Perception of physician students about studying english with native and non - Native English - Speaking teachers

An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol. 6, 100 – 108 
100 
PERCEPTION OF PHYSICIAN STUDENTS ABOUT STUDYING ENGLISH 
WITH NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING TEACHERS 
Pham Cu Thien1 
1Ho Chi Minh City University of Education 
Information: 
Received: 09/08/2018 
Accepted: 20/09/2018 
Published: 03/2019 
Keywords: 
Student’s perception, English 
teachers; English as foreign 
language 
ABSTRACT 
Teachers play an important role in the classroom, especially in teaching a 
foreign language. This paper reports on the students’ perception of choosing 
native or non-native English teachers when learning English using the 
questionnaire as a research method. Twenty-four physician students in the 
second year at Saigon Polytechnic College joined this study in January, 
2016. The result showed that physician students preferred learning listening 
(62.5%), speaking (58.3%), reading (54.2%) and pronunciation (75.0%) with 
native English-speaking teachers. For grammar and writing, most of them 
(87.5%) indicated the preference to study with non-native English-speaking 
teachers. Therefore, Rector of the College and Dean of English Department 
should take into consideration the importance of teachers in teaching 
English for students. Further research with a larger sample size and long 
term should be conducted to support this study’s result. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
English is widely used nowadays. Students of all 
ages all around the world have been learning 
English for different reasons; as a subject at 
school, for immigration to an English-speaking 
country, for travelling purposes or entertainment 
(Harmer, 2010). Besides the curriculum, the 
syllabus, and the materials for learning English 
such as books, videos, tapes, pictures, and so on, 
teachers play an important role when teaching a 
foreign language like English. There are two main 
kinds of teachers; namely the native and non-
native English-speaking teachers. The term “non-
native speaker” is often defined in contrast to the 
“native speaker” of a language, but it is very 
difficult to define precisely (Luk & Lin, 2007). 
The number of non-native English-speaking 
teachers have been increasing and exceeds that of 
native English-speaking teachers in the world 
(Ma, 2012). The question is that between native 
and non-native English teachers, which ones do 
the students prefer learning skills and aspects 
including listening, speaking, reading, writing, 
grammar and pronunciation with. Findings then 
can help Rector of the College and Dean of the 
English Department choose suitable teachers for 
students to learn to get the most effectiveness. 
Therefore, a research on students’ perception of 
studying English with native or non-native 
English-speaking teachers in class at Sai Gon 
Polytechnic College was carried out. 
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 
The term “native” and “non-native” have been 
used to refer to speakers of a language (Ulate, 
An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol. 6, 100 – 108 
101 
2011). The position of non-native teachers of 
English has been a controversial issue when this 
language started being taught internationally 
(Madrid & Canado, 2004). There has been a lot of 
research to examine the differences in the 
teaching of non-native English-speaking teachers 
and native English-speaking teachers in recent 
years. Medgyes (1994) stated that native and non-
native teachers differed from the level of L2 
competence and in terms of teaching behaviors. 
The research result from Madrid and Canado 
(2004) showed that students’ preferences for 
native teachers increased with the academic level. 
Ma (2012) found that there were differences in 
teaching approaches, teaching objectives and 
classroom atmosphere between native and non-
native English-speaking teachers in Hong Kong. 
A dissertation by Tsou (2013) was conducted on 
184 non-English major students in Taiwanese 
University, their perception was that both two 
groups of native and non-native English-speaking 
teachers had their strengths and weakness in 
English instruction; the disadvantages of this 
group were the advantages of the other groups in 
terms of English proficiency, the communication 
and the solution for students’ problems. Alseweed 
(2012) studied at Qassim University with 169 
Saudi male university students (non-English 
major) and the results were that they liked 
studying with native English teacher, especially at 
the higher level; however, they also showed their 
interest in studying with non-native English 
speakers because of their provision of the serious 
learning environment and clear answer for 
students’ asking. Walkinshaw and Duong (2012) 
carried out a research on 50 third-year English 
major students in two universities in Vietnam and 
got that English competence was the one which 
the respondents chose the native English-speaking 
teacher. Moreover, all other qualities such as 
teaching experience, qualifications, friendliness, 
enthusiasm, the abilities to deliver interesting and 
informative classes were valued for both groups 
of teachers. Xiaoru (2008) studied 75 university 
students majoring in English and got the results 
that each kind of teachers had its own strengths 
and weaknesses, so they should complement each 
other when teaching English. Lasagabaster and 
Sierra (2002) studied on 76 university students, in 
which there were 38 students majoring in English; 
the results were that they liked studying with 
native English-speaking teachers of the 
combination of both groups. Clouet (2006) said 
that teachers from each group had different 
advantages and the same class should have both 
native and non-native teachers so that the students 
could get better knowledge. 
