Native Speaker

The research I did for my master’s and doctoral studies was about « the native speaker. » More specifically, I wondered if native speakers of a language were better teachers of that language than non-native speakers. While I was studying, I was also working as a language teacher. First, I taught French—my « native » language—to university students, and then I taught English, ESL—my « non-native » language—to pre-university students. I found out, through my work and my studies, that it’s much easier to teach a non-native language. It was easier for me to teach English than French because I had learned English myself and therefore understood the difficulties of the language and knew all of its rules.

(What’s even more interesting is that I had learned English as a francophone, so I could understand the difficulties faced by students whose first languages were Indo-European. Now that I’m learning Japanese, I see a whole new side of how difficult a second language can be when it’s so completely different from your first language!)

Anyway, this book talked about a Korean-American spy: his life, his job, his family, his feelings about being Korean-American (living in New York), his cultures, his languages, and his understanding of the world. There were very interesting parts, with rich discussions about culture and identity, but I found that sometimes the book was a bit all over the place. In addition, the real story happens only in the last few chapters, so I felt that it was a long book with a very, very long introduction. Also, it was difficult to know if this Korean-American man was the « good guy » or the « bad guy » in the story. So overall, it was an interesting but long book that I would recommend to people who love reading about identity, cultures, historical clashes between cultures in the US, and the difference between good and bad.