Beware of native-speaker advertising in the Russian market of English: A case study
Rafael Filiberto Forteza Fernandez 1, Elena Andreevna Danilova2, Konstantin Vladimirovich Mokeev3,
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Bogachevsky
1
Ural Federal University 1, 2,3,4 Ural Federal University Master in Linguistics2,3,4
1
2
3
rafaelforteza@gmail.com
danilova.helena04@mail.ru
mokeevkonstantin@yandex.ru
4
bogosky80@gmail.com
Abstract. The offline to online turn in education implies a careful evaluation of foreign languages teaching services
regarding their reliability and potential to deliver the expected results; however, the lack of studies in the field impede
academia to inform the public about unethical, deceitful advertising. Based on multimodal discourse analysis, this
paper presents a case study of two texts: an interview with an ‘English-speaking teacher’ in a local news portal used
as the door to advertise the BritSpeak language teaching service in the UK. Grounded on the manifestations of native
speakerism defined in academia as the ideology claiming the innate superiority of the native speaker to teach his
language to foreigners, the results demonstrate that previous knowledge of the Russian market of English
preferences and the use of this infamous ideology are the tools employed to compel potential consumers to buy the
service. The study of BritSpeak, though hindered by lack of access to the teaching materials, revealed that, always
within this ideological framework, the interviewee-advertiser not only denigrates through indexicality the Russian
foreign language teaching community and educational system in general but also deceives potential consumers in
the quality of advertised teachers for in reality they are British or American high schools graduates whose inadequate
preparation to teach the language admits no comparison with that of their fully competent Russian counterparts.
The paper significance resides on its call to decolonize foreign language teaching by eroding the native speaker myth
and with it acknowledge the capabilities of the indigenous teaching community. The paper suggests the study of
similar practices regarding services in other European languages and the need to examine the role of local news
services in advertising foreign products.
KEYWORDS: native speaker, native speakerism, deceitful advertising, online teaching, market of English, indexicality
1. INTRODUCTION
That English is the world language of the XXI century, there is no doubt. This phenomenon has led to
conflicting perceptions of the language in academia. For some, it is defined as linguistic imperialism, a
new form of oppression (i.e., Phillipson, 1992, 2009). Others perceive the language as an instrument or
the ‘beachhead’ (Block, 2014 p.115) of neoliberal global capitalism (Kumaravadivelu, 2006), thus leading
to extreme positions such as a form of linguistic ‘neonationalism’ (i.e., Thiong’o, 1988). A balanced
position acknowledging both above, and to which the authors ascribe, conceives using the language to
resist new forms of colonization (i.e., Park & Wee, L., 2012; Pennycook, 2017).
Notwithstanding academic perspectives but subordinated to the dictates of neoliberal globalization,
the growing appeal of the English language to the public is its worldwide perception as a commodity –
something that can be bought or sold—that opens the doors to the future, a must-have in uncertain times,
and a magic solution for better jobs and mobility (Tan & Rubdy, 2008). As a result, the ensuing demand of
English language related services such as teaching, testing, Apps, and editing, among others are on the
rise and as such advertised ‘in the age of digital and technology-mediated communication [by] …
deliver[ing] the right message, to the right individual, at the right moment, on the right platform, via the
right device, in the right context, [and] at the right scale’ (Chamberlain, 2020; see Turow, 2011). The
accomplishment of the above goal relies on advanced digital data processing to accurately predict
potential targets based on their present and personal history. However, despite the ever-mounting
evidence and concerns on the ethics of advertising (Zinkhan, 1994; Drumwright & Murphy, 2009;
Schauster & Neill, 2017; Schauster & Plaisance, 2021), there is a dearth of research in the reliability of
language teaching services in reference to their real quality and ethical standards, though preoccupation
for the consumer protection in the field exists regarding the mostly economic nature of online education.
The quality standards of an English language service are usually linked to the teachers, type of
teaching materials, and expected results advertised; however, when choice is based on the target
audience’s beliefs in the superiority of the native speaker (NS) teacher brand, consumers are likely to find
themselves in the same situation as when they buy a product not meeting the expected performance. The
NS brand in teaching English, an ideological construct called native speakerism, has a long history, thus
imprinting the absurd idea that anyone just for the chance of having been born in a specific place is the
best individual from whom to learn this language, regardless of the education level, professional
qualifications, experience, and expertise needed, which, as true indicators of quality, are rarely taken into
consideration
This paper is aimed at counteracting the racially pernicious ideology of native speakerism in the
Russian educational context, and thus contribute to the epistemological decolonization of English
language teaching (ELT). To achieve this objective, the paper presents a study that combines an
Ekaterinburg News article covertly loaded with this infamous ideology that sets the stage for the
advertising of BritSpeak, an online language teaching service in the UK, where this ideological construct is
used in a more overtly ideological, discriminatory, and deceitful nature to sell this service.
