commu-
nicative teaching models to accommodate some non-NABA situations.
Yet much more work is needed, especially considering the diversity of
teaching milieux international TESOL students will be working in.
We also should try to identify elements in TESOL programmes that may
not be relevant to international TESOL students. Teaching limited
English proficiency students, which has been an important topic for
many TESOL programmes in North America, may be such an element.
These students differ significantly from EFL students. Their reasons for
learning English are different, and their language environment varies
significantly. Moreover, whereas many of these students do not have
literacy in their mother tongue, most EFL students have a reasonable
levelof literacy in their native language by the time they begin studying
English. This native language literacy plays a very significant role in
second language development, since literacy in the native language will
often be transferred into the target language (Cummins 1979).
International TESOL students themselves seem to be aware of some
of the problems discussed, as can be shown in a survey I conducted with
59 such students in the TESOL programme at my university (20 in 1994,
23 in 1995, and 16 in 1996: 28 Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese, 2
Mainland Chinese, 12 Koreans, 11 Japanese, 2 Malays, 2 Indonesians,
1 Jordanian, and 1 Hispanic). Concerning the question of whether there
was a significant difference between TEFL and TESL, 38 (64 per cent)
answered 'yes', 8 (14 per cent) 'not sure', and 13 (22 per cent) 'no'.
Regarding whether they thought the acquisition theories and teaching
methodologies they had learned were very useful, 20 (34 per cent)

Dilin Liu
 replied 'yes', while 22 (37 per cent) answered 'not sure', and 17 (29 per
cent) 'no'.

Language Another area where international TESOL students' needs have been
improvement overlooked is their lack of the English proficiency required for success in
their future teaching. Although most of these students possess a
commendable knowledge of English, particularly of English grammar,
not many of them have a good grasp of the use of the language. This is
extremely important for quality ESOL teaching. Hence, some scholars
(e.g. Cullen 1994, Murdoch 1994) have highlighted the need to
incorporate language development in ESOL teacher training pro-
grammes in non-English speaking countries. Murdoch (1994: 253)
contends that a 'high level of English language proficiency' is 'the most

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valued aspect of a non-native English teacher's competence'. In a survey
he conducted, trainees ranked language improvement as the most
important component, higher than methodology and linguistics.
Although these scholars are discussing English teacher training outside
NABA, the call for language improvement also applies to the
international TESOL students in NABA, albeit the methods used to
help them may differ.

Excellent command of English does not mean native-like pronunciation

or intonation, which few ESOL students ever achieve, and which is often
not necessary in most EFL situations. It means fluent and idiomatic use
of the English language. Many international TESOL students do not
have this, and still speak and write in a way that may be grammatically
correct but difficult to understand.4 They are not unconscious of the
problem. Asked if they believed they had the English proficiency to be a
truly qualified teacher, only 8 (14 per cent) of those in my survey said
'yes', while 29 (49 per cent) answered 'not sure', and 22 (37 per cent)
'no'.

Few TESOL programmes give special attention to international TESOL

students' language needs. According to the Directory of Professional
Preparation Programs in TESOL (1995), the core curriculum in about
90 per cent of TESOL programmes contains a required English
grammar course dealing with the phonological, morphological, and
syntactical systems of the language. However, since in most cases the
focus is on enhancing students' explicit knowledge of the language,
rather than their ability to use it, the course usually fails to meet
international TESOL students' needs. Most of them entered the
programme with a bachelor's degree in English from their home
country, having learned English largely by studying its grammar. What
they need is not explicit study of English grammar, but training to
enhance their active competence. Yet current practice is to put these
international students together with native speakers on a grammar
course, which is more helpful for the latter group, since many will have
had little formal study of grammar before.
Ethnocentrism in teacher education 1
 Language improvement for international TESOL students should be an
objective for the entire programme, and not just for a few courses. When
asked if the programme should incorporate a language improvement
component in all its courses, 55 (93 per cent) of the students answered
'yes', and 4 (7 per cent) 'not sure'; none replied 'no'. In my experience, a
language component in the programme can be incorporated without
diluting the quality of the programme, and without creating too much
trouble for the instructors involved. For example, in phonetics/
phonology, a required course at my institution, students record their
articulations of speech sounds, reading, and free speech, and submit the
recording for the teacher and the class to critique (a practice highly
appreciated by the students). For the research project in the linguistics
and grammar courses, we encourage international TESOL students to
work on idioms, word collocations, registers, and other areas in which

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non-native speakers are generally weak. We encourage them to collect
data not just from books but also from people and the media, since we
want them to fully capitalize on the English-speaking environment to
refine their English. Our 'Introduction to Graduate Studies' course
focuses on helping international students to improve their writing skills
in English. In addition to many in-class writing activities, the instructor
also works closely with the writing centre to offer special individual
assistance. Our international TESOL students all speak very highly of
this course in the course evaluation.

