Reading a recent article on pan-English confirmed my fears that the language is going to get further diluted as time progresses because of the sheer number of people who are not native speakers and who outnumber those that are.
When those non-native speakers pass on their knowledge to new learners they will most often not be clear on explaining a grammatical rule to a person if asked and more than likely their explanation is going to be less thorough. In addition there are native speakers who are ill equipped to pass on vital grammatical information and are then likely to pass information incorrectly.
Hear are some impressions that back that insight:
- Over the years I have been hearing non-native or native speakers explaining grammatical rules to new comers and they would be totally off in their details
- People are being pushed ahead in language learning systems that should not be. This is because the industry has had to protect itself in order to show that the student has grasped information when on many occasions the person has not; he may be caught in company tactics, which oblige him to attend a course that is beyond their level.
- The person gets a false impression of the actual level they have reached based on company politics. This does not occur in places that value honesty and can afford to create two groups and pay two teachers than have a single group.
- The number of native speakers is 300 million but the number of people who have obtained English from them is far higher. This second group is likely to influence new speakers more and will be ill equipped because they were not born into the language. If idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs are key points in speaking a diversified language, the new speakers will most likely be using textbook English at best.
You seem to have forgotten, not everyone who is native English speaker has perfect English. So not only the non-native speakers but also the native speakers should try to avoid making mistakes when they teach the language.
3. The actual level of English is not something you can measure. No matter where people are taught there is no real way to tell the exact level of their English; however, their English level can be estimated at the best. A single teacher cannot measure the level of English for one good reason: She is not the maximum of the English knowledge which means she can only measure someone's English compared to the teacher itself. One needs a neutral opinion; something that would be exact the same for all the people who want their English being measured.
4. Like I already said earlier, the truth is that English is being looked at as an international language which makes many people learn it resulting non-native people teaching it to other people, because there are not other possibilities to be able to teach English in so many countries. Not to forget the fact; there are non-native English speakers whose English is way better than the average English of a native speaker. What I am trying to say here is that it does not matter who teaches it, but the qualification of the teacher to teach the language.