the british question

[GrammarFan]

I have a (fairly advanced) student who has spent a lot of time in Canada and Australia, and feels confident about understanding english-speaking accents from those countries. Now, though, he's working in Europe and has to deal mostly with British or Irish accents, which he wants practise in.

Anybody got any ideas where I can find English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish accents in decent quatities on tape?

Thanx in advance.

[Rania]

I speak as an Irish person - a lot of the cassettes/CDs that accompany British textbooks feature "Irish" speakers of the "Top of deh marnin to ya! Oi'm from Oireland!" variety which is enough to make any Irish person weep. I would suggest that your student check out some of the Irish TV/radio websites (try www.rte.ie) and dowload some radio extracts, for example. It might be interesting for him/her to listen to topics of current interest in Ireland and gives him/her contact to 'real' Irish English.
The same applies to the various 'Englishes' spoken in Britain, although it shouldn't be too difficult to get your hands on the CDs/cassettes that go along with the many British textbooks...

[stephen]

"Focus on CAE" has some challenging Australian & British listening material in it.

Also possibly, IELTS material and CPE material. Also try the BBC.

Stephen

[Norm Ryder]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen!

I think a look at the BBC might also give you a good starting point. You could try www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningengl ... ndex.shtml. They will have tapes, but also a range of programs (pardon, programmes) that you could get your students to tape for themselves; and I think this beeb site could point you to other resources as well.

Cheers.

Norm