What should we teach: American English or British English?

Question

Hi All,So many students in my groups have an American pronunciation of lots of words, like basket = (baeskit). I think I understand why: the influence of songs and TV.Should I accept this American pronunciation? - correct it? - or: point out that the British pronounce a word differently + tell how?Arthur

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Hi All, So many students in my groups have an American pronunciation of lots of words, like basket = (baeskit). ... this American pronunciation? - correct it? - or: point out that the British pronounce a word differently + tell how?[/nq]
Since considerably more native speakers of Englsih speak with an American accent (indeed probably a majority), why on earth should you want to force people to use British pronunciation if their English pronunciation is already understandable? The key thing is to get your students to pronounce English so taht they can be easily understood by other speakers of English, native and non-native alike, no matter wzhere they come from.
You should expose your students to as many major varieties of spoken English as possible, including regional accents, so that they can easily understand native speakers, very few of whom speak with a British accent, by which I presume you mean a standard British English accent - what used ot be called Oxford or BBC English. I saw a statistic recently which suggested that only about 2% of British English speakers actually speak with this accent, even if it is the basis for the pronunciation given in British dictionaries. Most of the rest of the inhabitants of Britain speak with a regional accent that deviates to a greater or lesser extent from the standard.
In exposing people to various accents you will probably have to explain cxases where the pronunciation varies from the standard you are using, e.g. words like "controversy" or "schedule" - although there is now considerable variation in the pronunciation of these two words among speakers of standard British English - just as you may have to explain difference in vocabulary, e.g. "subway", "pavement" and many other words too numerous to mention. But then there are also regional differences of vocabulary within Britain too.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Hi All, So many students in my groups have an American pronunciation of lots of words, like basket = (baeskit). ... this American pronunciation? - correct it? - or: point out that the British pronounce a word differently + tell how?[/nq]
The only time I correct pronunciation is when the student's pronunciation confuses listeners, as it would if someone pronounced "live" in "Where do you live?" as "leave", which Taiwanese students sometimes do. Whether a student has a British or Australian or North American accent is usually of no consequence. More important is that they are understood.
If you're supposed to teach a particular British English pronunciation, however, then it's necessary to correct the students' pronunciation. It is always a point of interest for students to learn that different varieties of English have different pronunciations, but it's always best to avoid the error of believing and, especially, teaching students that one variety is inherently superior to all the others.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Hi All, So many students in my groups have an American pronunciation of lots of words, like basket = (baeskit). ... American pronunciation? - correct it? - or: point out that the British pronounce a word differently + tell how? Arthur[/nq]
Where are you teaching?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Hi All, So many students in my groups have an ... the British pronounce a word differently + tell how? Arthur[/nq]
[nq:1]Where are you teaching?[/nq]
I am teaching in The Netherlands
Arthur

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Where are you teaching?[/nq]
[nq:1]I am teaching in The Netherlands[/nq]
This changes absolutely nothing with regard to my previous comments. However, as somebody who does oral exams for the Cambridge syndicate, teh main British testing organisation, I would like to point out that our guidelines on pronunciation and vocabulary direct us to accept both British and American usage -and indeed any other standard form of English. Among our excaminers here are nyative speakers from Australia, several different parts of Britain, the USA, Canada, South Africa and Ireland.
We often have to correct the prejudices of German teachers who argue that British English is somehow innately superior to any other form. One of my colleagues, an American who is actually involved in treacher training for primary and secondary teachers, told me that she once had a stand-up row with her daughter's English teacher because the teachers told the class to avoid copying the daughter's pronunciation as it was "inferior" - I believe that was the actual word used.

This sort of rubbish is something that we as English teachers should vehemently oppose, redardless of where we come from ourselves. If for various reasons people insist on learning a particular pronunciation then they should go to an experienced elocution teacher. Our job - and our training - equips us to help people to acquire the language, not a particular accent. Indeed if anything, people tend to copy our acccent rather than the one on the cassettes.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I am teaching in The Netherlands[/nq]
[nq:1]This changes absolutely nothing with regard to my previous comments. However, as somebody who does oral exams for the Cambridge ... not a particular accent. Indeed if anything, people tend to copy our acccent rather than the one on the cassettes.[/nq]
Amen, Einde.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]This changes absolutely nothing with regard to my previous comments. ... copy our acccent rather than the one on the cassettes.[/nq]
[nq:1]Amen, Einde.[/nq]
Your message is absolutely clear to me, and I agree completely with it. Thank you and, indeed, AMEN.
Arthur

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I hate to be the spanner in the works here, but this subject is near and dear to my heart. As most of you know, I am an American working in Greece.
The majority of Greeks in Greece insist on the innate superiority of British English to American English. There are many reasons for this, but most of them have to do with the fact that a cetain amount of anti-Americanism permeates the culture here. The Brits are also disliked (don't get me wrong), but the prejudice is much stronger against Those Who Have Come From Across The Great Waters.

