In order to set the scene for this volume, I begin the chapter with a narrative of my experience on the day when I got promoted to a professor at a Japanese university by combining my professional experience to the ideologies of native-speakerism and trans-speakerism. I also include the overall background of the study through providing the aims of the research, explicating the significance of the current inquiry, and outlining the core ideas of this book: native-speakerism and trans-speakerism. In other words, this chapter delineates how these two influential ideologies in language education come together in this book and makes a case for why the present inquiry is a fertile endeavor to make. The chapter concludes with a brief description of the structure and content of the volume.

The current chapter delves into the experiences of NNES university professors in Japan, scrutinizing noteworthy events and incidents that they came across while working in their particular settings. The chapter opens, much like Chapters 4 and 5, by offering narratives from four university professor participants. As with the previous narratives, these ones also represent the initial phase of data analysis as well as a portion of the research results. These narratives were then subjected to constructing grounded theory approaches, which led to the discovery of several notable and oft-repeated codes. These were subsequently organized to construct a conceptual framework. This chapter justifies and explains the multifaceted, yet interconnected, principal categories and their incumbent subcategories of university professor participants’ experiences involving native-speakerism and trans-speakerism: they are linguistic, cultural, and professional native-speakerism, in addition to Global Englishes, intercultural competence, and professionalism (including contextual knowledge) in relation to trans-speakerism. Pertinent excerpts and anecdotes from the interview data are used to establish and expound upon the categorizations. Finally, the chapter concludes with the conceptual framework of the university professors’ experiences and several recommendations for practice involving native-speakerism and trans-speakerism.

This chapter describes the origin, development, and subsequent conceptualization of native-speakerism, as well as profiling relevant research on it. Importantly, it also offers my own understanding and interpretation about the notion. To do this, the chapter presents a selection of previous discussions and empirical research into native-speakerism and documents some of the most deleterious effects that native-speakerism has had on the lives and identities of both NESTs and NNESTs worldwide – specifically the effects on NNES teachers and researchers in Japan, who are the focal points of this book. I commence this chapter with a theoretical overview of the ways in which native-speakerism came to be recognized and defined. I then introduce my own analysis of what native-speakerism entails at this moment in time within the ELT field. Afterward, I provide an overview of germane conceptual and empirical studies on native-speakerism while offering my own critiques of them as I do so. With the key points and positionings of the discussion established, I conclude this chapter by positing my case for the originality and significance of this endeavor and by presenting the focal research questions which the research within this volume attempts to answer.

I commence this chapter by introducing the narratives of four graduate school student participants who partook in this endeavor. The participants’ narratives are a representation of the interview data that were relayed to me. They function as the initial phase of data analysis as well as serve as part of the findings because they are presented largely intact as concise stories which are both the basis for analysis and the vehicles for portraying the interview data pithily. The analysis involved subjecting these narratives to constructing grounded theory methods in which I sorted, synthesized, integrated, and formulated a number of prominent and recurrent codes in order to determine several categories and eventually a conceptual framework (theory). I introduce in this chapter primary categories concerning linguistic, cultural, and academic native-speakerism, in addition to Global Englishes, intercultural competence, and professionalism (including work ethics) related to trans-speakerism. I explore and illustrate these by referring to germane excerpts and anecdotes from the interview data to support and expound on the categorizations. This chapter ends with a conceptual framework (theory) and recommendations for practice.

In this chapter, I introduce the narratives and primary categories of the secondary school teachers within this inquiry. They include linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical native-speakerism, in addition to Global Englishes, intercultural competence, and professionalism (including second language learning experiences) related to trans-speakerism. I explore and extrapolate these by selecting germane excerpts and anecdotes from the interview data to support and elucidate these categorizations. I do so while being fully cognizant of, first, the conditions under which they occurred (i.e., excerpts of particular experiences of particular participants in their particular contexts) and, second, the circumstances in which they were presented to me during the interviews (i.e., stories constructed in particular ways at a particular moment of their professional lives with me as their particular interlocutor). The narratives presented in this chapter were drawn from four secondary school teachers in Japan.

This final chapter, divided into three major parts, draws together the findings and discussion presented in previous chapters and provides recommendations and implications for stakeholders and researchers. The first part outlines summaries of findings and relevant literature followed by a conceptual framework, which exhibits diagrammatically the findings of this study and their interrelationships. The second part regards recommendations for further research and the limitations of my study. A narrative of my reflection on the journey of the study and the writing of this book concludes the volume.

This chapter overviews broad issues related to language acquisition research and answers fundamental questions related to first language acquisition, such as What is language? and How do children learn their first language? It begins by introducing some components of language, such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, pragmatics, and discourse. It also discusses language varieties (e.g., American English vs. Indian English) and explains their legitimacy. Then, the chapter addresses language learning during the first years of a child’s life. It also discusses bilingualism, especially of those who start learning multiple languages in their early years (simultaneous bilingualism). In order to understand second language acquisition for the rest of the textbook, the chapter focuses on a question: How are children able to learn a language without formal instruction? In order to answer this question, multiple language acquisition theories will be discussed.

This introductory chapter draws on two major perspectives on globalization, glocalization, and grobalization, to make sense of the global challenges faced by English language teaching (ELT) and English language teacher education (ELTE) professions and local responses in ten countries/jurisdictions in the Asian region discussed in this volume. It highlights the common critical issues which have emerged from these responses and discusses their implications for ELT and ELTE. In the concluding reflections, it identifies three issues that are central and particularly challenging to the work of English language teachers and teacher educators.