Native Vs Nonnative English Teacher: A Qualitative Study Towards Student Perception In Vocational EFL Classroom

This study aims to determine the perception of vocational students towards foreign teachers (native speakers) and Indonesian nationals (non-native speakers) in teaching English. The research method used interviews with 10 students. The results of the study show that the majority of students have a positive perception of native-speaker teachers because of their pronunciation skills, classroom authenticity, cultural understanding, and motivation and confidence in speaking English. Meanwhile, students also positively rated non-native speaker teachers because they better understood the difficulties of learning English, made students comfortable asking questions and were able to explain the material well. This finding is expected to be an input in optimizing English learning in vocational colleges.