They don’t do Scottish accents - englishglobalcom learners deal with global English Robin Walker...

Helping learners deal with global English

Robin Walker EOI Gran Canaria Las Palmas, November 17th, 2017

They don’t do Scottish accents


Talk to the world

1.  Attitudes to accents 2.  Uncovering attitudes

3.  Exposure to accents 4.  Accommodating accents

Professional Development

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They Don’t Do Scottish Accents Helping learners deal with global English

1. Attitudes to accents

‘… every accent will have – somewhere – a social group which has a prejudice about it.’

Cauldwell, 2013

Best accent ideology


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‘… the model accent should provide learners with increased chances of an educational and professional career, both in their own country and outside it. It is doubtful whether this requirement can be satisfied by non-standard or regional accents’.

Spyra–Kozłowska, 2015 Professional Development

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1. Attitudes to accents Best accent ideology

… I spent hours each week working on my own RP accent by listening to the BBC, using pronunciation CDs, practising aloud and recording myself, etc., in order to get a more native-like pronunciation.

Hermans. 2015, SO! 51


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… I think it would be easier for students in The Netherlands (and Europe) to focus on one particular generally accepted accent instead of teachers frantically trying to expose them to materials dealing with all sorts of varieties of English accents ...

Hermans. 2015, SO! 51


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… I do not see the point in teaching South African English pronunciation outside South Africa or an Australian accent outside Australia, even if it’s only meant for receptive purposes. I don’t see the point in forcing my students to study in order to understand English with a mild or heavy Scottish accent.

Hermans. 2015, SO! 51 Professional Development

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… all the accents that we have seen … are legitimate ways of speaking English. […] … we do need to prepare [learners] generally for their listening encounters with the wide range of accents of English that are not a close fit to the reference models …


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1.  Attitudes to accents 2.   Uncovering attitudes 3.  Exposure to accents 4.  Accommodating accents


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Activity 1. Accents of English 1) Look at the following statements about learners’ accents in

English. On a scale from 1 (Totally agree) to 5 (Totally disagree), decide how you feel about each statement.

1 2 3 4 5

2. Uncovering attitudes to accents


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Revealing and re-thinking attitudes

Statement Score

1. We should all learn to speak English with the same accent.

2. The best accent for students to imitate is an RP (BBC) English accent.

3. It’s easier to understand native speakers than non-native speakers of English.

4. A bad accent is like wearing shabby clothes to a job interview – it gives the wrong first impression.

5. If a volcanologist can’t pronounce a word like ‘volcano’ correctly, it is unlikely that his/her [scientific] research results will be very reliable.


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2. Uncovering attitudes to accents Revealing and re-thinking attitudes

Does this sort of thing matter? Well, yes, it does. The effect of his mispronunciation, on me at any rate, was to make me discount the value of what he had to say.

If he doesn’t register the abundant evidence about the pronunciation of this everyday word, why should we suppose that he pays proper attention to the evidence on which he bases his scientific findings?

John Wells’s phonetic blog, 15 January 2007


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1. How many different accents of Spanish can you think of? More than five? More than 10? Make a list.

2. Which two Spanish accents do you like best?

3. Which accent do you like least?


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Activity 2. Your local accents.

4. Look at the following adjectives.

educated competent authoritative unfriendly unreliable humorous intelligent hard-working ambitious

Now think about these accents. Which are the three adjectives that you associate most with each of the accents below?

Andalucía, Aragon, Catalonia, Madrid, Argentina, Cuba


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Derwing, T. M., Munro, M. J.


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… accent and intelligibility are NOT the same thing. A speaker can have a very strong accent, yet be perfectly understood.

Ana Botella. IOC meeting, Buenos Aires. Sept 7th, 2013.


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successful accents?


3.   Exposure to accents

4.  Accommodating accents


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Field, J. 2003


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3. Exposure to accents Accent variation

The way we listen (and above all what we find intelligible) is very much a product of our previous experience as listeners.

… it is only a matter of time before they accumulate enough mental traces of the local phonological system to be able to decode what they hear with a fair degree of accuracy.

3. Exposure to accents Bringing accents into class


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Speech Accent Archive http://accent.gmu.edu/

3. Guided exposure to accents


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3. Exposure to accents


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International Dialects of English Archive www.dialectsarchive.com

English Listening Lesson Library Online www.elllo.org


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Simpson, 2017 http://myenglishvoice.com/


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YouGlish, 2017 http://www.youglish.com


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Patsko & Simpson, 2015

https://elfpron.wordpress.com/category/ideas/


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Using scripted texts

•  familiarisation with text

•  listen to 3/4 accents

•  identify accents (map)

•  comment on ‘odd’ / ‘unexpected’


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Focus on a feature •  find examples of target feature in

script

•  listen to 4/5 accents & comment on how each speaker deals with target feature

•  decide which speaker deals best with feature

•  try to imitate ‘best’ speaker


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3.  Exposure to accents 4.   Accommodating accents


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Talk to the world

(Jenkins, 2000: 82)

B … the bottom of the picture there’s mm gley house,

A (frowns)

B (registers A’s frown) grey and small house, it’s very s-old

A Yeah, there’s a grey house, yeah.


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4. Accommodating accents Phonological accommodation

Derwing, T. M., Rossiter, M. J., & Munro, M. J. (2002). Teaching native speakers to listen to foreign accented speech.


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By the end of the study, the students reported a major gain in confidence in interacting with speakers with an L2 accent.

Derwing, T. M., Rossiter, M. J., & Munro, M. J. (2002). Teaching native speakers to listen to foreign accented speech.


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Scales, J. 2006


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English language learners could hear, analyze and compare key features among a variety of accents.

Such an approach would address both intelligibility and listening comprehension, increasing communication flexibility and respect for accent diversity.


…focus on features which tend to vary across different accents, with the intention of not familiarizing them with any accent in particular, but with features which are particularly ‘vulnerable’ to variation.

Hancock 2012, SO! 47.


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Hancock 2012. Eight vulnerable sounds


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Hancock 2012. Eight vulnerable sounds


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Can you understand the responses in 1–8? Explain why they were written down wrongly – say which vulnerable sound is different. Example: 1 = vulnerable sound 6 (the speaker doesn't pronounce the /h/ in heating and high.

1. A. Phew, it's hot in here! B. Yeah, the eating's on eye. I'll turn it down.

2. A. Dublin time's two hours behind Moscow, isn't it? B. Oh – I taught it was tree.

Hancock 2013. Pronunciation Journey


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Talk to the world


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Helping learners deal with global English They don’t do Scottish accents

Helping learners deal with global English

Robin Walker

www.englishglobalcom.com [email protected]


They don’t do Scottish accents - englishglobalcom learners deal with global English Robin Walker...

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