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Dipso
Joined: 28 Apr 2004
Posts: 194
Location: England
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 Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| East Midlands, actually. Still, not a bad guess given that you haven't heard me speak! |
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ndorfn
Joined: 15 Mar 2005
Posts: 126
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| Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:12 am Post subject: |
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should definitely explain the difference in accents. I always do it in the first lesson with new students. I'm australian, I write up ABC on the board, plus "today", monday tuesday etc.
after a while they get the hang of the "a" sound. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:34 am Post subject: |
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Strange, noticed my earlier post was deleted  . I simply pointed out that variations in N. American accents would make it impossible to label those accents as boring and/or flat.
Accents definately falls into the pronunciation area, and certainly for students who have contact with various people from all over or who plan to travel to certain countries, it is very useful to be aware of the differences (just as it is useful to know some vocabulary and phrasal differences) so as to make it easier to understand and communicate. |
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luckyloser700
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 308
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:59 am Post subject: Re: Do students have difficulty with your accent? |
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| Like a Rolling Stone wrote: |
When I firts strated teaching I was telling my students that I went to see a castle and none of them understood what I meant. Their previous teacher was American and they didn't know the English way to pronounce "castle". When i repeated my story with American pronounciation of castle then they said "oh, castle". There have been many instances like this where my accent was difficult to understand. 
Do you think we should make our students more aware of differences in accents? |
You can burn a lot of time in class talking about different pronunciations and the like. When I've finished lessons early, I've used talking about different accents as a way to fill the remaining time. Students always seem to be interested in the subject, but often become overly concerned with it and sometimes frustrated. If one teaches at an eikaiwa school, he/she should leave accents alone for the most part (of course, a new teacher should always help students become used to his/her accent). They should be focused on in a specialized class. ALT's have no business talking about such things unless the Japanese teacher of English asks them to. University teachers can waste time in their classes in whatever ways they see fit to. |
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bassnyc1
Joined: 21 Sep 2005
Posts: 7
Location: NYC
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| Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 5:20 am Post subject: |
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I often have to (at least partially) try to mask my accent so my students will understand. If I speak naturally in my thick, Italian-American Brooklynese accent, most TEACHERS can't understand what I'm saying!!! The funniest thing is that most students usually compliment my accent as being easy to understand?!?!
Unfortunately, Japanese students understand North American accents better in general. This is just what I have noticed in my 8 years of teaching. I think it's because of movies and other forms of media. I must admit I feel quite guilty about this because the language is English, which comes from England, not the United States.
Speaking naturally to students vs. speaking slowly and carefully (artificially) to students. I still can't decide which is better but ultimately, I prefer speaking a bit slower on purpose so that communication can be established between me and the student(s)
I guess whatever works.................... |
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kdynamic
Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 562
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 9:44 am Post subject: |
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| bassnyc1 wrote: |
Speaking naturally to students vs. speaking slowly and carefully (artificially) to students. I still can't decide which is better but ultimately, I prefer speaking a bit slower on purpose so that communication can be established between me and the students. |
I feel bad about it, but I speak reeeeeeaaaalllllly dumbed down simple slow overly articulated English to all my adult students. I want them to get used to natural English, but honestly, they just can't understand a word I say if I speak normally, or even anything close to normally. Even with my friends who want to speak English with me... They can't handle anything close to real English. i have only met one or two japanese people who can. I do feel bad though, since I know they want to practice. |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:52 am Post subject: |
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| Know what you mean there. Even the Japanese English teachers at my school have no idea what i'm saying if I slip into my normal English for just a simple phrase. They probably think that my clear speech is my normal one. I only teach kids so I try to be as natural as possible so that they pick up a strong Brighton accent. |
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Like a Rolling Stone
Joined: 27 Mar 2006
Posts: 872
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| Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:59 am Post subject: |
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| japanman wrote: |
| Know what you mean there. Even the Japanese English teachers at my school have no idea what i'm saying if I slip into my normal English for just a simple phrase. They probably think that my clear speech is my normal one. I only teach kids so I try to be as natural as possible so that they pick up a strong Brighton accent. |
Wow! this has been interesting.  |
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