Ovando believes that the best way for an ELL to learn English is through using English native speakers to model what American English sounds like. From listening to native speakers, and interacting with native speakers of English, ELL get comprehensible input of what fluent English sounds like which enables ELL to learn native speaker English.
Ovando says, "Spoken language has variations in nonverbal aspects of language as well as intonation, emotional overtones, redundancy, corrections, pauses, hesitations, filters, false starts, colloquialisms, and register. Spoken language can produce grammatical sentences without subjects, verbs, ..and can drop grammatical markers not essential to meaning. Spoken conversations are interactive...therefore, the best way to teach spoken language is use live language spoken by native speakers..." (153)
Now many linguists in my old UCLA department who are not native speakers of English do not agree with Ovando's assessment that only native speakers of a target language can teach that target language. Yet, when getting hired to teach language, there is bias on the part of language schools to hire only native speakers. I, for instance, have tried to get many jobs teaching French to adults, but when teaching French to adults, language schools want native speakers. There is even a new trend to teach toddlers foreign languages like French, Chinese, Spanish and those language schools prefer native speakers as well. If you are a non-native speaker, you are not the preferred choice of most schools except maybe in the public schools, you have a chance of getting hired.
Native speakers are much better at teaching conversation because NS received more comprehensible input as children in the target language and understand the target language in many different ways such as using humor or slang, which is difficult for ELL learning L2. Due to socialization in the target language, native speakers are king at teaching the target language. However, native speakers may not be as aware of grammar or how certain grammar structures are used like NNS (non-native speakers). Native speakers have more confidence in the target language and also speak more spontaneously in the target language giving language learners valuable comprehensible input on how the target language looks when it is spoken in an authentic conversational fluent setting.
Ovando does recommend learning from a variety of native speakers by listening to radio, watching TV, or interacting with native speakers. I remember I learned French best when I was immersed in the target language in France. The most natural and fun way to learn the target language for me was hanging out with other French students at parties or in the student cafeteria. The more I hung out with French native speakers the faster I learned French. I not only learned more French vocabulary, but I learned more French slang and I learned body language off of the native speakers. The way a French person says, "I don't know" by making a grimacing face is different from the American way of just shrugging one's shoulders if you don't know something. Valuable body language is also gained when interacting with NS.
NNS speakers however are much better at teaching grammar and knowing grammar exceptions so if the ELL have obscure grammar questions then the NNS is the better teacher. For instance, Chinese and Japanese ELL learners have trouble with the usage of 'a, an' or 'the' in the English language so a NNS is better equipped to explain to the Chinese or Japanese ELL because the NNS also had to learn how to speak English and how to overcome ESL grammar mistakes that NS may not be aware of since a NS takes the target language for granted. Therefore, for beginning language learners, it is better for the NNS to teach the target language so the ELL can better learn the grammatical aspects of the language. Then as the language learner becomes more advanced, then he can move up to the NS to learn conversation.
In the EFL setting, NNS may get along better with the language learners because they share the same culture. The NNS know what language difficulties that the language learner have to overcome because she had to overcome it too such as knowing which sounds exist or do not exist in the target language and the NNS can teach the language learner exactly how to pronounce that sound that exists only in the target language but not in the L1. The NNS can relate better because they too are still learning the language, they are just at a more advanced level than the beginning language learner. In conclusion, I think NS are better for more advanced students while NNS are better for the lower intermediate and beginning language learners.
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