2. MATERIAL AND METHODS
Multidisciplinary in nature, the study combined the use of online tools to briefly explore the role of
phrase repetition in the text and sentiment analysis to determine the core message and the emotional
tone and attitudes of a Deep Translator English version of the original piece of news in Russian ‘Uchit`
yazyk nuzhno u nositelya, a ne prosto u inostrancza’: interv`yu s britanskim prepodavatelem [You need to
learn a language from a native speaker, not just a foreigner: an interview with a British teacher] featured
on October 1st, 2021 on Novosti Ekaterinburga [Ekaterinburg News] and the online teaching service
Britspeak advertised in the news. The use of multimodal critical discourse analysis (Cook, 2001; Van Dijk,
2003; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996; Van Leeuwen, 2008; Kress, 2010; Cope, Kalantzis, & Magee, 2011; Cope
& Kalantzis, 2020) allowed to synthesise the deep meanings native speakerism communicates through
pictures, colours, and text in trying to persuade the article target audience to go to the online service and
once there, buy it.
3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
3.1 The origins of native speakerism
Considered by many applied linguists an objective category, the NS notion can be traced back, first,
to the standardization and codification of Latin during the Roman empire and subsequent claims of power
on the part of the rulers and, second, as to the principle of correctness attached to classical texts (Lowe,
2020). The first academic use of the term in English is found in linguistic structuralism (i.e., Bloomfield,
1933-1984) and retaken in generative linguistics (Chomsky, 1965) in the form of an idealized individual
living in a homogeneous speech-community who can speak/listen to a language perfectly and to whom
irrelevant factors such as noise or memory have no effects in his grammar, thus his usefulness for the
production of formal models of competence to adequately explain mental grammar during performance
(Alexiadou & Lohndal, 2016).
When this ‘simplistic’ (Lowe, 2020) native speaker concept becomes a ‘flesh and bone’
(Paikeday, 2003, p.16) human being in ELT, the conditions to cross the boundaries of Linguistics are
created, and thus the conception of the NS as the ideal teacher of English is born. This move allows to
project an innate superiority of native speaker teachers in terms of language command and cultural
insights which the non-native speaker (NNS) teacher lacks. This social construct is called nativespeakerism in ELT and may be traced back to the western colonial educational practices of divide and rule
through the process of submission by acculturation (see Pennycook, 1998; O’Regan, 2021). This ideology,
understood as a system of beliefs (Eagleton, 1994-2013), privileges any NS over the non-native speaker
(NNS) teacher and is the basis upon which rests the ELT edu-business of ‘native speakerism’ (Holliday,
2005).
Native speakerism is part of the colonial sedimentations within the educational thought of
neoliberal globalization. Research output contesting the NS hegemony over the NNS, and thus native
speakerism (i.e., Holliday, 2005; Widin, 2010, Lowe and Lawrence, 2018) identify a monolingual and
monocultural approach to ELT underscoring the normative, universal and inherently superior character of
Angle-Saxon, Eurocentric education and technology (Lowe, 2020). Other findings (i.e., Rivers & Ross 2013;
Matsuda, 2002; Morrow 2004) include a generalized perception in the superiority of the native speaker
teachers and the association of their English Western varieties, namely British and American, with the
only correct language models (Lowe, 2020) regardless of the many existing World Englishes as a result of
colonial expansion. Furthermore, Lowe (2020, (p. 17) contends that though ‘native speakerism [is] in
retreat’, like systemic racism, the overt expressions of this ideology have gone underground to manifest
themselves, for instance, in different hiring practices in ELT positions as well as the imposition of western
generated approaches to teaching and testing. Native speakerism is, thus, like any other of the perennial
colonial holds on the subaltern Other. That is, in the world of ELT, the worth of the English NS is realised
according to ‘the double fetish perceptions of the worth of the speaker [first] as a member of a community
or [predetermined] national polity and [second] as the most qualified to speak by having become
credentialed [by birth] in the normative form’ (Simpson & O’Regan, 2021, p. 13, italics added).
