Towards a pedagogy of empowerment: The case of 'impostor syndrome' among pre-service non-native speaker teachers in TESOL

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Towards a pedagogy of empowerment:
The case of ‘impostor syndrome’ among pre-service non-native
speaker teachers in TESOL
Eva Bernat
Introduction
The phenomenon of the Non-Native Speaker
Teacher (NNST) has received considerable
attention in literature in recent years, and research
in this area has been explicitly identified as
necessary for NNST preparation and development
(Bailey 2001). However, given Canagarajah’s
(1999) estimate that claims 80% of English
language teachers are of non-native background, it
could be argued that there is still paucity of
literature in areas such as language teachers’ self-
perceptions and issues related to identity.
According to Inbar-Lourie (2005: 269), language
teachers are clearly aware of the crucial
significance of native/non-native labelling to their
professional status, and the impact of such
labelling in a time when ‘the market values the
native speaker… and, in our post-industrial, neo-
liberal world who will dare challenge what the
market dictates?’ (Inbar-Lourie 2005: 293).
While early discussions in literature reflected a
‘deficit model’ focusing on non-native teachers’
shortcomings, more recent evidence suggests that
NNSTs possess many advantages, such as a more
thorough knowledge of grammar, empathy for the
EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learner
having been one themselves, being a bilingual
resource in the classroom, and understanding the
local curricula and contextual demands, to name a
few. Yet despite this, both anecdotal evidence and
documented self-perceived prejudice (Amin 1997;
Canagarajah 1999; Kamhi-Stein, Lee and Lee
1999; Thomas 1999; Medgyes 1994) suggest that
non-native teachers often feel like ‘impostors’, ‘in
a world that still values native speakers as the
norm providers and the natural choice in language
teacher selection’ (Llurda 2005: 2).
The psychological construct of impostorhood
is a relatively under-researched phenomenon, yet a
prevalent feeling among many non-native teachers
of English. Impostorhood is characterized by
feelings of inadequacy, personal inauthenticity or
fraudulence, self-doubt, low self-efficacy beliefs,
and sometimes generalized anxiety (Yates and
Chandler 1998). The ‘impostor syndrome’ was
first brought to the attention of educators through
the work of the feminist psychotherapist, Dr
Pauline Clance (Clance and Imes 1978; Clance
1985; Bell 1990; Clance et al. 1995).
‘Impostorhood’ describes a sense of personal
inauthenticity in individuals who evidence
achievement. In some contexts, it has been
defined as an ‘internal experience of intellectual
phoniness’ and a phenomenon of ‘feeling like a
fraud’ (Clance and Imes 1978: 241). Clance noted
this trait was often found in high achieving
women, but later work revealed it is found in both
male and female samples. Studies on impostor
syndrome are relatively scarce, though a number
are reported in contexts other than language
teacher education, such as among higher degree
research students in MA and PhD programmes
(e.g. Yates and Chandler 1998), and nursing (e.g.
Heinrich 1997).
The paper argues that in the EFL teaching
context a special kind of impostorhood exists –
the ‘NNST Impostorhood’, where the feelings of
inauthenticity or fraudulence are not specifically
related to high achievement (although they may
well be), but are related to feelings of inadequacy
in the role of a language teacher or ‘language
expert’ of one’s non-native tongue. Tang (1997)
observed in her study that many NNSTs feel
inadequate in their work. Although there appears
to be strong anecdotal evidence which attests to
the existence of the impostor syndrome among
pre-service TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers
of Other Languages) trainees of non-native
English language background, there is less
empirical evidence which could provide a
documented foundation of its existence,
evidencing a need for exploratory studies in this
area.
With the rapid spread of English around the
globe, more and more prospective teachers of a
non-native tongue are ‘stepping into the shoes’ of
someone often perceived by them to be more
superior for the task – a native speaker. The
idealized native speaker model appears to be such
a powerful dominant force that Llurda
(forthcoming) likened it to the ‘Stockholm
Syndrome’ after the psychiatrist, Nils Bejerot, who
coined the term to describe a victim’s
psychological identification with his or her captor

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– a form of identification with a perceived more
powerful figure as a strategy for survival in
difficult circumstances.
