\nGeorgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
\n<nic.subtirelu
![\"atmark\"](\"http:\/\/www.tesl-ej.org\/atmark.png\")
gmail.edu><\/p>\nNicholas Subtirelu
\nGeorgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
\n<nic.subtirelugmail.edu><\/p>\n
Authority in the classroom is an important concept to teachers everywhere.\u00a0 The act of teaching continuously engages them in the negotiation and construction of an identity that is accepted as authoritative by their students.\u00a0 Identity and authority, however, are in conflict in the context of NNSTs [\u2018non-native\u2019 speaker teachers] of English (and other languages).\u00a0 Commonly-held beliefs like the \u201cnative speaker fallacy\u201d (Phillipson, 1992), which holds that \u2018native\u2019 speakers are the ideal teachers of a language, pose a threat to a NNST\u2019s ability to speak with authority in the classroom, requiring the construction of an identity that is authoritative without being \u2018native\u2019. In light of this, a case study was undertaken of one NNST teaching a grammar course in a US setting.\u00a0 Class meetings and an interview with the participant informed the study.\u00a0 The analysis revealed that the participant uses a variety of strategies to juggle his \u2018non-native\u2019 speaker status and his need to speak as authority in the classroom.\u00a0 In particular, it was found that the participant constructs an identity as linguist allowing him to successfully maintain his authority.\u00a0 Implications for teaching and teacher training are discussed.<\/p>\n
Authority in the classroom has a potentially dual meaning as noted by Peters (1966), who points out that the instructor can be in<\/em> authority and an<\/em> authority.\u00a0 Buzzelli and Johnston (2001) elaborate on this idea by stating that \u201cthe former refers to the teacher\u2019s ability to direct actions within the classroom, the latter to her status as the possessor and transmitter of sanctioned forms of knowledge\u201d (p. 874).\u00a0 These authors also take the position that the two are interrelated.\u00a0 Being in <\/em>authority may rely on being an <\/em>authority and vice-versa.\u00a0 Furthermore, they argue that the two are ubiquitous and necessary components of classroom discourse and practice.\u00a0 In order to fulfill certain aspects of his or her institutional role, instructors generally require the ability to act as authority, and as a result they use various techniques to establish said authority (Doyle & Carter, 1984; Cothran & Ennis, 1997).<\/p>\n Traditionally, an instructor\u2019s authority has been accepted (or at least thought to be accepted) by his or her students on the grounds of the institutional authority granted the individual in this position (Cothran & Ennis, 1997).\u00a0 Thus, according to Cothran and Ennis, the only aspect of identity relevant to the establishment of authority in the traditional conception of a classroom was the institutional affiliation.\u00a0 However, according to Cothran and Ennis, this situation has begun to change at least in the United States primary and secondary education contexts (or perhaps was not entirely true to begin with, see Waller, 1932), and instructors\u2019 authority is more commonly challenged in the classroom.\u00a0 In a study of Chinese heritage language classes, He (2004) argues, \u201c[T]he teacher’s expertness and authority is not presupposed to the same degree at all times and is not readily accepted by the student at all times\u201d (p. 208).\u00a0 She demonstrates that at various critical moments authority and expertise are negotiated between the instructor and the students and that instructors appear to be working to establish and maintain their authority.\u00a0 One finding of He\u2019s study was to show that various aspects of an individual may be particularly relevant in determining whether the instructor is able to act as legitimate authority including his or her cultural identity.\u00a0 Other studies have found other factors relevant such as (a) ethnicity (Ng, 1991; Braine, 1999; Amin, 2001), (b) gender (Hoodfar, 1992; Ng, 1991; Amin, 1999; 2001), and, particularly relevant for this study, (c) \u2018native\u2019 speaker [NS] or \u2018non-native\u2019 speaker [NNS] status (Braine, 1999; Thomas, 1999; Amin, 1997; 1999; 2001).<\/p>\n Therefore, it appears that English language instructors have a need to construct identities that are compatible with their students\u2019 expectations about what constitutes an authority of the language.