3.2 Native speakerism in Russia
The lure of the NS teacher as the ideal person to teach English as a foreign language is common
among providers and consumers of the Russian educational context. For example, a search in Russian
search engine Yandex with the thread “kursy anglijskogo jazyka nositeljami jazyka” [course of English with
native speakers] shows that more than thirty schools advertise courses in Ekaterinburg alone and around
a hundred in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kazan in addition to individual offers of online or in-person
lessons and clubs where to practice the language with a NS. An online survey carried by the authors in an
educational institution in 2020 showed that 93 % out of the 87 respondents answering the questionnaire
consider English as the most important language to know today for self-development, education, and
their jobs. Only 40 % regarded Chinese as important. A third of the participants said they preferred to
have a NS teacher though three-thirds do not consider themselves able to teach Russian. Similarly, an inperson survey carried out at the Ural Federal University in October 2021 revealed that, out of the 50
student-respondents, 70 % think English is today’s foreign language and 80 % support the NS ideal as the
best teacher; however, only a mere 20 % think they would be able to teach their mother tongue as a
foreign language. In other words, both services and the survey respondents are unwittingly helping the
production and reproduction of native speakerism producers, reproducers, and to a great extent, its
unsuspecting victims.
3.3 The manifestations of native speakerism
Native speakerism is connected to unfair hiring practices in ELT which often tend to favour the NS
over the NNS teacher regardless of their experience and academic background (Houghton & Rivers, 2013;
Swan, 2015; Aboshiha, 2015; Mora Pablo, 2015; Bae, 2015). In addition to perks such as sometimes paid
vacation round-trip tickets, and accommodation, Fairbrother (2020) reports that higher salaries are often
part of the pack the NS teacher receives once in the host country. However, because of its connection to
systemic racism, native speakers of, say, India, Africa, or the Caribbean are not likely to obtain at native
speakerist institutions. That is, the racist stereotyping of native speakerism associates the NS teacher with
a white skinned, fair-haired individual of middle-class background able to transmit western cultural values
(Canagarajah, 1999; Seargeant, 2009; Houghton, 2013; Rivers, 2013; Hayes, 2013; Swan, Aboshiha &
Holliday, 2015; Lowe 2020).
In addition to hiring practices, native speakerism also manifests itself in the imposition of a
worldwide standard ELT methodology because the language teaching methods of the West are ‘correct’
and ‘superior’, while those of other countries are ‘comparatively deficient’ (Lowe, 2020, p. 61). This
methodological imposition is carried out through training courses such as the very popular CELTA and
TESOL/TEFL in Russia which promote Communicative Language teaching (CLT) as the most natural and
effective language teaching methodology to use in any classroom (Anderson, 2015; McBeath, 2016), thus
encouraging the adoption of a ‘one ideologically constructed version of language education’ (Lowe, 2020,
p. 65), while segregating indigenous experiences and methodologies in the field as well as long held
pedagogical conceptions that demand the adaptation of teaching to the classroom learning ecologies (see
Kalantzis & Cope 2012 a, b).
In addition to a standardized ELT methodology, native speakerism is also patent in the Common
European Framework of References for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (CEFR) that, though
originally written for European use, was quickly adopted by nations far from the European context, for
instance, Russia, Japan, and recently Cuba. The issue with the framework is not necessarily the descriptors
it uses, but its declared aims to its use as a guiding document to facilitate curriculum design and mend
pedagogy under a Eurocentric perspective that again ignores the non-European nations’ expertise,
knowledge, and practices. Furthermore, the CEFR has become the benchmark for coursebook writing that
in the case of all colonial languages are ideologically tuned to negate the colonial past and pave the way
to the neoliberal present and future (e.g., Bori, 2018; Macedo, 2019; Authors, 2021) at the time they
enrich European publishing houses. The CEFR is also the gauge upon which language competence exams
such as the plethora of Cambridge exams and IELTS are conceived and graded. As these exams confer the
credentials of language competence for mobility (jobs, grants, and qualifications to study abroad),
candidates pay for their training, coursebooks, and examinations. The financial reports of exam
sponsoring institutions reveal income of gargantuan proportions derived from these activities (see
Cambridge University 2020 report).
In practice, the Otherizing processes of native speakerism also affect the inner self and identity of
the Other and their students as well. Certainly, the discriminated NNS Others’ (Ali 2009; Shao, 2005; Mora
Pablo, 2015) recurrence to affirmative action (Moussu & Llurda 2008; Selvi 2011) is a natural reaction at
institutional and professional level (Kubota, 2002) taking its toll in the profession, namely when nationals,
after years of preparation, feel undervalued and alienated by policies favouring the outsider who, for the
sake of having being born in a particular country and speaking the language as an mother tongue (MT),
can take their jobs regardless of their ignorance and disdain for their local culture and language. On the
other hand, students value the NNS teachers’ advantage of a shared MT that allows to understand their
learning difficulties, ease their learning experience, and communication, while the NS ones only offer their
proficiency (Lai Ping, 2012). These observations reinforce the view that ELT teachers are made, not born.