Undoubtedly, a number of salient factors play
an important role in the way non-native teachers’
perceptions of self and construction of new
teacher identity are formed. Norton (2000: 5)
defines identity as ‘how a person understands his
or her relationship to the world, how that
relationship is constructed across time and space,
and how the person understands possibilities for
the future’. Although the overall semiotic structure
of self is said to be almost identical for all humans,
identities are more contextually determined and
are a result of various cultural interpretations of
race, gender, social class, religion, and notions of
membership (van Lier 2004). In this view, social,
institutional and political considerations and forces
operate at the level of identity, and inequalities
such as those related to being a non-native teacher
of English are therefore environmentally produced
rather than inherited. This critical perspective
foregrounds the need to explore these
environmentally influenced and self-constructed
discourses among the disempowered within the
teaching profession.
Teachers’ personal discourses regarding self
and language teacher identity may include beliefs
about their own competence (self-efficacy beliefs),
level of language proficiency, career opportunities,
past teaching experiences, and perceptions of self
as ‘language expert’, to name a few. Furthermore,
during their quest for constructing their identity as
language teachers, NNSTs may encounter
conflicting views related to language standards,
‘correct’ pronunciation, role modelling and so on,
which may likely shape their perceptions of self
and lead to negative self-evaluation. Since
perceptions of ‘self as language expert’ and self-
efficacy beliefs may develop during the course of
teacher training (although some may have been
shaped beforehand), they could arguably be either
cemented or challenged in the process of pre-
service teacher education, both in a university
classroom setting as well as during their practicum
experience. This would suggest that teacher
education courses have an important role to play
here.
In terms of literature, seminal works on the
subject of NNSTs in English language education
disseminated in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g. Medgyes
1983, 1992, 1994; Reves & Medgyes 1994; Braine
1999) and more recently (Llurda 2005; Kamhi-
Stein 2007) have brought together experiential
facts and theoretical principles in a rigorous and
clear manner, prompting more recent interest in
this area. These studies are acknowledged here as
part of the initial efforts to assert the status of
NNSTs of English, both pre-service and in-
service, around the world. Moussu and Llurda
(2008) have recently compiled, classified and
examined research conducted in the last two
decades on this topic, placing a special emphasis
on World Englishes concerns, methods of
investigation, and areas in need of further
attention.
However, until now very few studies have
examined NNSTs’ self perceptions, even though
their self ascribed and non-native identities have
meaningful consequences for their personal as well
as classroom behaviour (Norton 2000). Applying a
socio-psychological framework, Inbar-Lourie
(2005) studied the gap between self and perceived
native speaker identities of EFL teachers. She
reviewed variables that have been noted to affect
language teachers’ perceived native and non-native
identities such as ‘pronunciation, familiarity with
the target language and its culture, self-efficacy in
teaching the various subject matter components
and perceptions as to who qualifies as a native
speaker of the language’ (Inbar-Lourie 2005: 269).
Using a self-report questionnaire with open-ended
questions in a sample of 102 mostly female EFL
teachers in Israel, Inbar-Lourie asked them to
ascribe themselves as NS (Native Speaker) or
NNS of English. They were also questioned about
how others (NS, NNS, and their students)
perceived them. The findings confirm the
existence of a gap between self and perceived
identities, a gap that is assumed by EFL teachers
as belonging to the multi-identity reality in which
they function.
