Moving towards the transition: Non-native EFL teachers' perception of native-speaker norms and responses to varieties of English in the era of global spread of English

In Asia, the dominance of English as a foreign or second language has greatly contributed to the prevalence of Standard English and Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs). Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been officially recruiting NESTs to introduce "authentic" Standard English to their citizens. However, as globalisation continues throughout the world, the genres featuring native speaker norms have been challenged for failure to equip English learners with English as an International Language (EIL) or World Englishes (WEs) competence to communicate with other non-native English speakers from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in international settings. The present study is based on this conceptual problem and investigates how Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) perceive native speaker norms and respond to varieties of English developed outside the Inner Circle, and how they are prepared to operate in the EIL/WEs contexts in their training programs. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications to Asian EFL/ESL teacher education.