A large number of Greek upper middle class university students go to Britain for a year for postgraduate training. When they return, they often find employment easier and end up in positions of power. It may have to do with the real or snob value of a one-year UK education, with superior upbringing, with the better connections their better-off families have, or whatever. It's a simple cultural given here. Go to the UK, get a better job more easily.
So we have a relatively sizeable number of people who have some inkling of how things are said and written in Britain, or at least how they WERE said or written at some fixed year in the past.
This creates a dilemma for my students. The following hypothetical situation will illustrate it better.
Say I have a student working in an entry-level position in a bank. The manager has done an MA program

in the UK. Now, say, my student, with a BA and certified at Cambridge ESOL Advanced Level (CEF C1, somewhere around 525/213 TOEFL, 800 TOEIC) is tapped to do a quick translation for her boss. My student writes "skillful" in her work, not knowing any better, and the male manager, always on the alert for ways to asset his superiority over his female subordinates, taps on the paper when he sees it.
"This isn't English," he smugly declares. A small smirk. "This is American! They don't speak English: they speak...well, they have degraded and bastardized the language into nothing more than a cheap, low patois. I'VE been to Britain. They write 'skilful'. That is what is correct."
I actually heard a Greek bank employee with barely comprehensible pronunciation in English voice this attitude to a customer a few years back. The customer, being wholly ignorant of English, nodded in agreement. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

OK, in my hypothetical situation, the manager is clearly a low pig, the student is an idiot for believing him, and the society is full of contemptibly ignorant notions of language for condoning this kind of attitude, but is it our job as teachers to simply judge them all from our higher moral ground and move on?
Not to get into high language theory here, but people do use language as a cultural indicator. It divides as well as unites. In my view, the best thing to do in my kind of situation (and similar situations exist worldwide), is to teach as much English as possible. That is to say, where I recognize markedly British forms, to teach them as British and where I know language items are markedly American, to label them likewise. Another part of this is being deliberately consistent in my language choices. This is far, far more important in the writings skill than in any of the other three.
Granted, I cannot become perfect at recognizing these forms, but a few hundred bucks invested in usage manuals and computer resources, some basic computer corpora training, and hours of reading, asking and answering questions have given me quite a leg up on the competition.

There is also another aspect of the profession here to consider. Our willingness to expose the fact that English is spoken differently by different members of our language community and the fact that we know enough about the language to comment on it and back up our comments with references to authoritative printed materials raises our student's confidence in us to an enormous degree. Once again, not to get into high theory, but this lowers student's resistence to accepting our language input and corrections. The theory is called lowering the level of the (socio-) affective filter.
I don't think I'm missing the point here, but if I am, please, feel free to tell me. It would be a relief from all this writing and reading.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I hate to be the spanner in the works here, but this subject is near and dear to my heart. ... (don't get me wrong), but the prejudice is much stronger against Those Who Have Come From Across The Great Waters.[/nq]
I still maintain that our training as English teachers enables us to help people to learn English as a language, not any particular version or accent. Indeed my experience is that people tend to copy the pronunciation of the teacher rather than any of the accents they may hear on the cassette/CD. In my case this is now a slightly rhotic mixture of southern British English and my native generic Irish accent (as a child I lived in different parts of the country so I haven't had a regional irish accent since my early childhood), which my English-speaking friends refer to as my English teacher's accent, but because it's slightly rhotic some German's mistake for an American accent, particularly because of my slightly rhotic accent when speaking German.
If people need for cultural or other reasons to speak with a particular accent, then the only thing I can suggest is that these people should spend some time living in that country or approach an elocution teacher with experience of that accent.
I don't think you alone will be able to do anything about this. it might, of course, help a little if you change your accent with the help of an elocution teacher - just living in britain is no great help for Americans. Among my friends in England are several Americans who've lived in Britain for over 30 years, including some who've become so accultured that they've become fanatical cricket fans, and yet they only have to opßen their mouths to stand out as Americans.

For written English I would suggest a bit of cultural awareness training that includes the differences in vocabulary, "subway", "pavement" etc., although except for some key words like those I've just mentioned the vocabulary is much more internationalised than it used to be, particularly among younger people. The key problem for sticklers tends to be spelling - the simplest way of resolving that is to use the Word spell-checker facility after setting the language for the variety of English you need - for once give you a wide range to choose from. This will catch any words that slip through a visual check and will insist that you use the ending "-ise" instead of "-ize" in British English.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

What should we teach: American English or British English?

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