In Brazil, Rajagopalan (2005) explored in detail
the underlying causes of the so-called ‘native
speaker myth’ in English language teaching and
the resulting marginalization of the NNS teacher
which, he argues, is purely ideological. He presents
quantitative and qualitative data from a
questionnaire completed by 450 EFL teachers in
an attempt to help overcome NNSTs’ ‘often
unconfessed complex of inferiority’ (284), which
he believes is ‘much more wide spread than might
seem at first glimpse’ (293). Some of the findings
of the quantitative questionnaire data were that:
52% felt handicapped when it came to career
advancement; 40% felt doomed to be chasing an
impossible ideal; and 66% felt they were treated as
second class citizens in their workplace. From the
qualitative part of the study, the researcher found
that NNSTs frequently complained about their
speaking anxiety in the presence of ‘native
speakers’. Rajagopalan set out to challenge some

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of the study respondents’ pre-set assumptions
resulting in lack of self-confidence by exposing
them to texts problematizing EFL practices
worldwide, as well as discussions. While the
intervention study was in its infancy at the time of
its publication, an early highly encouraging result
was the perception gained that these teachers did
know at the bottom of their hearts that there was a
genuine problem to be addressed in the wider
context of the EFL teaching profession that was
ideologically imbued and intertwined with various
issues related to the global status of English.
In another study, Tang (1997) reports on a
survey of 47 NNSTs in Hong Kong, examining
perceptions of their own proficiency and
competency, as compared with those of NSTs.
Her subjects felt that NSTs were superior to
NNSTs in areas of fluency such as speaking
(100%), pronunciation (92%), and listening (87%).
Tang found that NNS teachers ‘were felt to be
associated with accuracy rather than fluency’ (578).
The results of this study clearly show that NNSTs
perceive their NST counterparts as far superior in
oral and aural proficiency.
Finally, in a survey conducted by Medgyes
(1994), 325 teachers from 11 countries, 86% of
whom were NNSs, completed self-report
questionnaires about their perceived behaviour as
English language teachers. Results showed that the
NNSTs ‘viewed themselves as poorer listeners,
speakers, readers, and writers’ (Medgyes 1994: 33)
than their native English-speaking teacher
counterparts. These NNSTs identified speaking
and fluency, pronunciation and listening as most
problematic after vocabulary and idiomatic and
appropriate use of English. Areas of accuracy,
such as grammar and writing skills, were
mentioned far less frequently, and reading skills
and cultural knowledge were not even mentioned
by the NNSTs surveyed.
Study aims and limitations
The aim of the current study was to investigate the
self-constructed notions of identity in relation to
current and projected ‘self’ as a NNST of English,
using various data elicitation methods. The study
also aimed to provide participants with
opportunities for reflection, as well as exposure to
‘Near-Peer Role Models’ with the intention to
minimize, if not eliminate, the feelings of
inadequacy among other symptoms of the
impostor syndrome. Therefore, the study could be
termed interventionist and experimental, in line
with Moussu and Llurda’s (2008) recent call for
such studies.
The limitations of this research go beyond its
situational and contextual constraints, given the
affective nature of the latent variables under study,
namely self-efficacy beliefs and feelings associated
with impostorhood. In addition, the data reported
in this study derive from a small convenience
sample, thus findings should not be generalized to
other populations. Nonetheless, comparative
research data derived from various participant
samples across various contexts suggest feasibility
of pursuing this line of exploratory research in
other contexts.
Methodology
Participants
Eleven non-native teacher trainees of TESOL
participated in the study, 7 female and 4 male,
aged between 19–32 years. They came from China
(3), Korea (2), Japan (2), Thailand (1), South
America (1), Turkey (1), and Greece (1). At the
time of data collection, participants were
undertaking initial teacher training in TESOL at
postgraduate level at an Australian university,
although almost half of the respondents had had
some previous language teaching experience.
Data collection methods and analyses
A predominantly qualitative approach was taken in
this study, which utilizes a number of varied data
collection methods. McCracken (1988) points out
that qualitative research is ‘complexity-catching’,
allowing for probing, detailing and clarifying
issues. This type of methodology seems therefore
appropriate for uncovering the existence of such
complex latent variables as the ones under
investigation in this study.