Walkinshaw and Duong (2014) stated that non-
native English-speaking teachers had better 
grammar explanation and classroom interaction, 
while others were good at pronunciation, language 
use and culture. Çakir and Demir (2013) reported 
that native English-speaking teachers were better 
at teaching speaking, listening and pronunciation 
whereas non-native English-speaking teachers 
were excellent at making communication with 
their students; and teaching grammar (Çakir & 
Demir, 2013; Tosuncuoglu, 2017). Sevy-Biloon 
(2017) and Yazawa (2017) also agreed that native 
English teachers had better pronunciation than 
non-native English-speaking teachers. 
The above information mentioned a lot about the 
advantages and disadvantages of studying English 
with native and non-native English-speaking 
teachers, mainly for university students. There 
was no research on the students’ perception at 
vocational schools or colleges, especially 
physician students. This research will find the 
perceptions of physician students at Sai Gon 
Polytechnic College in Ho Chi Minh City so that 
the policy makers can take into consideration the 
importance of teachers’ approach in teaching 
English for students in this level. 
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 
One cross-sectional survey was done in January 
2016 to collect data by using a questionnaire 
which was designed by referring to the previous 
An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol. 6, 100 – 108 
102 
research (Walkinshaw & Duong, 2014; Ma, 2012; 
Torres, 2004). However, the question in this 
research only focused on students’ perception of 
studying listening, speaking, reading, writing, 
grammar and pronunciation with native and non-
native English-speaking teachers. The 
questionnaire was written in Vietnamese to 
prevent from a misunderstanding from the 
responding students then it was translated into 
English later for the paper. After the questionnaire 
was designed, it was showed to the two experts on 
TESOL teaching for comments. After correcting 
following the comments from two experts, the 
questionnaire was tested by five testers to know 
that whether they could understand or not, also to 
be sure that the questionnaire was good enough. 
Data then were collected at one point of the time 
in January 2016 with all senior physician students 
(N=24) in the seventh batch of Sai Gon 
Polytechnic College in Ho Chi Minh City, 
Vietnam. The unclear questions were explained 
directly to the participants. They had to choose 
either native English-speaking teachers or non-
native English-speaking teachers for each skill, 
and they have to decide to select the most 
important reason for their choice. The 
implementation of the data collection referred to 
the Five steps in the Process of Data collection 
(Creswell, 2012) including identifying the 
participants and sites, getting permission, 
obtaining data from the designed questionnaire, 
organizing the collected information correctly, 
and doing survey in the class for this study. 
Microsoft Office Excel was used for data entry 
and statistical analyses. Double entry was done to 
prevent from errors and to be sure no errors 
appeared. Descriptive analysis, mainly the 
percentage was used for data analysis. 
4. FINDINGS 
4.1 Students’ perception of studying listening 
skill with English teachers 
Table 1 showed that the native English-speaking 
teacher was preferred to non-native English-
speaking teachers when studying listening with 
the percentage of 62.5% and 37.5%, respectively. 
Most of the students (62,5%) liked studying 
listening with native English-speaking teachers. 
The main reason was that their English would be 
improved faster (46,7%), some of the students 
liked native English-speaking teacher because 
they could have a better understanding (20,0%) 
and they had no shyness to ask questions when 
they had a problem (20,0%). 
The non-native English-speaking teacher was also 
chosen by 37,5% students. They liked studying 
with them as they could follow without 
constraints when being asked or given instructions 
during the lesson. 