\u00a0 Traditionally, this has been thought of as the exclusive territory of NSs of the language as reflected in such beliefs as the \u2018native speaker\u2019 fallacy (see Phillipson, 1992), which holds that NSs are the ideal instructors of English (or by extension any language).\u00a0 The prevalence of this belief permits NSs to have assumed authority from an aspect of their identity, which they are easily able to index.\u00a0 For example, Tsui and Bunton (2000) found that on a discussion board used by English language instructors in Hong Kong, NS instructors were more likely to appeal to their own intuitions about the language as evidence of their beliefs about linguistic matters due to their identities as NSs, an identity that apparently in this community carries with it authority over all aspects of the language not just within the classroom but even among other instructors.\u00a0 Students themselves do not appear to be immune from this belief.\u00a0 First, Braine (1999) in his discussion of his own teaching experience claims that threats to his authority and credibility from students as a result of his NNS status were a fairly common problem for him.\u00a0 Thomas (1999), in her own discussion of her teaching experience, reports similar attacks to her credibility and challenges to her authority and also adds that ESL students often felt disappointed at the idea of being assigned a NNST rather than a NST.\u00a0 Amin (1997) reports similar problems for herself as a NNST.\u00a0 Furthermore, Butler\u2019s (2007) work on the attitudes elementary school students held toward two different guises \u2013 one NNST and one NST \u2013 in a matched guise test, suggests that the young Korean students in her study held strong opinions about teaching quality, style, and other factors based purely on the speaker\u2019s \u2018native\u2019 or \u2018non-native\u2019 accent.\u00a0 The NST guise, the participants believed:<\/p>\n [H]ad better pronunciation, was relatively more confident in her use of English, would focus more on fluency than on accuracy, and would use less Korean in the English class. The students also expressed a preference to have the American-accented English guise as their English teacher. (Butler, 2007, p. 731)<\/p>\n Another traditional attitude about language learning is the belief in the necessity and superiority of a NS norm (see Cook, 1999; Timmis, 2002), defined here as a standard which holds that teachers, administrators, materials designers, testing agencies, and even students themselves should measure the student\u2019s performance in the second language against the language performance of a monolingual speaker of a prestigious dialect of the target language (typically the \u201cReceived Pronunciation\u201d of the United Kingdom or North America\u2019s \u201cGeneral American\u201d). The use of a NS norm places NNSTs at an obvious disadvantage as the result of their NNS status, especially in regards to issues like \u2018native-sounding accent\u2019 or decisions about whether a given usage sounds \u2018natural\u2019.\u00a0 The use of a strict NS norm may force NNSTs to forfeit any claim to authority over English, heeding instead to the authority of NSs and NS-produced sources (see e.g., Tsui & Bunton, 2000), resulting in an identity that appears incompatible with the authoritative, language expert role expected of instructors of English by many students.<\/p>\n However, research over the past several decades has unveiled several basic objections to the use of an NS norm.\u00a0 In particular, researchers have accused the NS norm of being:<\/p>\n Such findings have led researchers to argue in favor of other standards that favor the development of intelligibility on a broad scale, such as English as an international language [EIL], which seeks to train learners to be intelligible in NNS to NNS interaction (Jenkins, 2000) (researchers in this area have since the publication of Jenkins (2000) settled on the preferred term \u201cEnglish as a lingua franca\u201d [ELF], see Jenkins, 2007).<\/p>\n Despite excellent reasons for moving away from the NS norm in favor of another alternative, such as EIL\/ELF, current sentiment and practice does not seem to be in favor of the move.\u00a0 In fact, NNSTs appear just as resistant to the change, if not more so, than NSTs (Llurda, 2004; Jenkins, 2005, 2007), despite the advantage such a standard provides, by giving NNSTs the opportunity to serve as authentic and excellent models as opposed to imperfect replications of a NS.\u00a0 In other words, replacing the NS norm with a standard based upon EIL\/EFL allows NNSTs the opportunity to identify as speakers of EIL\/EFL, for which they are excellently suited to serve as authorities of.