1. INTRODUCTION Including native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) in school systems has become a prevalent practice in some Asian countries, for instance, the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program and the English Program in Korea (EPIK). Since 1987, the Japanese government has recruited native speakers of English as teaching assistants through the JET Program in order to improve English language education at the junior and senior high school levels in Japan. Likewise, EPIK, sponsored by the Korean government, was established in 1995 "to improve the English speaking abilities of Korean students and teachers, to develop cultural exchanges, and to reform teaching methodologies in English". In Taiwan, NESTs have been recruited by local governments through non-state education agencies since 2001. According to the guidelines posted on the website of the Ministry of Education (MOE) (2003), NESTs are defined as teachers who are native speakers of English-speaking countries, four-year college graduates, and have a teaching license for elementary schools or language arts. As of 2005, ten cities/prefectures in Taiwan have implemented NEST programs, i.e., including NESTs in elementary school English classrooms. As the inclusion of NESTs in school systems seems to prevail in some Asian countries, it is of interest to look into issues concerning the inclusion of NESTs in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms, such as collaborative teaching by NESTs and local English teachers who are non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs).