In terms of participant selection, it is important
to note that a convenience sample was selected
based on the results of administering a self-
developed instrument called ‘NNST Impostor
Scale’ (see appendix) to a wider cohort of NNS
TESOL trainees. Thus, out of 32 participants
surveyed, 13 had responded positively to the scale
(i.e. showed some degree of impostorhood,
scoring in the mid-to-high range), and 11 agreed to
take part in the voluntary quasi-experimental,
intervention study that lasted one semester. At the
first stage, participants took part in 40 minute in-
depth interviews, which were recorded, then
transcribed verbatim and coded for recurring
themes. Next, to triangulate the interview data,
participants were asked to design a collage in their
own time, using pictures and words from various
published media sources such as brochures and

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magazines, or personal drawings. They were later
asked to bring their collage for a discursive
interpretation session of its representational
meanings (second interview). Typically, literature
on reasoning with external representations
considers either subjects interpreting presented
representations, or subjects constructing their own
representations (e.g. Wilkin 1997; Katz and Anzai
1991), the latter being the case in this study. Visual
representations are believed to provide useful in-
depth insights into the thoughts and feelings of a
person. Again, data from this session was recorded
and transcribed verbatim. Finally, a focus group
was conducted to ascertain whether any changes in
teacher perceptions had taken place over the
period of one semester.
Apart from opportunities for self reflection
during their collage design, participants were also
exposed to two lecture visits by successful NNSTs
of TESOL. These individuals provided insights
into their own early feelings and experiences as
NNSTs, and demonstrated how success for
NNSTs in this profession is possible. Being close
peers, they served as role models for the trainees.
Near-Peer Role Modeling (Murphey 2001) has
been used as a successful framework in instigating
belief and attitude change based on the ‘peer
communicator theory’ in social psychology. Near
Peers are people who might be near to us in
several ways: age, ethnicity, gender, interests, past
or present experiences, and also in proximity and
in frequency of social contact. According to socio-
psychological theory, they are deemed to be more
believable and influential in their message than
people who are not ‘near’.
Discussion of findings
First, it needs to be acknowledged that given
editorial constraints, only a snapshot of the whole
data can be described in this paper. The whole
data set is very rich and wide in scope, and it
would not be possible to report on all of it.
Selectivity of data is inevitable in reporting
qualitative studies involving many participants and
numerous data gathering instruments and
measures. As with any study, findings may not be
representative of other populations and ought to
be interpreted with caution.
Self-rating Scale
All selected participants completed ‘The NNST
Impostor Scale’ (see appendix). The findings from
the survey revealed that a slight minority of
respondents believed that their achievements can
be attributed purely to luck rather than hard work.
The majority agreed that people see them as more
competent than they really are, and stated that
more often than not, they have been surprised by
their success on a project which they had expected
to fail on. In terms of the teaching context, the
vast majority of respondents felt that their accent
made it hard for people to understand them, and
all respondents reported feeling inferior compared
to NSTs. More than half the respondents felt that
they do not belong in front of the classroom, and
this may be either a result of lack of teaching
experience or feelings of inadequacy due to being
NNS (though subsequent interview data showed
that the latter cause dominated). There were mixed
results as to the congruence of self representation
in the public and private domains. The vast
majority also reported being unsure whether they
would make good language teachers. Overall, the
findings of the scale confirm that NNSTs
(particularly females) felt inferior in their role as
language teachers and had deep concerns over
their ability to teach English and to fit into the
teaching role.
First Interview data
The purpose of individual interviews was to gain
insight into NNSTs’ self perceptions and to
triangulate the data reported in the self-rating
NNST Impostor Scale. There were a number of
recurring themes in the interview data. One of
these related to the idealized native speaker model.
Many local teachers felt that students expected to
have a NST in the classroom, and that being non-
native disadvantaged them in terms of
employment.