\u00a0 The discrimination that NNSTs themselves have faced as a result of their status, particularly in hiring practices, and a desire to protect their students from this discrimination may be partially motivating the resistance to such a change. \u00a0For example, Quirk (1990) argues that whether it is fair or not, the norms of NS English are held to be prestigious throughout the world and, therefore, to offer students anything \u2018less\u2019 is to prepare them for a world that does not exist and to set them up for failure.<\/p>\n It appears then that NNSTs are faced with a dilemma created by their identities as NNSs of English being incompatible with the traditional notion of authority over the language, which is assumed to be the exclusive purview of NSs.\u00a0 This belief appears to be so strong that many students may assume that simply by the very nature of his or her position that the NNST is actually a NS.\u00a0 Inbar-Lourie\u2019s (2005) work reveals that NNSTs\u2019 status is often unclear or ambiguous to their students.\u00a0 The participants\u2019 misidentification of NNSTs as NSs may have resulted from an extension of the student\u2019s belief that the ultimate authority of the language is the NS.\u00a0 Thus, by simple extension, the institution would be unlikely to hire a non-authority, or NNS, to fill such a position.\u00a0 Such a situation might not be ideal but might however offer certain advantages such as an avoidance of the challenges to their authority reported by some NNSTs (e.g., Amin, 1997; Braine, 1999; Thomas, 1999).\u00a0 This is not to say, however, that learners are equally as likely to misidentify any NNST as NS.\u00a0 Rather, according to Amin (1997) the notion of \u2018nativeness\u2019 is conflated with \u2018whiteness\u2019 for many learners, and, therefore, we may actually observe the opposite effect: NSTs of non-white ethnicity being mistaken for NNSs.<\/p>\n However, assuming the option of leaving his or her identity ambiguous to the students is even available to the particular NNST, the construction of an ambiguous or false identity as NS is by no means a perfect solution.\u00a0 First of all, it assumes that the attitudes constructing the NNST as inferior are held only by the students.\u00a0 In fact, however, traditional attitudes conflating authority of language with NSs appear also to result in NNSTs themselves questioning their own authority.\u00a0 For example, Rajagopalan (2005) describes the NNST participants in her study as displaying an \u201cinferiority complex\u201d derived from beliefs about the superiority of NSs as users and teachers of English.<\/p>\n Second, such a solution would prevent NNSTs from utilizing what Tang (1997) argues are the NNST\u2019s advantages over the NS as instructor of English.\u00a0 These advantages include his\/her shared status of NNS with his\/her students and a greater ability to empathize or predict problems in learning as a result of this shared status.\u00a0 Jenkins (2000) presents a similar view arguing that in general NNSTs are more qualified to deal with their students\u2019 language development, having been learners themselves once.<\/p>\n Some researchers have attempted to describe alternative identities available to NNSTs that offer them the means of juggling their NNST identity with their need to speak as authority.\u00a0 At least two studies have explored pre-service and in-service NNSTs who developed alternative identities such as one based upon Cook\u2019s (1995a, 1995b, 1999) notion of multi-competence that holds the NNST to be a legitimate L2 user of English as opposed to a mere failed attempt at copying a NS.\u00a0 Pavlenko (2003) collected professional narratives from students in a Master\u2019s of TESOL program.\u00a0 She found that theories such as Cook\u2019s multi-competence allowed her NNST participants \u201cto construe themselves and their future students as legitimate L2 users rather than as failed native speakers of the target language\u201d (p. 251).\u00a0 Golombek and Jordan (2005) similarly worked with students in a Master\u2019s of TESOL program who had also been exposed to Cook\u2019s theories.\u00a0 By the end of the course the researchers report that the participants had developed \u201cother means, besides native-like pronunciation, to establish their legitimacy\u201d (p. 513).<\/p>\n As a result, while it appears that the NS fallacy continues to exist and the NS norm prevails as the overwhelming choice of standards for English language learning (see Timmis, 2002) so to do alternative discourses that construct NNSTs as legitimate, authoritative users and instructors of English.