ABSTRACT
On my first day in Australia, in Kings Cross, I was confronted with a confused looking, homeless man holding a filthy piece of cardboard, with the words, ‘Help me’ scrawled across it. The ability to speak English to me, as a Korean, had only ever represented success, power and privilege, all of which I was desperate to have, and thought I would never be able to achieve. Yet, here, incredibly, a homeless man stood before me in the street begging for money in a language that only the wealthy and successful in Korea could call their own. This was the first time that it had ever crossed my mind that English could be owned by ‘anyone’. The authority of ‘native English speaker’ which has positioned me forever as an illegitimate user of the language could be possessed by a homeless man in Australia. I am an English language specialist who has been left with a strong sense of anxiety, inferiority and inadequacy when having to speak in English, who yet still hopes to be freed from this petrifying fear of the language. This chapter explores the process of constructing and continuously reconstructing my multiple identities which are interwoven with my perception of what an ideal English speaker is, and myself as an English language specialist living in Singapore. Three broad categorical themes are presented in this chapter. They examine the change in my perception of English as a language of power, success and privilege to my realisation that the reality of English speakers as presented by English language education is really distorted. The first theme concerns my conflicted relationship with English as a learner of the language. The second and third themes explore my living experience as an immigrant and non-native teacher of English in Australia. These themes focus on how the perceptions of others regarding my status as an immigrant and non-native speaker of English have impacted on my relationship with the English language and as a teacher of the language. The chapter concludes with some insights my experience can offer for English language teaching pedagogy and some final reflections on my life as an immigrant, foreign, non-native speaker of English and an English teacher.