However, as Kiczkowiak (2017) vehemently argues, ‘Three quarters of jobs in the private sector are for
NS, even in the heart of the EU where it is illegal to advertise for NS, … being a native speaker is a
qualification …but I’ve never seen a degree in nativeness myself.’
Native speakerism also backlashes the English NS (teachers) in the form of Linguicism, understood
as ‘[i]deologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate, regulate and reproduce
an unequal division of power and resources (both material and immaterial) between groups which are
defined on the basis of language (on the basis of their mother tongues)’ (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1988, p. 13).
In Japan, for instance, English NS teachers are relegated to impersonal roles in ELT (Hashimoto, 2018)
comprising lower irregular positions in academic status, workplace duties, and employment duration
(Rivers, 2018). Noticeably, though a digression from the main topic, linguicism is also connected with
nationalism where national-languages speakers are valued as superiors in comparison to the rest of the
population as in Ukraine and Latvia against the native Russian-speaking population (see Fleming &
Ansaldo, 2020).
Native speakerism is also inextricably connected with academia. In the non-English speaking world,
including Russia, international conferences in higher education institutions plenary sessions usually
feature native speakers of English to attract participation. Though these are sometimes renowned in the
field; others are usually obscure scholars who take clear advantage of the scientific activity to advertise
their work and, not in few cases, sell it. Another connection between academic work and native
speakerism is the language divide between NS and NNS proficient English users (Davies, 2013), a form of
linguicism in academia (Mahboob & Szenes, 2007), and the poorly proficient rest who may be deprived of
the possibility to participate in scientific activities abroad because of their English. Within the confines of
the same divide is the scholar’s access to and production of worldwide literature written in English (see
Eger & Scheufen, 2018; Thompson, 2010), thus depriving the poorly proficient of additional income and
recognition as well as the possibility to contribute to the university ranking.
This unpalatable neoliberal native speakerist trend in higher education (see Themelis, 2021; Sardoč,
2021) is entwined with the number of articles in, for instance, the high-impact-factor more than 9.5k open
access journals of which ‘85.2 % are published in English’ (Eger & Scheufen, 2018, p. 30). This native
speakerist trend means, in addition to the NS-NNS academic divide, discrimination against other
languages and a predetermined future for NNS academics and research despite the dubious practices of
non-academic bodies, ‘private science businesses’ that decide which ‘journals are included in the index’
and keep indexing procedure calculation as a ‘business secret,’ regardless of the scientifically accepted
‘academic principle of verifiability’ (Hermann, 2021, p.56. italics in the original).
No better conclusions to this section than Pennycook’s very often repeated words that brilliantly
illustrate the powerful connection between ELT as a global project supporting the spread of the language,
claimed by many as an equalising factor in a globalising world (e.g., Crystal, 2003, 2018) and native
speakerism, ‘Any discussion of English as a global language and its educational implications cannot ignore
the fact that far from being a solution to the dismantling of “unequal power relations in the world, English
is in fact often part of the problem”’ (Rubdy, 2015, p. 43 cited by Pennycook, 2017 pp. vii-viii) for its role
in creating divisions that go much beyond the ELT world to also infect, for example, academia and
mobility. In other words, as Slavoj Zizek (2021) put it, [native speakerism] ‘not only trains [NNS] to tolerate
power, or even to actively participate in [their] own submission, but it also cheats on [them] by the very
act of warning [them] against being cheated,’ as it often happens.