\u00a0 The present study seeks to further our knowledge of such alternative discourses by examining the \u201cjuggling act\u201d of one NNST, who successfully constructs an identity as NNS while still speaking with authority in his classroom about his second language, English.<\/p>\n A successful NNST must it appears juggle the need to speak as authority on English with his or her identity as NNS in order simply to be able to perform his or her job. \u00a0In light of the past research reported on above and the objective of this study to contribute to the presentation of alternative discourses available to NNSTs seeking to establish classroom authority, the present case study was undertaken to explore the way in which one successful NNST manages the juggling act.\u00a0 The participant in this study, Professor S, was selected as a good fit for the intended research due to several factors that allow him to elucidate some of the issues explored here.\u00a0 First, as an ethnic German, his physical appearance is clearly compatible with stereotypical notions of \u2018normal\u2019 race and ethnicity in the Midwestern United States (the location of the study).\u00a0 In other words, his ethnicity would be generally perceived by his students as compatible with a \u2018native\u2019 identity.\u00a0 His style of dress, which mirrors the preferred dressing practices of other male instructors at the university, would also not index any \u2018non-native\u2019 racial, ethnic, or national identity.\u00a0 Finally, at the time of data collection there were no German-speaking students enrolled in the intensive English program who might have identified his name, manner of dress, or accent as distinctly German.\u00a0 These factors were especially important for dealing with the first research question (described below), which deals with whether or not Professor S openly identifies as NNS to his students.\u00a0 Other NNSTs may be unable to obfuscate the issue of their own statuses due to the presence of some physical characteristic that indexes them as NNSs (see e.g., Amin, 2001).<\/p>\n The primary research questions addressed by this study are:<\/p>\n In order to study these questions, a case study was performed, in which meetings of a course taught by Professor S were recorded.\u00a0 The course was a high intermediate to low advanced (level 5 of 6 levels) grammar course taught in a university intensive English program.\u00a0 Two two-hour class meetings were recorded: the second and third meetings of the particular session.\u00a0 The session\u2019s first meeting was not chosen, because it involved mainly administrative procedures such as reviewing the syllabus.\u00a0 In the second meeting, the researcher, a male NST and colleague of Professor S\u2019s, remained in the room to observe while he was teaching.\u00a0 In the third meeting, the researcher set up the camera, but left the room while Professor S was teaching.\u00a0 The presence of the researcher was thought to have the potential to affect Professor S\u2019s identity work as he constructed himself as authority over the language especially given the researcher\u2019s status as NS.\u00a0 No evidence of this emerged from the data, and thus the issue of the researcher\u2019s presence is not commented on further in this study.<\/p>\n Data was transcribed and analyzed through the constant comparative method (see Glaser, 1965).\u00a0\u00a0 This was accomplished through the use of several pre-conceived categories as well as several post hoc categories:<\/p>\n Preconceived Categories<\/span><\/p>\n Post Hoc Categories<\/span><\/p>\n The first grouping of categories under preconceived categories resulted from a need to answer research questions 1 and 2 regarding whether or not Professor S identifies as NNS in his classroom, whether he constructs some other identity, or whether he remains silent on the topic.\u00a0 Examining Professor S\u2019s students\u2019 statuses would allow for the analysis, in the case of silence on Professor S\u2019s identity, to determine whether he makes use of the NS vs. NNS dichotomy.\u00a0 The second grouping, explicit discussion of other authorities, arose from the work Tsui and Bunton (2000) who focused on how NNSTs and NSTs utilized other authorities to support their points.\u00a0 This grouping of categories was developed to serve as a possible strategy that Professor S might develop his authority (although as I discuss below, he actually utilizes them in an unexpected manner).\u00a0 The final grouping in the preconceived categories was considered relevant as Cook\u2019s notion of multicompetence had been previously shown to offer a means of establishing an alternative identity not based on the NS vs. NNS dichotomy for NNSTs (see Pavlenko, 2003; Golombek & Jordan, 2005).