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paulmanser
Joined: 28 Nov 2005
Posts: 403
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 Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:41 pm Post subject: Do poles prefer British English or American English? |
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| Which one is favoured the most? |
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Grrrmachine
Joined: 27 Jul 2005
Posts: 265
Location: Warsaw, Poland
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| Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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Im sure Greg will slam me for this, but Warsaw's current flavour is for British English, because of a) the British Council foisting their exams on us and b) the huge amount of people planning to work in the UK.
I make a point to explain the differences between the two languages as much as I can, but I'm usually met with blank stares and shrugs of shoulders. I was also asked to re-record a company's entire automated switchboard recently as they wanted to remove the US accent.
This is only my experience of this matter and in no way represents the whole of Poland (before you lot start leaping down my throat) |
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Khrystene
Joined: 17 Apr 2004
Posts: 271
Location: WAW, PL/SYD, AU
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| Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Grrrmachine wrote: |
Im sure Greg will slam me for this, but Warsaw's current flavour is for British English, because of a) the British Council foisting their exams on us and b) the huge amount of people planning to work in the UK.
I make a point to explain the differences between the two languages as much as I can, but I'm usually met with blank stares and shrugs of shoulders. I was also asked to re-record a company's entire automated switchboard recently as they wanted to remove the US accent.
This is only my experience of this matter and in no way represents the whole of Poland (before you lot start leaping down my throat) |
I always tell my students the differences, but my school is focussed on Brit Eng. Which I speak anyway.
I'd love a gig recording some messages for someone... would be a hoot!  |
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gregoryfromcali
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Posts: 1207
Location: People's Republic of Shanghai
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| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 5:01 am Post subject: |
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| I always tell my students the differences, but my school is focussed on Brit Eng. Which I speak anyway. |
I thought you were Australian. What town in Britian is your accent from?
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| This is only my experience of this matter and in no way represents the whole of Poland (before you lot start leaping down my throat) |
Why would anyone do that? This is not an emotinal issue for me. Someone recently said, on another thread, that one was better than another and I disagreed. I think both are equally valid.
You guys have me all wrong. You're entitled to your opinions and I'm entitled to mine.
I'm not anti-British in fact I can teach British just as comfortably as American. I just think that as teachers it's our job to expose our students to both by having them listen both accents (as well as Canadian, Kiwi, etc...).
In China the market isn't dominated by one type of English as it is in Poland.
So sometimes the book is American and sometimes it's British.
But I still try to teach my students to be able to understand both by playing cassettes from both traditions.
I can remember a Canadian telling his students, "The book says trousers but in modern English we say pants." (We used to say trousers until about the sixties.) Which I think is just wrong. I think we teachers have a certain amount of responsibilty to teach our students to be open minded about different forms of English.
To answer your question, yes there is a preference for British English in Poland.
But it's not the case for all students. I've had some students tell me they prefer American because the pronunciation and the accent is a lot easier to pick up.
Even Chinese students, who obviously have a completely different language, are able to pick up the American accent over time.
Yet, in my opinion I have never met a Pole that could speak with a convincing British accent, with the exception of one or two teachers who spent a lot of time working on phonetics.
Yet the door swings both ways, here in Shanghai (where the trends start for the rest of China) American English is becoming more and more dominant, especially in the area of business English.
Why? Not because one's better than the other, it's simply because US businesses are pouring into China by the boat load.
In fact recently I was asked to teach a group of businessmen who had said they wanted an American and as I'm the only American at my school the job was given to me. If they had replied that they didn't have any Americans I imagine our school would have lost the contract, because this company deals with American companies.
My point in my recent post, is that we should play fair and teach tolerance. Rather than trying to claim that, "My English is better than yours."
Unfortunately these kinds of debates usually turn into people waving around their form of English as if it were some sort of sports banner.
Good times.
Last edited by gregoryfromcali on Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Grrrmachine
Joined: 27 Jul 2005
Posts: 265
Location: Warsaw, Poland
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| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:51 am Post subject: |
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| gregoryfromcali wrote: |
| Unfortunately these kinds of debates usually turn into people waving around their form of English as if it were some sort of sports banner. |
That's just what I was getting at  The only way I flaunt English is by telling my students it's not French. |
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slodziak
Joined: 17 Oct 2005
Posts: 143
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:54 am Post subject: |
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I'm actually in the process of putting together a lesson for an advanced business goup which focuses on different kinds of English accent (they are a subsidary of a UK firm). At my disposal I have estuary English, Essex English and Geordie English (which could even be described as a dialect) + west coast American. It's not an easy lesson to plan. I'm not even sure why I am making this post. Maybe to show that Polish students are quite interested in accents. From my experience the only time they are bothered where their teacher's accent is from is before they start having lessons. They may request an American teacher or vice versa because they feel they will understand better but on meeting the teacher they soon forget they even had a preference.