Table 1. Students’ perception of studying listening skill with English teachers (N=24) 
Opinions N (%) Reasons N 
Like studying with native 
English teacher 
15 (62,5) 
Improve English fast 7 
Easy to follow 2 
Easy to understand 3 
No shy when asking 3 
Like studying with non-
native English teacher 
9 (37,5) 
Improve English fast 
Easy to follow 5 
Easy to understand 2 
No shy when asking 2 
An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol. 6, 100 – 108 
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4.2 Students’ perception of studying speaking 
skill with English teachers 
The percentage of students choosing the native 
English-speaking teacher (58,3%) for speaking 
skill was also higher than non-native English-
speaking teacher (41,7%) (Table 2). The ones 
selecting the native English-speaking teacher gave 
the very persuasive reason that these teachers 
could speak more accurately than the others 
(71,4%) because of their mother tongue language. 
The term “speak accurately” is the popular one 
when mentioning about speaking a certain 
language. On the contrary, the students chose the 
non-native English teacher explained that they 
chose this option because they could understand 
easily when teacher required them to practice 
speaking (70,0%). Both sides had their own ideas, 
but the results showed that the selection of native 
English-speaking teacher was much higher than 
non-native English-speaking teachers in speaking 
skill. 
Table 2. Student’s perception of studying speaking skill with English teachers (N=24) 
Opinions N (%) Reasons N 
Like studying with 
native English teacher 
14 (58,3) 
Improve English fast 3 
Speak more accurately 10 
Easy to understand 
No shy when asking 1 
Like studying with non-
native English teacher 
10 (41,7) 
Improve English fast 
Speak more accurately 
Easy to understand 7 
No shy when asking 3 
4.3 Students’ perception of studying reading 
skill with English teachers 
Similar to listening and speaking skills, the total 
number of students choosing the native English-
speaking teacher (54,2%) in learning reading 
skills was higher than the non-native English-
speaking teacher (45,8%) (Table 3). Although the 
percentage was not very different, it showed the 
tendency of students. Most of them thought the 
native English teacher could make them improve 
English fast (53,8%). The counterpart group said 
that the non-native English teacher could explain 
the lesson more clearly, simply and made them 
understand more easily. 
Table 3. Students’ perception of studying reading skill with English teachers (N=24) 
Opinions N (%) Reasons N 
Like studying with native 
English teacher 
13 (54,2) 
Improve English fast 7 
Easy to follow 1 
Easy to understand 4 
No shy when asking 1 
Like studying with non-
native English teacher 
11 (45,8) 
Improve English fast 
Easy to follow 3 
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104 
Easy to understand 7 
No shy when asking 1 
4.4 Students’ perception of studying writing 
skill with English teachers 
For writing skill, it was very interesting that 21/24 
learners (87,5%) liked studying with the non-
native English-speaking teacher (Table 4). The 
reasons were easy to follow (61,9%) and easy to 
understand (38,1%) the lesson. This writing skill 
should be considered by the school leader when 
inviting the teacher. It was surprised that only 
three students chose the native English-speaking 
teachers when studying writing skill, two of them 
chose those native English teachers because they 
felt no shyness when asking, only one student 
thought it was easy to follow what his or her 
native English teacher taught. 
Table 4. Students’ perception of studying writing skill with English teachers (N=24) 
Opinions N (%) Reasons N 
Like studying with 
native English 
teacher 
3 (12,5) 
Improve English fast 
Easy to follow 1 
Easy to understand 
No shy when asking 2 
Like studying with 
non-native English 
teacher 
21 (87,5) 
Improve English fast 
Easy to follow 13 
Easy to understand 8 
No shy when asking 
4.5 Students’ perception of studying grammar 
with English teachers 
The same as writing skill, 87,5% students liked 
learning grammar with the non-native English-
speaking teacher (Table 5). They said that it was 
easy for them to understand (42,9%), and it was 
also easy for them to follow the lecture (52.4%), 
especially with the complex grammar structure. 
Only three students chose native English-speaking 
teachers because they thought it was easy for 
them to follow the grammar lesson, and they had 
no shyness to ask questions in the class. 
