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English accents
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Wed, 03/18/2009 - 14:45
I'm teaching my 10th form students. I have revealed that my students often ask how this or that word is pronounced because some of them joining language centres where American accent is used to teach English while others have British accent and the rest speak English like their mother tongue. I found this situation noticeable in other classes, too.Do you know any persuasive arguments about this matter or any suggestions to solve the problem and how to balance the pronunciation accents in classes?
Sat, 03/21/2009 - 13:16
#2
Hi Diana!!
I've always tried to expose my students to as many different kinds of English pronunciation as possible.Mostly, through different tapes, CDs or DVDs. There's not one correct way of speaking English! We know, as NS, how many accents exist just within the UK shores.If a non-native speaker only exposes him/her self to RP English then they are going to have major listening problems when they arrive on these shore. I know ,because I've been teaching foreign medics for over 9 years.
Sometimes, I hear Glaswegians speaking and I wonder to myself "Could my students understand them?" when, even I, as a NS, are having problems understanding them.
Regards,
Anita
Sat, 03/21/2009 - 16:14
#3
Dear Anita,
I do hope you didn't get the impression that I thought RP was something my students should emulate and that I was proud of speaking! Not at all. I am well aware that it is on it way out (like me, I'm over 50 myself) and only spoken by a miniscule section of the UK population, anyway.
And I also agree with what you say about the accents in the UK. I can just about understand the newsreaders on British telly, but that's about it(Don't let on to my students, though !). Obviously I ought to go back and live there for a few years and then I would understand everything again.
The other thing is that there are so many people living in the country and speaking English who are not NS in the strict sense - they or their parents may come from Pakiston or the Carribean and their English is not the typical BE, either.
So really we agree that as many sorts of English pronunciation as possible should be used in teaching, right from the start.
Diana
Sun, 03/22/2009 - 10:17
#4
Dear Anita and Diana!
I have read your comments on my topic. I agree that even a native language speaker sometimes ( maybe usually) have problems understanding other countrymen's accents. In my country there are at least 3 accents of Vietnamese. I come from the North and most foreigners look for a teacher in the North region when they want to learn English as they think it is more standard!!!I myself sometimes cannot understand everything people from the Central and Southern parts if they speak quickly. I have to guess. This is not only their different accent but also the use of words. think Anita gives an example of hearing unfamilliar English accent.
I agree with Diana that in order to help the students improve their ability of listening and speaking, teachers should use the listening pieces to present different English variations. It is necessary because there is a truth that they will meet Englishes in everyday life. Their future friends, partners or colleagues cannot be limited in two major British or American groups. In fact, we are L2 users. That is a disadvantage for us to get the ideas when we listen to uncommon accents. It is also a hard work to collect listening tasks of many Englishes. I also conclude that we should mostly guess in context first. If we follow a long course, we may get familiar with the accent day by day.
I
Sun, 03/22/2009 - 19:24
#5
Dear All,
this is exactly what I think too. We have to train our students' ears to different accents of English from very early on. With English being a world language, you are sure to get a number of different accents of English all over the world. So students must be capable to deal with that.
but as a teacher I think you have to be consistent in your own pronunciation. Well and in my humble opinion we should stick to either a British norm (RP) or a US American norm (General American). This is maybe unfair to all the other native speakers (e.g. Australians, NZ) or non-native speakers of English who very well outnumber the native speakers of English. But it's RP and General American which are the norms. So they must be the target pronunciations for us teachers - at least in my part of the world. I might reason differently if I lived like Vu in South East Asia with the millions of Australians and New Zealanders just living "round the corner". But still I think that American English with all its worldwide spread in Hollywood movies which are on show all over the world has gained a predominance all over the world when it comes to pronunciation or accent.
I myself try to emulate RP because this was the pronunciation model I was taught when I was a student of English, I can do some American English pronuncations myself, but always fall back on my RP model. - And of course you have to be consistent in your own accent.
But what I absolutely want my students to do is to recognize and be able to understand other nation's Englishes. It's nice if they can even recognize what the underlying mother tongue influence is (eg. That must be an Italian speaking English!), but that's not so important. What i s important is that they still recognize and understand it as English.
All the best,
Marlies
Dear Vu,
I've just posted on the Introductions thread, so meet me there!
I am a NS of BE and due to my upbringing and education I actually speak RP (Received Pronunciation). This means that BE is automatically the pronunciation I teach, so in a way, it's not a problem for me. However, some of my students get muddled because they notice that the AE way is different. Just one example: "suit" or "suitcase" - I pronounce it with a diphthong, in AE it is just one vowel, so even beginners notice these things.
The only thing I can think of is to say that English is a world language and there are a lot of Englishes and each of these has its legitimation. Of course, as a Brit I tend to think that BE is the "right", the genuine English, but this is unfortunately only true in a historical sense. I don't know the figures, but there are far fewer NS of English in the UK, in the USA and Australia etc taken as a whole than speakers of Global English. So in a world context, BE or AE are not the most important variations
You youself can only speak English to your students in the way that you have learned it yourself, don't worry about this. But you must use every opportunity you have to let them hear (and perhaps copy) all the other existing ways of speaking.
Diana