3.4 Setting limits for the NS brand in advertising
Ethical behaviour in online advertising is understood as providing potential consumers with
information to make informed decisions; as a result, within the limits of decency, in no way should the
advertisement mean political, social and moral standards of society by spreading false or deceiving
information including the use of stereotypes or pose threats, of any type, to individuals or groups of
people (Byramjee, Klein, & Batra, 2010; Mwangi, 2015). Basically aimed at building rapport with the
consumer, the advertising message is built on argumentation principles to meet felicity among which are
the advertiser’s ‘intentions and qualifications, sincerity, commitment to truth’ that must obtain if [Cruse,
2016, p. 62] the advertisement] as a ‘speech [act is to] be performed meaningfully and with the prospect
of success’ (Habermas, 2002, p. 291). Following argumentation principles (see Young, 2016, cited by
Romanova & Smirnova, 2019, p. 57) and from a multimodal perspective, the seller demonstrates
‘awareness and understanding … of the demonstrate consumer’s needs, creates the conditions for a
‘responsive environment’ where to build rapport … shows a ‘responsible attitude to the consumer’s
expectations through professionalism, and the worth of the ‘product or service provider; at the time it ;
stimulates a desire to use it’ by providing of its benefits. To achieve the above, the advertiser uses
persuasive techniques based of the rhetorical principles expressing Ethos, the advertiser’s authority,
knowledge, credibility, fairness, and rationality through the Logos appeals to rationality in a logical,
factual, clear, specific, organised, and well-reasoned message to seek common ground with the Pathos,
the target audience, through appeals to the concerns, values, desires, preferences, beliefs, emotions, and
notably, ‘appeals to state and time awareness’ (Romanova & Smirnova, 2019, p. 66).
Based on the above considerations, the NS brand must, therefore, inform the consumers the
teachers’ verifiable educational level, professional qualifications, and accomplishments to help
differentiate between real NS teachers and fakes; adverts must, therefore, include their area of expertise
as a statement to warn the public; this expertise could be in teaching their MT or their MT as an FL, which
is very important because they are very different things, at least, in terms of content, methodology, and
degree of desired proficiency. This statement ought to include, in addition, the variety of the language
they speak, capability to teach the standard as well as experience and cultural level to meet the students’
needs, for instance, just to be able to communicate fluently or prepare for a national or an international
exam such as TOEFL or IELTS. These informational requirements in advertising the NS would impede any
individual or organization from using just a name or nationality to attract customers because just having
been born in a country and acquired a language as an MT in no way certifies anybody to teach that
language.
From all the above perspective, the study below amply demonstrates that the interview-like piece
of news and BritSpeak Ethos is solely based on native speakerism where previous insider knowledge
exploits the Pathos preferences, beliefs, emotions, and appeals to state and time in a Logos only aimed at
making money.
4. STUDY AND RESULTS
Though Ekaterinburg News often features articles related to education, this piece of news is relevant
because of the context in which it is published. First, the significant reduction of offline private ELT
tutoring as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic has paved the way for online lessons. For instance, the city
portals Vash repetitor (Your private tutor) and Luchshie repetitory (the best tutors) serve as websites
where many of the 2294 and 42085 ELT teachers respectively advertise online availability to work at prices
usually affordable to the middle-class sector and above. Some of them, especially on the second website,
are foreigners that announce themselves as native speakers who usually just declare years of work in the
field. Second, photographs and declared qualifications allow to estimate that the Russian teachers are
between their late twenties to their early sixties and have enough experience as well as credentialed
academic background to offer a diverse variety of individualized or group lessons tailored to the students’
needs. Finally, the economic depression and ensuing inflation following the pandemic allow to assume
that the demand for private tutoring of English has significantly declined. This final assumption implies
that competition1 from abroad is likely to deprive fellow professionals of economic income to live or
simply supplement their public sector meagre salaries in dire times.
According to Endole, the Britspeak website belongs to Britspeak Ltd (Reg. No. 12667989), a private
limited company with shared capital running since Oct.12, 2020, with two active directors, one of whom
is Stephen Paul Tatum (the interviewee). This company, registered at 6 Croxdale Terrace, Greenside,
Ryton, NE40 4RZ (Greenside, Northwest England) is classified as an institution offering educational
support. It has a Facebook page in Spanish2 and advertising in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as an almost
empty YouTube Channel3. No website, telephone, or email is reported except for a Russian office in
Tyumen with a contact number.
Another important aspect to consider in studying the online interview is when it appeared. The
timing of the article: Oct. 1st, 2021 --almost a year after the BritSpeak was founded -- becomes a useful
piece of information to disentangle the connection between the interviewee and external factors having
an incidence on the interview-news as a communication act. According to his VK profile, the interviewee
is [a] sales/market expert who seems to have become an English teacher in Russia. When this piece of
information is coupled with the post-Brexit and Covid-19 pandemic economic debacle: lower GDP and a
rise in unemployment between Apr. Jun. 2020 (UK Office for National Statistics report, 2020), and today’s
slow GDP recovery and poor business investment (respectively, 4.4 % and 15.3 % below pre-pandemic
levels) as well as a 7.0 % fall in consumption during this period in comparison with Oct. 2019 (UK Office
for National Statistics report, 2021), the timing of the article in Ekaterinburg News becomes clear:
BritSpeak is very likely to be in a difficult economic situation. In other words, [economic] needs are very
likely the force compelling motivation to find Russian clients for online educational service (see Leontiev,
A., 1978; Leontiev, D., 2012 for an understanding of the connections between the categories need and
motivation in Psychology).
