Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers Navigating Tension

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates phenomenology as a potentially valuable qualitative approach for the analysis of non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) in their navigation through tensions encountered at their workplace. Typically, the narrative inquiry approach is employed where qualitative data, representing the experience of NNESTs, go through an analytical process that results in the potential reduction of meanings, especially those that shape contextual understandings. Recognizing this concern, scholars – especially those who have been advocating for NNESTs – have called for a more contextual analytical approach, going so far as to call for an epistemic break from conventional qualitative research paradigms that dominate the English language teaching landscape. To this end, two experiences of NNESTs are presented through phenomenology so as to illustrate them as a coherent experience, without subjecting them through normative analytical measures that would yield segments of qualitative data that would then be neatly attributed to prominent and oftentimes, dichotomous notions.