This paper reports on the findings from an investigation conducted in the Kingdom of Bahrain into Bahraini English language teachers' (BELTs) perceptions of their native English speaking teacher (NEST) colleagues. Samples were drawn from governmental higher education institutions from both genders. Specifically, this study investigates how BELTs' in higher education construct their knowledge as non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) of the concepts of native speaker (NS), NEST, non-native speaker(NNS), and NNEST in their ESL/EFL context. In addition, the study focuses on exploring the differences and similarities in teaching characteristics between BELTs as NNESTs and their NEST colleagues, of the issue of the necessity of having NESTs in the ESL/EFL context, and the nature of the interaction between BELTS and the. BELTs. The study involved both interviews and a questionnaire. Frequency and content analysis were done to analyse the quantitative data obtained from the closed and open questions in the questionnaire followed by qualitative analyses of the participants' responses to the interview questions. The findings indicated that most of the participants perceived the concepts NS and NEST as similar, while they perceived the concepts NNS and NNEST as different as they found the latter more reflective of the teaching profession than labelling of groups.