Abstract
The recent trend along with the implementation of the revised Course of Education has endowed ALTs (Assistant Language Teacher) with even more significant roles in language education in Japan. In this paper, the roles of native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) teachers, including Japanese, are reconsidered from a perspective of English as an International Language (EIL). Two sets of questionnaires were administered to explore the possible differences in students' attitudes toward NSs and NNSs and to analyze the students' reactions to English instructions done in classroom by a Japanese teacher. According to the results, more anxiety was observed when with a NS, while the subjects admitted being able to talk "smoothly" with a NNS. They had a high expectation that a Japanese teacher should be empathetic to their needs and should use English as an instruction language in class.
