Mahboob, A. (in press). The NNEST Lens: Implications and directions. In A. F. Selvi (Ed.) TESOL Encyclopaedia of English Language Teaching – Vol. XX. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. The NNEST Lens: Implications and directions Ahmar Mahboob, University of Sydney ahmar.mahboob@sydney.edu.au Abstract After defining the NNEST Lens, this article situates the NNEST movement within the larger critical movement in social sciences. It outlines the development of the field and reviews some of the key threads of research in this area. The article then considers how the NNEST Lens is and can be used to critically review and encourage inclusive research in TESOL, teacher education, linguistics, and applied linguistics. Framing the issue The term, NNEST Lens, comes from the title of an edited volume, ‘The NNEST Lens: Nonnative English Speakers in TESOL’ (Mahboob, 2010) and is defined as “a lens of multilingualism, multinationalism, and multiculturalism through which NNESTs – as classroom practitioners, researchers, and teacher educators – take diversity as a starting point, rather than as a result” (p. 1). While the coinage, NNEST Lens, is new, the ideas that it draws from and consolidates have been discussed and debated in TESOL and associated fields of study for a number of years. The value of the NNEST Lens lies in its ability to critically review and consolidate this work and highlight its relevance to the field. The NNEST Lens encourages further research in areas that can contribute to ethical and equitable professionalization of TESOL. By questioning the monolingual assumptions and power relationships between native and non-native English speakers, the NNEST Lens, in a broader context, can be understood as one aspect of a much larger critical movement that has focussed on questions of power, equity, and access in social sciences. And, in our particular context, the NNEST Lens is a way of understanding and supporting the development of theory and practice in linguistics, applied linguistics, and TESOL which questions and responds to a monolingual bias in the discipline and associated professions. This critical and multilingual orientation promotes research and practice that aims to break monolingual and/or native-speaker biases in the field. This implication of the NNEST Lens is reflected in the concluding remarks of a recent review of literature on NNESTs, where Llurda (2015) states that the NNEST Lens “entails a new way of approaching recurrent problems in language, language teaching, and language-based research” (p. 113). This entry explores some of the implications of the NNEST Lens on theory and practice in linguistics, applied linguistics and TESOL and identifies some of the directions that this work is taking. In specific, it considers how the NNEST Lens is and can be used by teachers, practitioners, material writers, researchers amongst others to critically review and encourage anti-discriminatory oriented research in TESOL, teacher education, linguistics, and applied linguistics. Making the case Research on what can be termed ‘NNEST studies’ started off with a focus on issues of discrimination against non-native English speaking teachers; for example, Medgyes, 1992, 1994, discussed differences between NESTs and NNESTs and identified potential benefits that NNESTs can bring to the profession. Following this early