ABSTRACT This study explored the ambivalence of final‐year TESOL pre‐service teachers towards a non‐native‐speaking (NNS) lecturer within a historically white South African university. The research involved twelve student teachers being prepared to teach English as either a home language or a first additional language to high school learners in the Bachelor of Education programme. A significant factor was that this NNS English lecturer was the participants’ first such educator in their entire schooling history in English. I collected data using a focus group discussion, which was analysed thematically. The findings reveal a core tension in participant perceptions. Many openly valued the lecturer's empathy, metalinguistic knowledge and firsthand grasp of the local multilingual and superdiverse context. These views coexisted alongside deep‐seated native‐speakerist and racialised prejudices. For some, the lecturer's race and NNS status intersected uniquely, provoking unconscious challenges to their authority and expertise, presenting a stark contrast to the automatic acceptance granted white native‐speaking models. This conflict highlights how native‐speakerism functions not just as a linguistic bias but is also deeply infused with racial and social assumptions. The study argues that preparing teachers for diverse classrooms necessitates programmes that directly confront these intersecting ideologies, progressing beyond inclusion to actively dismantle the privileged native‐speaker ideal and its racial foundations.
Nhlanhla Mpofu (Fri,) studied this question.