ABSTRACT
As I stated in the Introduction, I have no wish to explore the NS and NNS debate, which, in my view, is unlikely ever to be resolved. In simplistic terms, a NS of a language is one who speaks the language as his/her fi rst language; accordingly, a NNS is one who speaks that language as a second or foreign language. In learning a language, one attempts to replicate the shared system of the speakers of that language. When learning English as the fi rst language, the assumption is that learners attempt to replicate the shared system of fellow NS. In the case of second or foreign language learners, the replication is the shared system of fellow NNS, which is often an approximation of the shared system of NS.
