Excursions: Deconstructing TEFL

Abstract

The TEFL industry is booming in Asia. This explosion has witnessed the rapid dissemination of a variety of teaching materials and pedagogies across the region.  While most of this come from global textbook publishers, others come from more personalized sources. One common theme that runs throughout this body of material is the privileged location/ subject position of the white western figure aka “the native speaker.”  While this figure may appear as voice or body or as a combination of both, its narrative location, authority and effects are always the same, namely to create for itself a point of reference with which comparisons with the ‘native other’ are invited. This presentation draws from postcolonial theories of narration and identity to locate such operations of power/knowledge in the work of two TELF texts being used in Thailand. It begins by deconstructing this narcissistic form of colonial self-referentiality in TEFL materials before looking at ways in which practicing teachers can engage productively with such texts.

Keywords: colonialism, globalization, TEFL, Thailand