Table 5. Students’ perception of studying grammar with English teachers (N=24) 
Opinions N (%) Reasons N 
Like studying with native 
English teacher 
3 (12,5) 
Improve English fast 
Easy to follow 2 
Easy to understand 
No shy when asking 1 
Like studying with non-
native English teacher 
21 (87,5) 
Improve English fast 
Easy to follow 11 
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105 
Easy to understand 9 
No shy when asking 1 
4.6 Students’ perception of studying pronunciation with English teachers 
Table 6 showed that three-fourths students (75%) liked studying this skill with the native English-
speaking teacher. All of them gave the same reason that the native English-speaking teacher pronounced 
completely accurately while the non-native English-speaking teacher sometimes made mistakes. The 
term “pronounce accurately” was also very popular when talking about the pronunciation of a language. 
It was obvious that no one in the research had a different idea except for 25 % leaners chose the non-
native English teacher because of being not shy in the class (5 cases) or being able to improve English 
faster (one case). 
Table 6. Students’ perception of studying pronunciation with English teachers (N=24) 
Opinions N (%) Reasons N 
Like studying with native 
English teacher 
18 (75,0) 
Improve English fast 
Easy to follow 
Pronounce accurately 18 
No shy when asking 
Like studying with non-
native English teacher 
6 (25,0) 
Improve English fast 1 
Easy to follow 
Pronounce accurately 
No shy when asking 5 
5. DISCUSSION 
There have been arguments against the native and 
non-native dichotomy (Ma, 2012). Different 
teachers have different strengths and weakness, 
and it depends on how students view individual 
teachers, of course, students will not give the 
same opinions (Harmer, 2010). However, the 
students would master and understand the lecture 
much more easily and successfully when they like 
the teacher they are studying with. This part of the 
paper does not show who is the better teacher but 
only discuss student’s perception when choosing a 
teacher in learning English. 
Most students in this research like studying 
grammar and writing skill with the non-native 
English teacher (87,5%). This can be explained 
that these two skills are being required highly to 
the students because of the tradition way of 
studying. They have to master these skills to pass 
the tests at school and university or college. 
Besides, the details of the lesson and the content 
must be remembered carefully. Also, if students 
have some difficulties in learning or doing the 
exercises or even the content of the lesson, 
teachers can find suitable ways to show them to 
understand fast. These problems may not be 
solved easily by the native teacher in details 
because of the language barrier. Moreover, native 
teachers were lack of knowledge of the students’ 
mother tongue, this influenced the lack of 
sympathy between the teacher and students, 
especially at the elementary and intermediate 
levels (Madrid and Canado, 2004) like the 
students in this research. Therefore, the reasons 
why they chose non-native English-speaking 
An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol. 6, 100 – 108 
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teachers was easy to follow for writing (N=13) 
and grammar (N=11). This high percentage of 
students chose the non-native English-speaking 
teachers when studying grammar also agrees with 
Walkinshaw and Duong (2014), Çakir and Demir 
(2013), and Tosuncuoglu (2017) that these 
teachers had better grammar explanation and 
teaching experiences for these subjects. 
Pronunciation is one of the most important aspects 
of a language (Çakir & Baytar, 2014) when 
studying a foreign language. In this research, 
three-fourths students liked studying 
pronunciation with the native English teacher. It is 
obvious that the native ones can pronounce more 
accurately both the sound and the ways of 
pronouncing because of their mother tongue. 
Sevy-Biloon (2017), Çakir and Demir (2013), 
Walkinshaw and Duong (2014), and Yazawa 
(2017) also agreed that native English teachers 
had better pronunciation than non-native English-
speaking teachers. Native English-speaking 
teachers can have better accurate pronunciation 
because they master the language they teach, have 
a greater self-confidence (Madrid & Canado, 
2004). As a result, using English accurately is the 
most important one voted by students in this study 
when they gave their perception of studying 
pronunciation (N=18) with foreign English 
teachers. Obviously, the increase in using English 
in the world will affect both local languages and 
English then it gives the increase to new hybrid 
language varieties (Foley, 2014), that is what the 
learners want to minimize. Moreover, human 
communication can happen between the speaker 
and the listener if they understand each other. 
Both speaker and listener have to perform their 
language in simple terms. The speaker has to 
convert his message into spoken language and 
transfer to the listener, while the listener has t