In the spirit of maintaining a diverse community with a variety of perspectives, prioritizing the hiring of foreign language teachers who are native speakers should be a central concern for the School.
Certain topics, such as a country’s culture, are best taught by someone who’s experienced life in that country firsthand. This is especially true in higher course levels, such as honors language classes or language seminars; cultural immersion is an invaluable tool for not only learning a foreign language, but also the customs and traditions that come along with it. A teacher who is able to share their own cultural experiences often resonates deeper with students and allows for a more nuanced understanding of the course content.
Granted, non-native foreign language teachers can relate to students’ struggles with learning a new language in an academic setting, or share helpful tips that they picked up from their own language-learning journey. They can also serve as examples for students as to the level of fluency that is possible for non-native language learners to achieve. But for non-native language learners, certain aspects of the language, such as accent, pronunciation, or phonics, can be difficult to nail down. In many cases, it’s harder for these teachers to teach the vocal patterns or tones native to the target language to students.
“You don’t quite get the same experience of the mannerisms or patterns of speech as you do with a native speaker,” says Ellery Marquez, a senior who speaks Spanish with their father at home and has taken both Spanish and French at the School. “I think [native speakers] bring a perspective that otherwise we might not get. There’s something so intangibly vital to the experience of having a personal connection and love for the language.”
Both native and non-native language teachers can be fantastic educators, but it’s more beneficial to be taught a new language by someone who picked it up organically, rather than someone who learned it in a classroom, because of their deeper cultural connection and knowledge of the language. The School should seek out teachers who are native speakers of their foreign languages whenever possible, to ensure that it fosters a community with the diverse perspectives that come with linguistic variation.