Proceedings of the - British Association for Applied Linguistics

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Impact of Applied Linguistics: Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of BAAL University of the West of England Results The questionnaire results indicate that the perceived importance of the learners’ exposure to a standard British or American accent was greater compared to the learners’ exposure to standard regional, non-standard regional, or non-native accents of English (see Table 16.1). A similar pattern emerged in the teachers’ responses in terms of the frequency of learners’ exposure to various accents of English through the listening material of the course (see Table 16.2). Even though nowadays English is primarily used for communication among non-native speakers of English (see Jenkins, 2000), non-native accents of English received the lowest rating of all questionnaire items (see Table 16.2). Native speakers of a standard British variety, i.e. Received Pronunciation Native speakers of a standard American variety, i.e. General American Native speakers of standard regional varieties of English, e.g. Scottish, Northern Native speakers of non-standard regional varieties of English e.g. Cockney Non- native (e.g. Italian, Bulgarian) but fluent speakers of English 84 N Mean Std Dev 47 1.62 0.945 46 1.67 1.055 46 2.61 0.977 46 3.17 1.141 46 3.11 1.197 Table 16.1: Perceived importance of exposure to a variety of accents of English through the listening material of the course (1 = extremely important; 5 = not at all important) N Mean Std Dev Native speakers of a standard British variety 47 1.74 0.871 Native speakers of a standard American variety Native speakers of standard regional varieties of English Native speakers of non-standard regional varieties of English 47 44 44 2.02 2.91 3.70 0.989 1.178 1.091 Non-native but fluent speakers of English 46 3.78 1.172 Table 16.2: Frequency of exposure to a variety of accents of English through the listening material of the course (1 = always; 5 = never)
Accents of English and Listening Comprehension: Evidence of Conflict between ELT Handbooks and Teachers’ Practices Vasiliki Kanellou Discussion & Conclusions This study demonstrated that ELT handbook writers’ views have had little impact on EFL teachers’ practices and the interview data helped reveal the reasons behind the teachers’ preferences and practices. The great gap that emerged between ELT writers’ recommendations and EFL teachers’ views and practices was mainly attributed to the teachers’ preoccupation with exam preparation; the priority attached to certain accents over others reflected the priority of the exams distributed by the major EFL examination boards. For example, the language of the ‘Examination for the Certificate of Proficiency in English’ (ECPE), an advanced-level general test of English as a foreign or second language by the University of Michigan’s English Language Institute (ELI) is “Standard American English” (see Irvine-Niakaris, 2009: 4). Furthermore, the listening material available as part of the courses taught by the teachers of this study mainly exposed learners to standard British or American accents; exposure to nonnative accents was not viewed as an important element of the ‘listening’ part of any of the Cambridge and Michigan EFL exams and, thus, there were hardly any materials available in this respect. If a greater variety of native and non-native accents of English is included in the listening component of professionally designed English language tests, then we can anticipate that a wide variety of native and non-native accents of English will begin to feature in the listening materials used in class; changes made by major EFL exam boards will be followed by changes in listening materials and teachers’ practices. Since teachers, at least in some contexts, focus on helping learners obtain an English language certificate, which the learners will use in the future as proof of their competence in English, the onus is on the major EFL examination boards to ensure that one aspect of that competence relates to learners having gained a degree of familiarity with a wide variety of accents of English. References Gary Buck (2001). Assessing Listening. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Marianne Celce-Murcia & Elite Olshtain (2001). Discourse and Context in Language Teaching; A Guide for Language Teachers. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. Jeremy Harmer (2007). How to teach English. 2 nd edition. Pearson: Harlow, UK. 85
Page 1:
The Impact of Applied Linguistics P
Page 6 and 7:
The Impact of Applied Linguistics P
Page 8 and 9:
Chapter Authors Page 9 British Appl
Page 10 and 11:
The editorial team would like to th
Page 12 and 13:
The Impact of Applied Linguistics:
Page 14 and 15:
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Page 20 and 21:
Page 22 and 23:
Page 24 and 25:
Page 26 and 27:
Page 28 and 29:
Page 30 and 31:
Page 32 and 33:
Page 34 and 35:
Page 36 and 37:
Page 38 and 39:
Page 40 and 41:
Page 42 and 43:
Page 44 and 45: The Impact of Applied Linguistics:
Page 138: The Impact of Applied Linguistics:
show all

Proceedings of the - British Association for Applied Linguistics

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?