My only issue with accent is that all British English textbooks have RP (or BBC English if you prefer) as their model for teaching pronunciation. I never used to question this but am beginning to wonder how useful or relevent this is for the student. As has already been mentioned very few Poles have an English English accent so it claerly isn't that effective. How about estuary English as a model? Who actually uses RP now? Even the Queen is sounding as if she has roots in Basildon. |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:05 am Post subject: |
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If your students lear to speak with a relatively neutral accent (something like RP or 'BBC' English) they will be understood wherever they go. If they talk with a strong regional accent then they may encounter difficulties in being understood by people from other regions.
Which would you prefer for your students? |
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slodziak
Joined: 17 Oct 2005
Posts: 143
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:13 am Post subject: |
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| Which would you prefer for your students? |
I don't think the estuary English accent is strong - it's the accent used by most journalists, and politicians now days. Tony Blair doesn't speak with RP neither does John Simpson (BBC journalist).
I would prefer my students to practice pronunciation at home on a CD with a living accent. It just seems to be more honest. |
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Grrrmachine
Joined: 27 Jul 2005
Posts: 265
Location: Warsaw, Poland
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| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:28 am Post subject: |
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Ive got a twang of the Estuary in my accent (the dropped "T" in "water" and "what?") and I make sure I tell my students this on their first class, which they appreciate. They also get told that Hugh Grant should be shot.
As for text books - ones like Market Leader and Headway include Anglo-American vocabulary lessons, although I do wonder why Oxford always use "-ize" instead of "-ise" (English File, Headway and Natural English are all 'guilty' of this.)
I think the argument towards a neutral accent is certainly valid; most Poles I teach have real trouble with the hard "o" sound (of "throw"), preferring their more natural "o" of "fog" (why cant we use phonetic script characters on this board?) Let alone the dramas that "th" produces... |
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zippy2k
Joined: 07 Sep 2005
Posts: 42
Location: Riyadh
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| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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Being from Belfast, I teach all my students to talk like Gerry Adams, or Ian Paisley, depending on whether they are left or right-wing in their politics respectively. So actually, that's Irish English and British English.
(Aye, right!)
The books I have been given to teach from here are overwhelmingly featuring "British English" in the listenings - Market Leader, Inside Out, etc. Plus I teach kids on the Cambridge Flyers syllabus so all their material is with a southern English accent. To me there is no precise definition of "British English" - there is rather "RP" and "everyone else".In terms of vocabulary I try to teach both but it seems the demand is for "British" as that's the "nationality" of most of the English exams Poles take(at least in my experiece of private language schools).
Havng said that, I'm currently teaching a Matura student using a Polish published text which features a Polish guy speaking, with his Polish accent. I don't discourage this at all, as long as the speaker is still intelligible. |
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cheeseandegg
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 58
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| Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Teaching using pronunciation exercises from coursebooks can be a nightmare for me. I find that I am unable to make the two 'u' sounds (bull, put, etc.). I also rarely pronounce the 'gh' sounds instead simply pronouncing them as 'v' and 'th' as 'f'. The 'schwa' sound is also something I find very unnatural. I don't know how to identify my style of English. I'm from Isle of Man so it's a micture of northern English and Irish. Thankfully no one has ever had problems understanding me and students appreciate my use of American vocabulary and spelling too. |
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gregoryfromcali
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Posts: 1207
Location: People's Republic of Shanghai
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| Teaching using pronunciation exercises from coursebooks can be a nightmare for me. |
Personally, I think there are a lot better ways to spend class time.
Usually, I'll just do a choral drill and have them repeat the new words with me. (I also teach them the British pronunciation for words like "tomato.") Then move onto something else.
Every once in a while, as follow up to a listening excerise I will focus on sentence stresses so that Poles will sound friendlier than they usually do.
As far as sounding like natives, I don't think it's really so important that we should dedicate hours of class time on it, I had pointed it out earlier to show that the "other" form of English is valid in that students do pick up the accent and nuances naturally and easily over time.
