156 WATESOL NNEST Caucus Annual Review – Volume 1 (2010) ALL TEACHERS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME TEACHERS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS: TREND ANALYSIS OF JOB ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Ali Fuad Selvi University of Maryland, College Park Introduction From generative linguistics to applied linguistics, different disciplines perceive the native speaker (NS) construct differently. While theoretical linguistics places NSs in an idealized position and assumes that they are the only reliable source of linguistic data, formulating the construct of an “ideal speaker‐listener, in a completely homogenous speech‐community” (Chomsky, 1965, p. 3), foreign/second language research, under the dominance of the idealized NS model creates a “monolingual bias in SLA theory” (Cook, 1997) that “elevates an idealized native speaker above a stereotypical ‘nonnative’ while viewing the latter as a defective communicator, limited by an underdeveloped communicative competence” (Firth & Wagner, 1997, p. 285). This dichotomy of competence versus incompetence results in defining the non‐ native speaker (NNS) as a deficient or as less‐than‐a‐native (“near‐native”, Valdes, 1998, p.6). In English as a foreign or second language teaching, “researchers and educators are increasingly embracing the fact that English is spoken by more people as a second language than as a mother tongue” (Llurda, 2004, p.314). In the past two decades, there has been an ongoing discussion in the field of second and foreign language teaching in regard to the NS‐NNS dichotomy (Amin, 1997; Braine, 1999; Brutt‐Griffler & Samimy, 1999; Davies, 2003; Kramsch, 1997; Llurda, 2005; Medgyes, 1994; Phillipson, 1992; Widdowson, 1994). Research suggests that despite the facts that non‐native English speakers outnumber native speakers three to one