Exploring NNEST Lived Experience through Narrative Inquiry

Description

Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) often face challenges related to linguistic legitimacy, professional identity, and hiring biases, often being compared against native-speaker norms. However, NNESTs bring unique strengths as multilingual role models, highlighting the need to reframe professional value beyond native-speaker status. This panel session hosts three NNESTs to explore Non-Native Language Educators’ Issues (NNLEIs) and how they navigate their careers and classrooms. Additionally, the panel consists of journal editors and published authors to discuss the importance of personal narratives as a research method, grounded in the idea that lived experience is a legitimate source of knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The panel as a whole explores how people construct meaning, identity, and agency through storytelling, often revealing insights that traditional data collection methods might miss, while challenging dominant discourses (Riessman, 2008).