In my previous post I talked about the differences of the same language as pronounced by different people. I decided to talk about this topic as nowadays I have so many students from other countries, such as United Arab Emirates, India, Russia, etc. and there is usually the problem of pronunciation. Besides the fact that each student has his/her own style of pronunciation, there also comes the influence of their first language. I do remember some of my Indian students trying to persuade me that their variety of English is the best. :)
So, there is the question – which variety of language should be taught?
In Armenia people mostly differentiate between the American and British versions of English. To be honest, in my country the British variant overwhelms (I guess so), as in most schools and universities this variant is given more credence. However, many of my students come to my school asking for some help to change their pronunciation. Some of my students plan to study in the USA or the UK and they don’t want to have very different pronunciation from the native speakers. This difference is even seen in the two most famous exams among Armenians: IELTS vs. TOEFL. If the student has been taught British English they prefer taking IELTS, whereas those knowing American English prefer TOEFL.
The best decision that I have come across is to provide the two variants to the students, but they sometimes keep on saying they don’t really need both of them. For example, if I say in BE you write [colour] and in AE you write [color] they say that even the Word Document doesn’t accept the BE variant, so why do they need it.
So, which is the best solution? (I guess there can’t be any certain answer, as it is mostly up to our preferences)
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Comments
Submitted on 22 February, 2013 - 18:34
Submitted on 22 February, 2013 - 20:01
Submitted on 23 February, 2013 - 10:29
My take on this - because I believe what matters more is that communication is effective, it does not really matter which English students learn(David Crystal I think talks of "Englishes"! there are so many of them). I tell my ss I have been taught to speak British En(RP), but as long as they pronounce the sounds correctly, use the right stress and try to deal with intonation patterns, they will make themselves understood and I am ok with it.
A lot of my students pick up US accents from the American movies which are ubiquitous here. And there are so many US accents - California, East Coast, the Southern States...The same goes for Brit accents too, so many regional accents out there. Plus we have on top our native speaker En accents:) I just tell my students that English has become a lingua franca and is perhaps the most liberal language as regards pronunciation - just see CNN/BBC newsreaders accents - such a diversity! It didn't used to be like this years ago, only RP was accepted on TV but no longer these days and I think this is a good development which benefits us, teachers and students alike:))
Submitted on 23 February, 2013 - 10:44
thanks again
Submitted on 23 February, 2013 - 18:29
As far as the pronounciation is concerned I agree with nosirjon that the most important thing for an English language learner is the awarness of the existance of the differencies. In the textbooks that I use, though they are British, we have an American accent speaker when there is a text about America for ex.
Submitted on 23 February, 2013 - 20:10
Submitted on 23 February, 2013 - 21:53
Thanks for sharing your opinion
Submitted on 23 February, 2013 - 21:57
thanks again
Submitted on 23 February, 2013 - 22:05
Submitted on 24 February, 2013 - 11:05