Interestingly, while teachers in this study were
concerned that students expected a native speaker
teacher, Cook’s (2005) study shows that students
are not necessarily as impressed by native speaker
teachers as one might suppose. Cook conducted a
survey of adults and children aged on average 14,
from six different countries. Respondents were
asked to show agreement or disagreement to a
statement, among others, ‘Native speakers make
the best language teachers’. The approval rating
for native teachers ranged from 72% for children
in England down to 33% for children in Belgium,
and from 82% for adults in England to 51% for
adults in Taiwan. While this indeed confirms a
preference for native speakers, it is not an
overwhelming preference with the exception of
England. Cook comments that, given that students
are reflecting the societies in which they dwell and
the beliefs of their teachers and parents, it is

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surprising that they are overall lukewarm about
native speaker teachers.
In terms of being disadvantaged for
employment as a NNST, Rajagopalan (2005: 286)
claims that ‘the whole idea of native speakerhood
has over the years only served as a dreadful
nightmare…’, and that it is not uncommon to find
NNSTs who have been literally brainwashed into
believing that their highest goal should be to be so
proficient in the language as to be welcomed into
the community of native speakers as ‘regular’
members. The author blames the current state of
affairs on the imperialist dimension of the EFL
enterprise which relegates the NNT to a condition
of ‘second class citizenship’, and points out that
being ‘near native’, or what Medgyes (1994) labels
‘pseudo-native’, meant that one was being a rather
clever impostor who was bound to be caught out
in due course – which is precisely the concern
voiced by many teachers in this study.
Another issue raised in the interviews related to
teachers’ concerns over their accent. Yuko
(pseudonyms used), a young Japanese female
teacher, put it like this:
Yuko: Like, especially about speaking. I
have strong Japanese accent and,
umm… like pronunciation, yes… I
still have worries about that.
Students sometimes have trouble
understanding me.
Interviewer: Do they tell you that?
Yuko: Yes, regularly!
Interviewer: And how do you feel when they do
that?
Yuko: Embarrassed [shy laughter].
Kamhi-Stein (2007) points out ‘accent-
reduction discourses’ are disempowering to NNS
teachers who may have one of many stigmatized
accents that students are being encouraged to
unlearn in order to succeed. Hence, good
pedagogy and social justice demand that TESOL
programs rethink this emphasis on native speaker
accents, since it is almost impossible for adults to
eliminate their native accent. In Yuko’s case
however, it is important that her pronunciation is
comprehensible, rather than ‘native-like’ – the
emphasis here being on intelligibility. Where
intelligibility is an issue – as it is in this case – a
number of researchers (e.g. Pasternak and Bailey
2007; Lee 2007) have suggested that NNSTs might
benefit from further language training in their
teacher-training courses.
Collage design – second interview data
Among the most interesting and insightful data
gathered were the collages teachers had designed
and created using newspaper and magazine
clippings. They had been asked to find words,
phrases, and pictures which represented how they
are feeling about themselves as language teachers
now, and about their future career prospects.
While discussing their collages, teachers used
metaphors to describe the pictures they had placed
in their collages. Metaphorical conceptualizations
provide a useful symbolic representational
framework for analysing ‘inner reality’. According
to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), a metaphor is a
mental construction that helps us to structure our
experience and to develop our imagination and
reasoning. Munby (1986: 206) studied teachers’
use of metaphors in their descriptions of their
work, and concluded that ‘given the powerful link
between metaphor and construction of reality’, the
use of metaphors proves to be a promising
alternative in exploring teachers’ thinking. In
another study, metaphors such as ‘teaching as
parenting’; ‘teacher as butterfly’ and ‘teacher as
chameleon’ are used to explore pre-service
teachers’ personal teaching experience (Bullough
1991).
During the collage discussion session, some of
the conceptual metaphors used to describe
teachers’ experiences included: ‘winding road’
which reflected the uncertain turns one might take
in one’s teaching career; ‘the journey’ and
‘standing at the cross-roads’ for a teacher who was
uncertain whether she would make a good NNST.
