“I could not understand anything they said!”: Non-native English-speaking instructors, online learning, and student anxiety

Non-native English-speaking instructors often receive lower course evaluations and are criticized for their accents (Doubleday & Lee, 2016; Rubin, 1992; Sanchez & Khan, 2016; Subtirelu, 2015). This phenomenon has received much research attention in face-to-face classroom settings but less so in a distance education setting. The current study sought to determine if a lecture video with a non-native English-speaking instructor would cause more learner anxiety compared to a lecture video where the instructor had a standard American accent. The study also divided participants into high and low accented-speech experience groups. Participants in the study watched four videos, two with a non-native Englishspeaking instructor and the other two with an instructor with a Southern American English accent. After each video, participants were asked to recall questions about the information that they had just received before moving on to the following video. Participants were also given an anxiety scale to measure the anxiety they felt while listening to the lecture videos. Our findings indicated that participants with low second language experience had higher anxiety and worse recall performance in the non-native English speaking instructor condition. We also found that participants with high second language experience could potentially benefit from the non-native English speaking instructor’s video as they exhibited higher recall performance. Results from the current study have implications for distance education and pedagogical practices.