The lack of the interviewer’s name led to the assumption that the You need to learn a language from
a native speaker, not just a foreigner: an interview with a British teacher article was a paid service, not an
actual interview, where the interviewee provided the questions, the answers, and his photograph. This
first photograph anchors the text. The next two photos show London landmarks, and the fourth, a young
woman making a thumb-ups signal.
In addition to the photos, the quantitative analysis of this 733-word interview reveals very useful
information. The online text analyser tool from Online-Utility shows that, in just forty-six sentences, the
word native followed by speaker from is repeated five times or nearby the word teacher as in ‘a real native
speaker, and several times for whom the language is native.’ Other revealing phrases in the text: great
opportunity to and knowledge of work in connection with native speaker, teacher, and UK by repetition
to reinforce the main idea of the text; that is, the article is promoting a teaching platform the interviewee
1
https://www.mytutor.co.uk/form97D/?country=Russia; https://livexp.com/;
https://www.russiaesljobs.com/teaching-private-students
2
https://www.facebook.com/britspeak.es/
3
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrkbt58OZfZtC9JB85buwIg/featured
developed, an idea confirmed with the sentiment analysis results obtained online (Free Sentimental
Analysis platform). Sentiment analysis reveals the interviewee wants to spiritually connect with Russians
to sell his product. In other words, the core message revolves around a user-friendly platform to an
already known market target audience: consumers in Himmash, an Ekaterinburg district, and Uralians in
general. In trying to establish rapport with the audience (6802 up to the time this paper is written), he
appeals to a persuasive strategy expressing Logos, ‘In general, Russian people are very hospitable,
they treated me well during my life in Yekaterinburg;’ also shows he is knowledge of the students: ‘… in
Russia I have (sic) a lot of students that I taught online;’ and finally displays native speakerism in
mentioning the potential students’ preferences --the Ethos’ awareness of the Pathos needs-- ‘I believe
that all these people will have a great opportunity to learn English through our platform,’ and his authority
to say and do this, ‘the main point is to study English with a real native speaker, for whom the language is
native, and not just with a foreigner.’
The language similarities between the piece of news featuring an interview with a NS teacher
and the BritSpeak website as acts of communication have led to the conclusion that the same person,
Stephen Tatum, is the author of the written BritSpeak text (heretofore, the interviewee/advertiser).
However, BritSpeak differs significantly from the news in the use of indexicality. The ‘power of words’
(Bourdieu, 1990) is in their indexical meaning –an indirect sign point to somebody without necessarily
referring to him or her-- that produce social meaning, thus talking about the social occasion, the producer
and recipient, their relationship, origin, and social context in which they are used (Blommaert, 2005; italics
added).
As an act of communication, the BritSpeak webpage also combines, in addition to a careful use of
colours and pictures such as a double-decker, written text which leads the potential customer is led to
examine his inner mental constructions about success in learning English with Russian-speaking teachers
and the possibility of studying with the ideal ELT teacher, a NS. The three questions below are based on
an appeal to rationality through the Logos to rationally involve the Pathos in the process of seeking
common ground through shared beliefs, ‘Would you ask an accountant to fix your car? Would you ask a
chef to fly a plane? Then why would you study English with non-natives of the language?’ This overt display
of native speakerism is followed by summon-like language as appeals to the Pathos awareness of the
opportunity and time to start using the service and, of course, pay: ‘What are you waiting for?! Get moving
on YOUR (sic) journey of growth with BritSpeak, with true natives of English as your expert guides!’
Other data obtained from BritSpeak, besides confirming the ideological nature of its claims, reveal
the requirements to work as a teacher with the company. The section Jobs reads:
You don’t need a degree or a teaching qualification. Unlike the plethora of online schools out
there, we don’t think that a random bachelor’s degree really affects your ability to speak and
communicate your native language to foreign students. We work with an excellent TEFL
certification provider and can help you gain a qualification that will serve you for the rest of your
career. BritSpeak is a learning platform designed and run by experienced native EFL teachers, so
we know what is needed to teach the language. We’re also aware of how badly overseas schools,
whether online or not, treat their greatest assets – Native Speaking Teachers!! Hence our nononsense approach. (Italics added)
After which, the job requirements are listed: ‘true native of the language, GCSE/high school diploma:
English language grade a – c; ability to objectively converse on a number of topics, ability to explain
grammatical rules, and commitment’ followed by promises based on job fulfilment.
