SONDANNESTs

Below is an interesting and promising extract (in French) from a decision made in 2007 by the former HALDE French authority (known as the Défenseur des Droits since 2011). This decision, made after a woman of Malagasy origin had seen her application as a French language instructor rejected by a private language school explicitely because she wasn’t a native speaker of French, states, inter alia, that the « mother tongue » criterion relates to the country of origin and that this constitutes a prohibited discriminatory practice. It also states that such terms as "mother tongue" shouldn't be seen anymore in job ads and should be replaced by unambiguous requirements about the language proficiency. Avant sa fusion en 2011 dans le Défenseur des Droits, la Haute autorité de lutte contre les discriminations et pour l'égalité (HALDE) était l'institution compétente en France en matière de défense de la non-discrimination. Voici un extrait intéressant et prometteur de ce

H ello ! I have issued (with the precious help of my partner Manwei) a survey questionnaire to gather more information on this subject. This document will be sent out by email to my personal and professional networks and published on my LinkedIn and Facebook pages. The results will be analysed when I get a reply from the Défenseur des Droits and I will publish them here and on my social networks’ pages. On top of making this subject more visible, I want to get a better understanding of people’s views on this and the underlying reasons. This survey could potentially help me and other NNESTs in the future. The more participants, the better ! So I’ll do my best to promote it well and I will be grateful to everyone who helps !   Key acronyms referred to in the survey: NESTs : Native English Speaking Teachers NNESTs : Non-Native English Speaking Teachers NESs : Native English Speakers NNESs : Non-Native English Speakers Target population : teachers of English at large