Chapter 10: Non-Native Teachers and English Language Teaching: Critical Social Choices in the Mexican Context

In Mexico, as with many other countries, teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) largely reflects pedagogical trends and instruction patterns of the United States and the United Kingdom—or what Kachru (1992, 1995) deemed the Inner Circle. Consequently, there is little or no development of local pedagogical approaches which respond to particular and specific needs (Widin, 2010). Not only is scant attention given to identifying and satisfying the social, economic and political objectives of Mexican students in learning a foreign language but teacher training methodology is far more concerned with adopting and replicating methods and techniques emanating from commercial British, Australasian and North American (BANA) private language schools (Holliday, 1994, 2005) or what Widin identifies as “NABA (North American, British and Australian) language teaching methodologies” (2010, p. 20). Few Mexican EFL teacher trainers analyse whether these methodologies and practices are appropriate for the Mexican context. In this chapter I specifically focus on how teacher trainees view their role in the EFL classroom.