5.
DISCUSSION
Though competition is a natural feature of capitalist economies, the published “interview” and the
BritSpeak platform are unethically based on knowledge of the public preferences and makes use of
powerful ideological myths to seduce the gullible, as both the article and BritSpeak do with the Russian
public. The article is paid for publication because the interviewee is very likely to have economic
difficulties and needs student-clients for his teaching platform, and no better place to find them that in
the Russian market of English with its keen interest on native speaker teachers.
In the Ekaterinburg News interview, the interviewee’s image, enhanced by a background of both
banks of the Thames and the London City Hall on the right, matches that of the native speaker teacher
described before: a white skinned, fair-haired individual of middle-class background able to transmit
western cultural values. The next two photos accompanying the text taken from the paid photo
depository Royalti-fri and depicting London landmarks transport the potential consumer to the birthplace
of English to awaken aspirations and interests in the potential student. The last photograph features a
young woman sitting on a sofa with a blurred living room background at the back making a thumbs-up
sign with her right hand. This sign means ‘you agree with someone, that you are happy with someone,
that you are happy with an idea or situation, or that everything is all right,’ (Collins Dict. Online). When
the text and photos are all put together, they seem to convey message: The interviewee, a native speaker
teacher from London —he is not— has the key you need to communicate in English. In semiotic terms,
both text and photos work harmoniously to deliver a message: The opportunity to study English with a NS
familiar with the Russian student.
Additional information given by the interviewee allow several reasonably safe assumptions not
evident at first impression. First, the interviewee is very likely to speak English with a heavily Geordie
accent, not exactly what most students want to learn, because he was ‘born, raised and educated in
Newcastle’ unless he made significant efforts to modify it. Geordie, as an accent, is similar in some ways
to Scottish English which is very difficult to understand (see English Accents online) and is restricted to his
native region (see Beal, 2004). Second, the use of “educated” without any type of specifications suggests
that the interviewee’s only qualification to teach English is that of “nativeness,” a degree he obtained at
birth in the UK. When this condition is advertised as the great opportunity/need to ‘learn a language from
a native speaker… a real native speaker from the UK or America,’ the interviewee is classified as a native
speakerist who openly professes the racist ideology of native speakerism, and thus considers himself
better than any of the thousands of Russian teachers who practice the profession and have spent time,
effort and income to improve their qualifications as well as other fully competent NSs of English from
other regions in the world, including Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Finally, his claim of legitimacy
for the materials in BritSpeak as a result of collaboration with Oxford University Press is difficult to
disprove, it is difficult to believe this institution will validate the work of somebody, an unknown individual
in ELT, who claims the platform he conceived and developed ‘present[s] a better-quality product than
anything else on (sic) the market right now,’ which is, academically speaking, incredibly humorous.
From a multimodal perspective, the design of the BritSpeak website is simple. The direct link to the
website given in the news article opens the possibility to log in. Once here, in a white background
(meaning purity), the website shows the name BritSpeak in a combination of nouns where the first part
of the compound (Brit) is written in red and the second (speak) in blue. The name is followed by horizontal
bottoms to navigate the page. The combination of colours in the name with the promotional sentence
“English Made Easy” (sic) below, and the overlapping US-UK flags below tell that this educational
institution only teaches the two prestige variants of the language and excludes other anglophones from
first circle countries: Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, once colonial possessions of the British Empire,
but now allies, and former colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. The interface in Russian allows
potential customers to access the information without difficulties.
The combination of white, blue, and red as a background for the pictures and the textual messages
in blue and white opposite each of them, when seen as a whole, interact with each other so that the
addressees will build mental representations of a potential success if they use this service. According to
Daily Writing Tips, red conveys excitement and passion, while blue, stability, loyalty, harmony and trust.
The combinations of these colours with white which transmits innocence, purity, goodness, and humility
is, therefore, in no way accidental in the message. For instance, the first message in blue letters with a
white background communicating the audience with the BritSpeak directives and teachers seems to ask
the audience to trust the providers of the service for they are good people.
In addition to the ‘high quality of the materials’ in the news, the BritSpeak text claims it has ‘the best
quality teachers, the best quality curriculum, and the best quality learning environment to produce the
best quality results.’ The use of the superlative considerably limits the illocutionary force of the above
speech acts as declaratives because they in no way meet the felicity conditions of sincerity and authority.
In other words, both may be read as unethical and deceitful.