Yet now I can see that on this forum most teachers respect both traditions. I know I do, but not everyone else does.
It can be a little tougher for North Americans in Poland. When I first started teaching there I found that the students were less forgiving than with the British teachers. For example I had taught "gotten" as the third form of get (the same goes for Shakesphere) and then my students opened their book to see "got."
With time though as I gained experience it wasn't a problem. But it was a tough way to start.
Happy Easter.
Last edited by gregoryfromcali on Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:43 am Post subject: |
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| slodziak wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Which would you prefer for your students? |
I don't think the estuary English accent is strong - it's the accent used by most journalists, and politicians now days (sic). Tony Blair doesn't speak with RP neither does John Simpson (BBC journalist).
I would prefer my students to practice pronunciation at home on a CD with a living accent. It just seems to be more honest. |
"Most journalists and politicians" do not speak estuary English these days, although they may adopt certain small aspects of the accent when trying to appear demotic. John Simpson speaks with a fairly neutral accent. He would be recognised as an educated speaker of English and understood anywhere. Tony Blair speaks with quite a strange accent: Upper middle class ponce with an admixture of upper middle class ponce, occasionaly enlivened by Durham demotic.
Why on earth does your business class need a lesson on British regional accents? They are far too many and too varied to be taught in one lesson. Better simply to make your students aware of the variety of British accents and that many people speak very differently to the 'standard'.
If you were teaching a group of businessman about to be transferred to Newcastle for a year then teach them the basics of Geordie so that they can understand those around them. But a lesson on 'British regional accents' in general? Fine as an end of term or Friday afternoon wind-down fun lesson but of limited value when it comes to the real learning needs of a class of Polish businessmen.
Last edited by stillnosheep on Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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slodziak
Joined: 17 Oct 2005
Posts: 143
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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| "Most journalists and politicians" do not speak estuary English these days, although they may adopt certain small aspects of the accent when trying to appear demotic. |
Stillnosheep has hit on a good point about estuary English; it is in a sense undefinable and very open to individual interpretation. He noticed that journalists and politicians adopt small aspects of the accent - it will probably be quite difficult for him to define what he means. When I talk about estuary English I guess I'm coming from the angle descrbied by Trudgill in "Sociolinguistics" and defined by Roach in "English Phonetics and Phonology" -and even they aren't very specific; the best Roach can do is "the term should be used with care... the idea originates from sociolinguistic observation that some people in public life who would previously have been expected to speak with BBC (or RP) accent now find it acceptable to speak with characteristics of the accents of the London area (the estuary referred to is the Thames estuary), such as glottal stops, which in earlier times would have caused comment or disapproval."
Maybe in my first post I should have used Standard English (of which RP, estuary and just about any form of English which uses the type of grammar constructions advocated by text books are examples) as an example of what the pronunciation section of textbooks should be aiming at reproducing. By the way, I would be reluctant to call RP a "neutral" accent. The status accorded to RP by native speakers is anything but neutral. Maybe by neutral people mean Standard English.
Glad my observation has become a topic of debate though!
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| Why on earth does your business class need a lesson on British regional accents? |
Fair question and I guess as I said on this forum I was planning such a lesson I should have to defend my reasoning. Well, first of all, they requested it. They work in an environment where they have to communicate daily with people from all over the UK. Luckily one of the branches is in Newcastle. There are, however, branches in Halesowen, Leeds, York, Chester, London and Chelmsford. I realised that I would never be able to create a lesson that incorporates all aspects of British accent regional variation but I thought that as I had one or two different accents available to me I could create something fun and educational. I'm sure my lesson won't be definitive but I am answering their request and hopefully going someway of helping them with their problem.
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| Fine as an end of term or Friday afternoon wind-down fun lesson but of limited value when it comes to the real learning needs of a class of Polish businessmen |
You could be right but we'll see. Remember they are an advanced class and, if all goes to plan, they should at least feel more confident in picking up the phone and dealing with someone who has an accent different from mine, the RP or standard American English they were getting at school. When I'm finished I'll send you the lesson plan and you can make a less hasty judgment.
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| Polish businessmen |
Times are a changing. It's a group of Polish businesswomen. |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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Oh in that case send them to me. I can do estuary, York, Leeds and (at a fairly large pinch) Geordie.
I wish thee luck! |
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