Non-native English speaker teachers' English proficiency, teaching methodology, and students' performance

Abstract

This quasi-experimental study investigated 2 teacher-related factors affecting student performance on an English proficiency test over a 10-week period: non-native English speaker teachers’ English proficiency and teaching methodology. The Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency was administered to 10 second-year high school English teachers in 2 private and 5 public high schools in Cavite province, Philippines, to determine their English proficiency levels. Concurrently, a teaching methodology survey was also completed by the participating teachers. Eighty-nine students took an English proficiency pretest and posttest. The result showed that students improved on their posttest significantly but this improvement was not necessarily influenced by their teachers’ English proficiency levels. This could mean that student improvement may have been caused by other teacher factors such as teaching qualifications and teaching experience. A student factor that could have influenced the result is English immersion. Overall, the study pointed out to the effectiveness of non-NESTs in teaching the English language. This study showed that all participating teachers reported that they use communication-oriented strategies which restricted further analyses whether teachers’ teaching methodology influenced students’ pretest and posttest scores. More experimental studies are recommended to validate the findings of this study. Studies are also needed to identify other teacher-related factors affecting student performance on English proficiency tests.