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

 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 
106 
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 to 
understand the language of the speaker. If one 
pronounces the words incorrectly, the other 
cannot understand. Therefore, the accurate 
pronunciation is the most essential element in 
communication. When pronunciation is correct, it 
is easy for students to follow and practice 
speaking and pronunciation because they have 
complete confidence. Therefore, the native 
English-speaking teacher should be in charge of 
guiding this skill if possible. 
For the other skills such as listening, speaking and 
reading skills, the percentage of students liked 
studying with the native teacher is higher than the 
non-native English-speaking teacher. This agrees 
with Çakir and Demir (2013) that native English-
speaking teachers were better at speaking and 
listening. These findings can be considered that 
native English-speaking teachers for these skills 
were always in the higher priority in general as 
native teachers could speak English better than 
non-native counterpart and used it as a natural 
means of communication in class (Árva & 
Medgyes, 2000; Madrid & Canado, 2004), so the 
students would prefer to study with native 
English-speaking teachers. 
The paper showed some interesting findings about 
student’s perception when choosing the teachers 
to learn English. However, the result should have 
been better if the sample size had been bigger and 
the data had collected from more sources. The 
data from this paper is only got from one 
physician class in Sai Gon Polytechnic College 
and then analyzed, discussed and came to some 
conclusions. Furthermore, no students had the 
ideas to welcome both native and non-native 
English teachers in the same class like the 
research of Clouet (2006) that native and non-
native English teacher in the same class was ideal 
for English teaching. In summary, the opinions of 
the students from this research were sometimes 
very different; however, it could present the real 
situation and ideas of students when choosing 
teachers for studying English. This result can be 
used as references in the school when inviting 
teachers for each skill or topic, and also for 
further research in the future. 
6. CONCLUSION AND 
RECOMMENDATIONS 
An Giang University Journal of Science – 2019, Vol. 6, 100 – 108 
107 
Physician students of the seventh batch in Sai Gon 
Polytechnic College 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 the learners (87,5%) wanted 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 should be continued 
doing with larger sample size and long-term study 
to find more useful results. 
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