Clippings of words and phrases which reflected a
NNST identity included: ‘odd one out’, ‘not the
expert’, and ‘language problems’. When discussing
these, teachers mentioned the – all too often –
expressed concerns over their status as NNS of
English and their trepidations about how this
might be perceived by their future students and
employers. Words that reflected negative affect
included: ‘lonely’, ‘stressed’, ‘escape’, ‘mocked’,
‘overwhelming’, and ‘fake’. With reference to the
last word, it is important to note that at no time
during this intervention study were words such as:
fake, impostor, phony, etc., used by the researcher
so as not to be ‘leading’ (the title of the survey
instrument “NNST Impostor Scale” had also been
left out). However, on a positive note, teachers
also expressed hope and an optimistic outlook in
many cases. Words and phrases which reflected
this included: ‘don’t give up’, ‘keep trying’, ‘dream’,
‘possibility’, ‘destiny’, and ‘ready’. From these
individual discussion sessions, it became apparent
that although teachers had by and large negatively

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evaluated themselves, and at times felt
overwhelmed by what they were undertaking in
their career, they also saw a possibility of success.
Near-peer role modelling (NPRM)
During the semester, teacher trainees were
exposed to various models and ‘empowering
discourses’ in their lectures on issues related to
NNSTs – both from their NNS lecturer, and two
NNSTs who came to give talks on two separate
occasions. They had been informed of the
emerging global changes to the status of the
NNST and of the fact that NNSTs currently
outnumber NSTs in the world – a fact which the
trainee teachers had not known and were very
pleasantly surprised to learn about. Furthermore,
the two visiting teachers who came to give
personal testimonials on their own professional
journey in the field of TESOL seemed to have a
very positive effect on the listeners. The speakers
had engaged the trainees in fruitful discussions,
and found that they were able to relate to each
others’ feelings and experiences well. One male
teacher from China had commented that he now
not only believed he could be a good model of a
successful language learner for his students back in
China, but also had the desire to be a successful
model for other NNSTs in his homeland.
Focus group data
At the end of the semester-long intervention, all
participants had come together for a focus group
discussion on their reflections during the study
and to report on what they had gained from it
personally. Reflection is crucial to teacher
development and an effective tool to teacher
empowerment (Bailey, Curtis and Nunan 2001).
Most teachers commented how useful they found
the information and that they felt no longer alone
in their struggle for recognition, yet they were still
realistic about having to break ‘the glass ceiling’ (to
use a feminist analogy) in their profession. These
focus group discussions had confirmed that all
teachers had experienced various degrees of
change in their perceptions of themselves as
NNSTs, and held hope for their future careers.
Conclusion
The aim of this study was to address negative self-
perceptions and feelings of inadequacy among
NNSTs of TESOL, since teachers’ awareness of
their personal perceptions (and misconceptions)
about self as language teachers is central to their
growth as professionals. Based on the data
reported in this study, the NNST Impostor
Syndrome appears to exist among the sampled
participants, though somewhat more strongly in
the case of females (which seems to support the
findings of other impostor syndrome studies
noted earlier). During a period of one semester,
teacher trainees were exposed to ideas challenging
the notion of native speaker and non-native
speaker status, listened to testimonials of near-peer
role models, were encouraged to reflect on their
own perceptions of their NNST identity and self-
efficacy beliefs during their collage design, and
took part in interviews and a focus group
discussion. While positive changes among the
teachers were documented, their experiences of
taking part in this study will no doubt act as
antecedents towards their new conceptualizations
of self and NNST status in their future ELT
careers.