\u00a0 Finally, the post hoc categories emerged from the data as additional strategies that Professor S appeared to utilize as methods of developing his authority (a notion that was further supported by the later interview).<\/p>\n Utterances attributed to Professor S himself were the primary focus.\u00a0 Utterances issued by students were generally attributed to one generic category of \u201cstudent,\u201d because (a) the nature of the recording (from the back of the classroom) does not allow for easy identification of each student participant and (b) the students are not the focus of the present research.\u00a0 One exception is Student A, who plays a major role in the development of the discourse.<\/p>\n Additionally, as a means of triangulation, following the collection of the data and its initial analysis, the participant was interviewed in a semi-structured manner in order to elicit further information about his teaching practice and potentially confirm findings from the study.\u00a0 The interview was conducted and recorded by the researcher approximately one month after the collection of data.\u00a0 The data from the interview was subjected to the same analysis.\u00a0 For a list of exact questions that were used in the interview see Appendix A.<\/p>\n As previously mentioned, the cases of Braine (1999) and Thomas (1999) highlight the potential for NNSTs to experience challenges to their authority from their students. Furthermore, Butler\u2019s (2007) study suggests the existence of unfavorable judgments made toward NNSTs from students. It is also important to reconsider Inbar-Lourie\u2019s (2005) work here, which demonstrated a great amount of confusion and ambiguity for students regarding their NNSTs\u2019 status.\u00a0 In the subsequent interview, Professor S indicated that this type of ambiguity could also exist among his students regarding his own NNS status:<\/p>\n Interview Excerpt 1<\/em><\/p>\n However, Interview Excerpt 1 demonstrates that Professor S does not seem to feel that this ambiguity exists, because he states that he does point out to the students that he is German.\u00a0 Given the research findings though, it would not be at all surprising to find Professor S in the data, unwilling or hesitant to identify as NNS.<\/p>\n Data from the study reveals, however, that Professor S does, in fact, openly identify as NNS in the following sequence, in which a student (Student A) asks Professor S, how he personally overcame the difficulties associated with using the English tense and aspect system:<\/p>\n Excerpt 1<\/em><\/p>\n [Day 2 \u2013 54:00 into the class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In his second turn above Professor S, clearly states that he is not a NS (line 7), openly declaring his NNS status to the class.\u00a0 He is able to do so by the rather tactfully constructed question from Student A (line 1) who asks about how he overcame the difficulty, which simultaneously points to Professor S\u2019s NNS-ness but also acknowledges him as having overcome the learner stage to advance onto authority of the language.\u00a0 The frame of the question allows Professor S to speak as both authority of the language and NNS, allowing him to utilize both his authority as legitimate English speaker as well as his advantage of shared status between the students and himself.\u00a0\u00a0 Significantly, also, Professor S reveals a tendency toward a NS norm in this statement, when he claims that he is trying to be pretty good at English or very close to native speaker <\/em>(line 8).\u00a0 His use of the NS norm was both confirmed and elaborated on in the subsequent interview:<\/p>\n Interview excerpt 2<\/em><\/p>\n He states here that he does not necessarily reject the norm and sees it as an ideal (lines 2-4) an ideal that he holds himself and his language production to as was revealed in Excerpt 1.\u00a0 However, he does not seem to see it as necessary in every classroom evaluation instance (lines 5-6).<\/p>\n However, it appears that it would be misleading and simplistic to suggest that his open identification as NNS is the entire picture.\u00a0 The above exchange (Excerpt 1) actually occurs relatively late in the data, about half-way through the second of the two class meetings, when the researcher is absent from the room.\u00a0 Professor S\u2019s NNS identity up until this point is actually characterized mainly by silence, which is demonstrated by his lack of participation in his own self-initiated instances of cultural and linguistic sharing among the students:<\/p>\n Excerpt 2<\/em><\/p>\n [Day 2 \u2013 35:00 into class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here, Professor S initiates an atmosphere of exchanging information about different languages (line 4), which is a fairly frequent occurrence in the data.