Cultural Cultural study, especially the study of cultures of English-speaking

understanding countries, is another subject that many international students want and
need to cover. It is well known that cultural understanding is an
indispensable part of second or foreign language acquisition. Knowledge
about the foreign culture is thus very important for language teachers,
even for those whose students only need a reading knowledge of the
language. This is because no language, whether spoken or written, can
be devoid of cultural influences. Most of the reading materials used in
EFL today are directly or indirectly adapted from NABA publications.
For those whose students need to interact with native speakers, cultural
understanding is even more important. Without the necessary cultural
background knowledge, EFL teachers will find it difficult to understand,
not to mention teach, the instructional material. Yet many EFL teachers
do not possess a good knowledge of the cultures of the English-speaking
countries. According to Burnaby and Sun (1989) and Campbell and
Zhao (1993), most Chinese teachers of English sensed a major
deficiency in this area, and a lack of confidence because of it.

It should be made clear, however, that studying another culture does not
mean embracing it or following its socio-cultural customs, nor does it
mean losing one's own culture. In fact, understanding another culture
helps one appreciate one's own culture better. Also, cultural study in
ESOL is meant to empower the students to become competent English
users in their own context and on their own terms so they can express
themselves in whichever way they choose without giving rise to the
Dilin Liu
 unintentional conflicts or misunderstanding frequently caused by lack of
intercultural competence. It has been shown that the best way to
understand a culture is to be immersed in it. But merely being in the
target language country for one or two years will not suffice for a good
grasp of its culture, because, among other things, international TESOL
students' exposure is often confined to campus culture. They can reap
much more by engaging in a systematic study of culture via a course or
research project. Yet, according to a recent survey, 'only about one third
of the [TESOL] programs even offered a course in culture' (Reid 1995:
3). For programmes that offer such a course, making it more effective
for international TESOL students remains an issue of concern. In our
sociolinguistics course, we ask them to team up with American students
to investigate, using real-life data, the differences between American
cultures and their own. Many of them feel that they have gained much

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insight this way.

Conclusion International TESOL students are a large and very important force of
future TESOL professionals. Differing from their native-speaker peers
in various ways, they call for special attention and training. Yet so far,
TESOL teacher educators, burdened by ethnocentrism and dogmatism,
have, by and large, failed to accommodate their needs, specifically their
demand for more appropriate L2 acquisition theories and methodolo-
gies, language improvement, and cultural understanding. Of course,
these are certainly not all the areas where international TESOL students
require special consideration. More studies and discussions should be
conducted to determine accurately and comprehensively what the
various ethnic/linguistic groups of international TESOL students
demand from TESOL education in order to become successful teachers
in their native countries, and how we can better serve these would-be
TESOL professionals whose work will impact upon millions of ESOL
students to come.
Received September 1996

Notes discussion. These students are by no means a

1 In TESOL's Directory of Professional Prepara- monolithic group. Their needs vary from coun-
tion Programs in TESOL in the United States try to country.
and Canada (1995) figures for the 1993-94 3 NABA are juxtaposed here with other countries
academic year indicate that, in those institutions for the purpose of discussion only. It does not
where such information was available (i.e. 173 suggest that the two groups never overlap, or
out of 279 listed), 1,998 of the TESOL graduates that each is monolithic.
were native speakers, and 1,112 were non-native 4 By this type of English, I am not referring to
speakers, i.e. about 37 percent, more than one regionally institutionalized Englishes such as
third, were international students. Also, in 43 Indian English, which, though different from
(one quarter) of the 173 programmes, the American or British English, are authentic and
number of international graduates was either functional in their own terms. Jiang (1995) offers
equal to or larger than that of native speakers. a good distinction between these two types of
2 International TESOL students are treated as English in his discussion of 'Chinglish' versus
one group here simply for the convenience of China English.

Ethnocentrism in teacher education

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10 Dilin Liu