However, fundamentally parallel to NNSTs’
underlying notions of status inequality are external
realities. Problems related to establishing
credibility of NNSTs are not merely their
individual problems, but problems of our society
in general, and the TESOL field in particular. On
an ideological level, the native/non-native speaker
division is solely based on language proficiency,
where the native speaker model divides the
profession according to a caste system, and it
should therefore be eliminated (Rajagopalan 2005,
Kachru 1990; Pennycook 1992). Shin and Kellog
(2007) point out that many Asian teachers, for
example, lack confidence in their own teaching
skills precisely because they define these in terms
of English language skills. Indeed, anxiety may be
felt by any beginning teacher, whether native or
nonnative; however, ‘when put next to native
speaker, the NNSTs often experience a strong
sense of fear that they will not attain the same
level of proficiency, and that the ESL students
may reject them preferring a native speaker as a
teacher’ (Greis 1985: 318).
Accordingly, this author joins Amin (2007) in
her call for organizations such as the American
Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL),
IATEFL, TESOL, and TESOL affiliates to
actively dismantle the native/nonnative speaker
dichotomy. The TESOL Research Agenda (June
2000) had identified issues related to NNSTs as a
Priority Research Area, and a question of research
interest listed in the document is: To what extent,
if any, are issues related to NNS professionals
addressed by the TESOL teacher preparation
curriculum? While the current study and that of
Rajagopalan (2005) and Lee (2007) reflect
concerted efforts to address this issue, much more

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interventionist work is needed in this area.
Rajagopalan (2005: 287) notes that while such
developments are indeed most welcome and long
overdue, there is still much work to be done by
way of empowering the NNSTs and encouraging
them to rethink their own roles in EFL.
Undoubtedly, there is an urgent need to help
NNSTs overcome the profoundly damaging
deficit model of their own professional
competence.
In similar vein, Inbar-Lourie (2005: 293) calls
for ‘carefully planned strategies of empowerment
aimed at convincing NNSTs of the important
contribution they can make to the teaching
enterprise’, yet points out that ‘clearly any effort to
bring about significant changes in the mindset of
the NNSTs… is by no means going to be an easy
task or one that will yield positive results
overnight’. However, on a positive note, the
author concludes that with the massive spread of
English, currently accepted norms of native
speaker status will be revisited and perhaps revised
to include populations presently excluded from
the native speaker speech community. Such a
process will relocate the locus of power and
control among English speakers, transforming and
reshuffling notions of currently perceived native
and non-native identities. Already the waters of
English native-speaker norms are becoming
muddied, which – according to Llurda (2004) –
creates the right conditions for the gradual
acceptance of English as lingua franca, with a
consequent decrease in the role of native-speaker
teachers in setting the principles and norms on
which this lingua franca will be taught in the
future.
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APPENDIX
NNST Impostor Scale
Each statement below indicates your possible feelings and attitudes about yourself and your abilities. Please indicate how true
you feel each of the statements is as it applies to you, using the scale below. Circle the right answer:
1 = not true at all 2 = rarely true 3 = sometimes true 4 = always true
1. I feel that other people tend to believe that I am more competent than I am. 1 2 3 4
2. I am certain that my abilities don’t ref lect the level of my achievement. 1 2 3 4
3. Sometimes I am afraid I will be discovered for who or what I really am. 1 2 3 4
4. I find it hard to accept compliments about my teaching ability because they are mainly not true. 1 2 3 4
5. I feel I don’t deserve the awards, recognition, and praise I regularly receive. 1 2 3 4
6. I feel inferior compared to Native Speaker Teachers. 1 2 3 4
7. I often wonder if my accent makes it hard for people to understand me. 1 2 3 4
8. So far, my accomplishments for my s tage in life are perfectly adequate. 1 2 3 4
9. I am not sure if I am able to t each English well, since I am non-native speaker teacher. 1 2 3 4
10. I often achieve success on a project when I think I may have failed. 1 2 3 4
11. I often feel I am concealing secrets about myself from others. 1 2 3 4
12. My public and private self are not the same. 1 2 3 4
13. Very few people really know how average I am. 1 2 3 4
14. Most of my successful teaching experiences are due to luck. 1 2 3 4
15. When I stand in front of a cl assroom I feel like I don’t belong there. 1 2 3 4