Accented speakers syndrome

Gayathri Wijekoon

About two weeks back I happened to meet with two English language teachers from a very prestigious Ivy League university in New Jersey. They teach International Grad students. This university of course is very much a “traditional institution” and I am not surprised by what I am going to write about what happened there, not surprised and not happy either. This is nothing new by the way. It is worthwhile sharing because, although we’re used to this, it is still amusing.

The purpose of our visit there was to discuss with them about their English Language Programs. They teach English to international graduate level students who are enrolled in their university. These students, at least most of them are Teaching Assistants in their university, which means they teach undergraduates. In explaining their language program one of the teachers emphasized the importance of teaching them pronunciation.

I had a question for her. “Do you think it’s important to teach them an ‘American accent?’ They come from different societies and they speak different varieties of English, so obviously they have their own way of pronouncing.” “We never try to teach them an accent, but we work on pronunciation,” was her response.

Can accent exist without pronunciation? Isn’t accent about how you pronounce words, the intonations, the stresses? So how does she teach them pronunciation, what to stress – she stressed it that she teaches stress and it was stressful listening to her – the intonations and not teach accent?

“Do you think teaching them how to pronounce the way you do is important?” I asked. “Yes, they are teachers and when accented speakers (note her choice of words-accented speakers) teach our undergrads it might take them (the undergrads) a long time to get used to their accents and understand them, in that process they miss out a lot!”

I seriously wish I had more time for a better discussion, but unfortunately we had limited time. So who are these accented speakers? To her, accented speakers are people whom she considers incomprehensible or difficult to understand. By this definition she excludes herself and those who speak ‘American English’ from other varieties of English. Besides, she implied that US students are not ready to spend their time trying to understand different kinds of Englishes.

Consequently it is up to the Teaching Assistants, the international teachers to spend their time - although they most probably could be even busier than undergraduates, the majority of them being PHD students - learning the American way of pronunciation. If this is practical I wonder why we do not employ the same method in Sri Lanka? For instance, a colleague of mine is a Teaching Assistant from the US. Her first language is ‘American English’ and she teaches English to Sri Lankan undergraduates, but she is not required to take classes in learning how to speak English the Sri Lankans way, so that it will save our students time and effort. How ironical the Ivy League excuse is!

From her face I realized that she did not like my question, and now you know what her responses were. As I have mentioned in the beginning this is nothing new or unexpected. However, such baseless thinking of experienced university lecturers who have served years, in so called world’s best universities, make you think twice about taking all that trouble in pursuing higher studies in their universities, especially when you know that you are either an accented speaker, non-native speaker or non-speaker for that matter, in their eyes.