by Ana Paula Biazon Rocha

New year, new resolutions…old issues? At the end of 2022, I faced a challenging situation involving pronunciation teaching, and I think the best way to kick off 2023 is to critically reflect on it. Hopefully, you, my fellow teachers of English, can relate to what I went through and make your own reflections on your teaching experiences. I may not have all the answers, but I do have a lot of questions!

Have you ever considered what learners mean when they say certain things or give us some feedback? Do you think they are 100% sure of what they mean when they tell us these things? Many times, it can be hard to try and decipher comments such as:


1. ‘I want to speak like a native-speaker’

Thankfully, the field of Pronunciation Instruction has moved from the Nativeness Principle, focusing on sounding like a native speaker of English – whatever that means! – to the Intelligibility Principle, focusing on being understood and understanding others when speaking the language, especially in international settings (Hancock, 2020a; Levis, 2018; Walker, Low & Setter, 2021). However, the ‘native speaker’ stereotype is still widespread in several English teaching contexts around the globe. Many still regard native speakers as being the real ‘owners’ of English, as if languages were ‘owned’ by some and not by others, so it seems imperative to emulate their pronunciation. More often than not, this tends to impact learners’ perception of fluency and communication in the language, trapping them in an unattainable ‘native-speaker’ ideal.

Nevertheless, the real question seems to be: do students know what they mean when they say ‘native-speaker’? To put it simply, are they referring to people who were born in English-speaking countries, such as the UK, the US, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, among others, or are they referring to competent users of English who speak the language fluently and naturally despite being native or non-native speakers? If they mean the latter, then they do not necessarily want to sound like a British or American speaker. They probably want to sound fluent and natural when speaking English, and to achieve that, one does not need to have been born in the UK or in the US, right?

A great illustration of such a curious point comes from one of PronSIG’s joint coordinators, Gemma Archer. Once one of Gemma’s students told her that they wanted to have a British accent like hers. The thing is, Gemma does not have a Standard Southern British accent, such as the one we hear in many British coursebooks, but a lovely Scottish one (!). Thus, the learner probably meant that they wanted to sound fluent and communicate clearly like their teacher. Although they used the term ‘British accent’, they were not able to really identify the differences between Standard Southern British English and Scottish English.

As teachers, what could we do then? Some ideas are:

  1. Have students reflect on the fact that a competent, fluent speaker of English can be either a native or a non-native speaker.
  2. Instead of using expressions such as native and non-native speakers of English, encourage students to use first language and second language users of English (Kiczkowiak & Barber, 2022, Unit 2C, p. 28-9), and use them ourselves.
  3. Using a Socratic approach to teaching, encourage learners to reflect and explain in more detail what they mean when they say that they want to ‘sound like a native speaker’.


2. ‘My teacher is great but I want to have classes with a native speaker of English’

This was a comment left on a recent end-of-course evaluation form I taught and what motivated me to write this post. Unfortunately, I know that I am not alone. But what do learners mean exactly? Are they saying that teaching skills and pronunciation skills are different aspects to be considered or assessed in a teacher of English, or are they saying that they would rather have classes with a teacher whose accent sounds like what they usually hear on an everyday basis (contextual clue: I teach in Sheffield, UK, and I don’t have a Standard Southern British accent or a typical Sheffield accent, nor do I intend to fake one!)? If they mean the latter, aren’t they missing the point of English as a global language? The more exposed they get to different accents and varieties of English, the more prepared they are to use English for effective international communication (Walker, Low & Setter, 2021). Are they perhaps considering they will only speak English with locals?

Funnily enough, some days ago, two new students were surprised to find out that I am not a native speaker of English (!), and that my Brazilian/North American accent is not a British accent (!), which mirrors what happened to Gemma’s student: many learners are not able to perceive the differences between a native and non-native accent of English…and should they? If the aim of Pronunciation Teaching is intelligibility (Hancock, 2020b), how relevant is it to be dwelling on native and/or non-native pronunciation distinction? Shouldn’t teachers and learners be concentrating on pronunciation features (e.g., stress, intonation, pausing, linking sounds, etc.) and issues that can help improve listening comprehension and intelligible speech instead? For more on pronunciation features, check this blog post.

After hearing such a thing, what should we teachers do? How do we move on from it? Do we ignore it? Do we take it as criticism? Do we change who we are, how we teach and how we speak English? Do we promote class discussion on the subject? How about peer discussion (sharing with other teachers)?

These are my initial reflections; throughout the year I plan to come back to them again and see how things progress (or not!). How about you? How do you feel about it? Please leave your comments below and let’s go through it together!

Finally, I would like to thank my fellow PronSIG committee members for letting me vent, and for supporting me when I decided to write this blog post. You are the best!

Don’t forget to check our previous blog posts about Pronunciation Teaching, follow PronSIG on social media, and register for our upcoming PronSIG member’s book club in March and Pre-Conference Event (PCE) in April (IATEFL 2023 Harrogate).

References

Hancock, M. (2020a). Pronunciation and Privilege. Available at http://hancockmcdonald.com/ideas/pronunciation-and-privilege. Accessed on 24 Jan 2022.

Hancock, M. (2020b). 50 Tips for Teaching Pronunciation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kiczkowiak, M. & Barber, D. (2022). Voices Upper-Intermediate Student’s Book. First Edition. National Geographic Learning.

Levis, J. (2018). Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Walker, R., Low, E., & Setter, J. (2021). English pronunciation for a global world [PDF]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. www.oup.com/elt/expert