\u00a0 He discusses Chinese (lines 4-5) and asks students about their languages (lines 5-7), but chooses not to discuss his own language, German, resulting in a noticeable silence on his part.\u00a0 Slightly further in the data the following similar exchange occurs, in which he is once again silent about his own \u2018native\u2019 language:<\/p>\n Excerpt 3<\/em><\/p>\n [Day 2 \u2013 42:00 into class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once again, Professor S initiates discussion of various cultures and languages (lines 5 and 11-12), but chooses not to add his own, instead choosing once again to discuss Chinese (lines 3-4).<\/p>\n Prior to this, Professor S already encountered one direct reference to his NNS status from the same student, Student A, who asked the question about overcoming difficulties in Excerpt 1 \u2013 a student, who Professor S taught in another course during a previous session and is obviously aware of his NNS status.\u00a0 In the following excerpt, the class has been broken into groups, and they are working on developing lists of grammar structures they feel are difficult to master.\u00a0 Professor S is moving from group to group.\u00a0 The following quiet exchange occurs, when he sits down with the group, in which Student A is working:<\/p>\n Excerpt 4<\/em><\/p>\n [Day 1 \u2013 18:00 into class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here Student A makes reference to Professor S\u2019s native language (line 1) forcing him to make reference to his own NNS status (line 2).\u00a0 However, in this exchange, which occurred significantly before Excerpt 1, Professor S is speaking to a small group of students in a very quiet tone.\u00a0 He, also, appears slightly uncomfortable with the subject as he abruptly changes the subject to his knowledge of Chinese (line 3-4), which is a recurrent strategy in the data.\u00a0 Furthermore, an interesting slip occurs (lines 2-3), in which Professor S corrects his tense usage changing from \u201cit is <\/em>easy\u201d to \u201cit was<\/em> easy [emphasis added],\u201d indicating in other words that he believes that he has mastered the English verb system, and is thereby granted authority to speak on it.<\/p>\n In addition, other general statements made by Professor S indicate silence or what might even be intentional ambiguity, such as:<\/p>\n Excerpt 5<\/em><\/p>\n [Day 1 \u2013 25:00 into class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here Professor S states that he makes mistakes in grammar (line 4), yet does not relate this back to his NNS status, perhaps instead choosing to leave the statement ambiguous, because presumably even a NS could at times be guilty of such things as seems to be indicated by the addition of we all do<\/em> (line 4).<\/p>\n However, Excerpt 1 does seem to mark some type of significant turning point, because at this point in the data, Professor S appears comfortable enough in his NNS status to discuss at length his own difficulties as a NNS:<\/p>\n Excerpt 6:<\/em><\/p>\n [continuation from Excerpt 1]<\/p>\n [Day 2 \u2013 55:00 into class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here he portrays himself as comfortable making infrequent, minor mistakes<\/em>, but is always conscious of them (lines 1-7).\u00a0 Significantly, this and Excerpt 1 represent the first moment, in which he openly before the whole class allows his NNS status to be the subject of discussion.\u00a0 Interestingly, following this moment, the silence that characterized the previous cultural and linguistic sharing opportunities is broken with this exchange, in which the class discusses full titles of countries that require the use of articles:<\/p>\n Excerpt 7<\/em><\/p>\n [Day 2 \u2013 76:00 into class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here it appears that Professor S\u2019s silence about his own NNS status has been broken by the previous exchange in Excerpts 1 and 6, and he willingly adds a comment regarding his own NNS status and country of origin (lines 14-16) into the exchange.<\/p>\n During the interview, Professor S was asked about his silence regarding his own NNS status.\u00a0 He offered several possible explanations.<\/p>\n Interview Excerpt 3<\/em><\/p>\n Interview Excerpt 4<\/em><\/p>\n Interview Excerpt 5<\/em><\/p>\n Lack of time (Interview Excerpt 4, line 2) and the possible redundancy of the information (Interview Excerpt 4, lines 2-3) were practical considerations that Professor S appears to take into consideration when deciding whether to mention his own culture.