As different acts of communication, the interview in Ekaterinburg News and BritSpeak also differ in
the use of the indexical expressions NS (superior, knowledgeable, competent, sufficient) and NNS
(inferior, ignorant, incompetent and deficient). In the news, there is no mention of the NNS as such;
however, the phrase to avoid ‘learning from a foreigner’ covertly indexes NNS of the language, and thus
speaks of the inability and deficiency of Russian and other foreign teachers, except the British or
Americans, to teach English. In BritSpeak, however, Russian teachers are included in the use of non-native.
It is exactly here, in BritSpeak, that the advert writer overtly displays all his native speakerist arrogance,
as will be shown below. That is, while indexical expressions in the news seem to have been carefully
thought so as not to upset the reader’s feelings; in the BritSpeak text, they are downright offensive.
As mentioned before, the overt expressions of native speakerism differ considerably from the covert
use in the piece of news. This assertion is based on the analysis of the text moves. The first move involves
three hypothetical questions which are usually used to elicit opinions and beliefs about imagined
situations or unreal conditions. In the first two, the interviewee-advertiser asks the audience, ‘Would you
ask an accountant to fix your car? Would you ask a chef to fly a plane?’ as a direct appeal to the Pathos
rationality, inviting to a rational act of self-analysis, and thus suggesting by association a negative response
to the third ‘why would you study English with non-natives of the language?’ That is, the manipulative
nature of the impossible logics of the first two questions leads, probably by deductive reasoning, to the
negative answer of the third. The second move immediately following the questions takes the language
of summons, first an appeal to the Pathos state of inactivity in the form of an invitation/order, ‘What are
you waiting for?!’ (sic) and a clear appeal to their awareness of time in the form of a command, ‘Get
moving on YOUR (sic) journey of growth with BritSpeak, with true natives of English as your expert guides!’
This second move appeals to emotions and beliefs rather than to a rational act. Here, not only does the
Self, represented by advertiser, openly discriminates against the Others, Russian teachers, but also
condemns them for their students’ deficiencies. In other words, the Self produces and reproduces the
ideology of native speakerism, thus making the Other feel inferior and deficient in English language
competence and teaching skills and become fertile ground for the production and reproduction of this
ideology. Hitherto, the only appeal to authority found in the interviewee-advertisers Ethos are his
credentials as a NS, nothing else. These credentials, he seems to believe, allow him to openly show he is
better than the NNS Other.
Besides the overt display of native speakerism, the BritSpeak website recruits either American or
British high school graduates with no educational certification or experience to teach English to Russian
students. In other words, the certified, high quality, experienced NS teachers, the expert guides who as a
team will work with the Russian students, about whom the interviewee-advertiser boasts in the news
article and the website, are high school graduates who, regardless of their marks in completing general
education, only have a degree in nativeness to teach English. In other words, the Ethos in BritSpeak’s
marketing strategies of self-representation and appeal to the authority of the NS that through text and
pictures persuasively try to build an image of trustworthiness, harmony, and goodness among others all
falls to the ground. BritSpeak is only a platform that connects incompetent British or American NS who
believe they can teach their MT as an FL with believers of a myth in the Russian market of English.
Therefore, the online ELT service BritSpeak asserts a racist ideology that is used to deliver unethical,
deceiving advertising aimed at only making money from their potential clients in Russia.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Despite its limitations in primary data to ground some of the assumptions and assertions, this paper
unequivocally identifies the subjacent ideology of native speakerism in the Ekaterinburg News article and
its use as a platform to advertise BritSpeak to categorically reject not only this myth’s claims but also its
implications for the ELT community and institutions in Russia. At the same time, because of his lack of
professional credentials, the interviewee-advertiser substantiates all his claims on his capacity as a NS for
he knows how many Russian students think. In addition, the results of the case study openly question the
quality of Britspeak as an ELT platform based on the potential teachers it recruits as well as the
exaggerated, absurd, unethical claims about the quality of their teaching materials, albeit the impossibility
to study them in depth. Paraphrasing one of the advertiser’s questions, Russian teachers could ask him,
‘Would you ask an English sales and market expert to teach you English?’
Probably also under the spell of the NS teacher, but undoubtedly under that of income, Ekaterinburg
News made an invaluable service to this former English expatriate in Russia, but at the same time, a
disservice to the Russian ELT community and students of the language. This news portal not only allowed
the production and reproduction of the ideology but also the denigration of the Russian educational
system as whole. Because of the increase in online education, the results of the paper suggest the need
to study the reliability of advertising practices and the quality of services in all areas of education,
including those related to the teaching of other European foreign languages by native speakers as well.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
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