English variety, discrepancies in pronunciation

[petwilso]

Has anyone (not) had an experience in an EFL situation where there was a discrepancy between your own variety of English and the expected pronunciation? What was the situation and how did you deal with it?

[Showem]

Can you be more specific to what you are looking for?

[sita]

It happens to me nearly every day in Germany!

I have a typical middle class British accent.

I play tapes with Canadians, Australians, Americans and Irish people speaking - this shows them there is no RIGHT way to pronounce a word it depends where the person is from.

Best wishes
Siân

[petwilso]

Hi showem. I'm doing a subject about the global context of English. As English expands and develops in different streams like British English, American English, Australian English, there are ocasions where some misunderstandings occur (this happens wirthin the varieties too!). I'm looking for examples of these and how they were dealt with and how much it was felt to be an issue. Thanks.
Hi Sita, That's a good example. How do your students cope?

[Rania]

I would be surprised if there were many teachers who DIDN'T have this problem occasionally. If you are American using a British textbook, for example, you'll have problems - or vice versa. Here in Germany, people are often quite dogmatic about pronunciation - generally the pronunciation they learned at school. A common wail is, e.g. "But MY teacher said 'willage' not 'village'!" ... For some bizarre reason a lot of Germans (in this area, at least) were taught to pronounce ‘a’ as ‘eh’ – so they say ‘heppy’ and ‘bed’ for ‘happy’ and bad’. It’s not a question of not being able to pronounce it – after all, the word ‘Bad’ (with similar vowel sound) already exists in German … someone somewhere apparently thought it sounded ‘more British’ like this – alas, whoever it was, wasn’t consistent in his/her teaching, because everything else sounds decidedly un-British. The “But my teacher always said …!” screech is something I put an end to very quickly by asking where these models of perfect pronunciation come from – inevitably, it’s Germany!

I’m Irish so students are generally unfamiliar with my accent. Other English speakers tell me that I have very clear pronunciation and a relatively “neutral” accent (if such a thing exists!) Fortunately, I speak German so I can point out similarities between having, say, an Irish accent and speaking with, for example, a Bavarian accent. In other words, there is a difference between speaking with a local accent (which the vast majority of my students do) and speaking a local dialect. You can speak a form of clear German and have a regional accent – the same thing applies to English. Most of my students are quite happy with this, especially when they listen to cassettes of other speakers – then they are usually more than pleased with the way I speak English.

[Celeste]

I have had a few problems with pronunciation books that were written by British native speakers. An example that comes immediately to mind is the difference between the words "cot" and "caught" - in Canadian English these are homophones. I had to get a British teacher help ME figure out the difference between them because the text had this as a pronunciation point for the students.

[toyboatt]

I am american and teach out of a british textbook. I find it's best to adopt british pronunciation or spelling many times. To do otherwise will confuse the students and take away from the current lesson. For example, the difference between soccer, european football, and american football is enough to merit an entire seperate class period for the young kids. Also if I am strict about adhereing to my pronunciation then the kids will be further confused next year if they get an English teacher from a different country.

Summary: Stick to the English of the book you're teaching. If you MUST pronounce and spell things your way, then you should probably be agressive about getting appropriate textbooks in ASAP.