\u00a0 In addition, it appears that he feels that his own identity and culture are not altogether relevant to the task at hand (Interview Excerpt 3, lines 1-3), which is chiefly concerned with the target culture (in this case the United States).\u00a0 Finally, in Excerpt 5, Professor S mentions the idea of being an ambassador of German<\/em>, but rejects the notion preferring instead to identify as teacher of English<\/em> (Interview Excerpt 5, line 3) isolating his national identity and NNS status as somewhat irrelevant to his teaching role.<\/p>\n The data seems to support the idea that Professor S does not openly attempt to deceive the students regarding his NNS status.\u00a0 However, it is clear from both the silences in the data excerpts above as well as Professor S\u2019s own explicit responses that he does at times make conscious decisions not to bring up the topic at moments when it could be appropriate for him to do so.\u00a0 These decisions are made for various reasons including practical reasons such as remaining class time (Interview Excerpt 4, line 2).\u00a0 However, more relevant to the current study, are the non-practical reasons such as the fact that he identifies as teacher of English<\/em> not as ambassador of German<\/em> and also the possibility that he is hesitant to discuss it as a result of the stigma and negative beliefs surrounding NNSs and NNSTs.\u00a0 The result is that rather than openly and voluntarily identifying as NNS, he appears at the beginning of the data more comfortable remaining silent about the topic and maintaining a focus on the students\u2019 statuses as well as on the target culture.\u00a0 However, once his status has been specifically brought up by a student he begins to appear more comfortable in his ability to maintain his authority in spite of it.\u00a0 As a result he appears to lose some of his hesitation to identify as NNS and begins to contribute to the atmosphere of cultural sharing, as can be seen in Excerpt 7 above, when he adds information about his own country (Excerpt 7, lines 14-16) despite the fact that two examples have already been provided by students (Excerpt 7, lines 2 and 5).\u00a0 It appears at this moment that he has begun to fully capitalize on the advantages his shared NNS status affords him.<\/p>\n Positioning vis-\u00e0-vis other authorities<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n One way to show that one considers oneself to be an authority would be to position oneself as equal to or above other authoritative sources and individuals.\u00a0 Tsui and Bunton (2000) studied the way that English teachers in Hong Kong positioned themselves or did not position themselves as authorities of English, as well as what they tended to rely upon as authorities of the language.\u00a0 They found that while NSTs somewhat frequently relied upon their own expertise and authority as well as that of other NSs, NNSTs were much less likely to use their own authority as speakers of the language.\u00a0 Rather, they chose instead to refer to various reference works and printed media as their authorities.\u00a0 In this study\u2019s data, the way that Professor S positions himself in relation to other potential authorities provides one of the main strategies he utilizes for the construction of his identity as authority on the English language.\u00a0 Throughout the data, he gives himself equal or superior status to a variety of different authorities, such as dictionaries and reference books:<\/p>\n Excerpt 8<\/em><\/p>\n [Professor S is attempting to get the students to tell him what the word \u201cprompt\u201d means after having given the students a prompt]<\/p>\n [Day 2 \u2013 8:00 into class]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here, Professor S insists that the students not rely on dictionaries during class (lines 1-2) and instead utilize him as a resource (line 3), effectively positioning himself as just as effective if not better at providing linguistic information in this particular situation.<\/p>\n His positioning of himself in relationship with the textbook is also quite telling.\u00a0 In the following excerpt from the data, the class is going over a grammar exercise from the textbook:<\/p>\n Excerpt 9<\/em><\/p>\n\n
The Study: Analyzing the Juggling Act<\/h2>\n
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Research Questions 1 and 2: The Teacher\u2019s Identity<\/h3>\n
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Research Question 3: Strategies for Establishing Authority and Legitimacy<\/h3>\n
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