to find it hilarious that my daughter is ranked lowest in class for her accent by her language tutor?

[WestieMamma]

She is outraged. I can't stop laughing. She's just started training to be an English teacher here in Sweden. Her tutor says she has the worst, least authentic accent in the class, despite being one of the only native English speakers .

The top ranked is the other native speaker. He's a geordie. Apparently the fact that none of the Swedes can understand a word he says doesn't matter, it's the fact that he's consistent .

[burberryqueen]

On the boat from Newcastle to the continent recently, I spent a good 15 minutes listening to the workmen next to me having a conversation in what I thought was Dutch. I couldn't hear all the words but could hear the intonations and vowel sounds. They were Geordie
haha that is funny, the same ting happened to me, on a cross channel ferry as a teenager, i thought a group of children were German, and couldn't understand a word of it (from London me) ...after a while I realised they were indeed speaking English, Geordie English....

[FloweryOwl]

Haha in my British school my spanish teacher always hated me! She used to say I wasn't good at a Spanish accent and my pronunciation was all wrong. I lived in Spain for the first 11 years of my life! And my father and that side of my family are Spanish, she just hated me because I corrected her once because her Spanish was shite.

[SHarri13]

So when you hear a French/ Spanish/ German speaker would you native english speakers who say an accent hinders learning know thy your teacher had a local accent? Or would you just assume they were French/ Spanish/ German speakers?

[maddening]

but my teachers for French and German were English so we would have learnt French and German with an English accent - isn't that always the case when learning language - unless you learn by going and living there?

[froken]

I found a huge amount of accent snobbery in Sweden, I would get offered tutoring work just because a parent liked my queens English accent.

The Swedes also have lots of accent snobbery with Swedish accents ( actually maybe that is just in Stockholm) and god forbid you have aan immigrant Swedish accent!

[FloweryOwl]

My English native Spanish teacher learnt Spanish in Spain. She lived there for a while, that's how she decided my Spanish wasn't right. She didn't have a clue though, I can hear the differences in Spanish accents without a doubt. But according to her mine was wrong.

[LessMissAbs]

Listen to this north east accent (not Geordie but definitely Scandinavian influenced) and you might see why they are so comfortable with the Geordie accent:

www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/england/wearhead/

[NomDeClavier]

SHarri I don't think it hinders learning as long as the accent is consistent. It dies depend on the amount of external support the teacher is using too - if you've adapted to your German teacher's Bavarian accent and when you read German you hear/say the Bavarian pronunciation than that's hunky dory, until 25% of the lesson is based on a recording of someone with an accent from Hamburg. It's about relative exposure as well, and RP was preferred for English teachers because most tests and teaching material were based on RP. Now that's shifted to more American accents, and lots of teachers use American source material, and it's shifting again with the TOEIC listening paper using (Americanised) speakers who have different accents, but very rarely thick regional dialects.

So there isn't a problem in principle of not having a neutral accent. The problems come when learned are exposed to many, many different accents and can't get a handle on what is being said.

[LadyInDisguise]

I agree. Strong accent that are different from the one used with recording etc can hinder learning.
I've had one teacher with a very strong american accent whilst we were using tape with the RP accent. It was a nightmare.
The first time I had her was in (the equivalent) of Y7. I was completely at loss. The second time I had her, I was 16yo and then understood why the first year had been so hard. It took us all in the class (some of us were nearly fluent by that time!) about 3 months to be able to understand her. I also remember that she was getting very cross that we couldn't answer her questions because we hadn't a clue what she was asking for.
And years and years later, I realized I had learnt some 'weird' pronunciations too. eg I have saying 'apple' the american away, not the english way (a as if it was the letter 'A' not as the sound a iyswim).

However, what the OP is talking about is different. It's one teacher being more at ease with an accent that isn't easy to understand if you have learnt RP english because it feels familiar to him. I would dread having to have a conversation with someone who has learnt english with a geordie accent (as a non native english speaker). I mean I have been living in the north east for years now and still struggle with a strong geordie accent (and similar strong accents from that area tbh)

[cory]

burberryqueen Mon 02-Sep-13 12:14:59
"all this stuff about accents and English teaching is nonsense, your average student cannot even hear the difference an American/English/Irish/etc accent, let alone reproduce it."

Isn't the point rather that they won't get to hear the "neutral" sound they are supposed to be reproducing. So insofar as they reproduce anything it will be an accent that would be fine for a native speaker but will get them laughed at when they go to London for a conference.

If we did not believe students capable of reproducing any sound at all there would be little point in teaching them a foreign language in the first place. But they can only reproduce sounds they have heard.

Of course the teacher was wrong to praise the student with the Geordie accent. Same rules should apply even more strongly to accents that are difficult to understand.

[QuintessentialOldDear]

I will never forget the tour-guide we had in some remote point of archaeological interest some place in Egypt eons ago. Goodness knows where she had learnt English, poor soul, but she was swearing like a fishwife. I dont know if she realized what "fucking" and "hell" even meant, being a native Egyptian who had never set foot outside Egypt. She did not understand our facial expressions at all, as we all looked bemused and bewildered. It is not as if she was angry, or anything, every 4-5 sentences included swearwords.

As a Norwegian I have to be very careful with how I speak. Including a "bath" pronounced the northern way, into a sentence that is otherwise pretty neutral as far as accents go, will sound totally ridiculous.

[WilsonFrickett]

It won't sound totally ridiculous, it will simply sound like a northern 'a' sound. I think your comment is very snobbish, tbh.

My Borders buddy has a mix of standard Scots (from Edinburgh) Geordie (because she lived in Newcastle for a while) and Borders (because that's where she grew up) including a flat 'a' and she doesn't sound ridiculous. She just sounds like her. Very few native speakers have 'pure' accents any more (just listen to the youth with the upward inflections? At the end of their sentences?) - accents, like language, aren't fixed.

[QuintessentialOldDear]

But your friend is British, and that is the whole point!

[MurderOfGoths]

"Isn't the point rather that they won't get to hear the "neutral" sound they are supposed to be reproducing. "

Is there actually a neutral sound though? Obviously, being born in Berkshire I like to pretend I have no accent and that it's all the other weirdos, but it's not actually true.

[burberryqueen]

in my extensive ELT experience students do not end up sounding like their teachers, ever, unless perhaps they have the same teacher ffrom beginning to end which is rare.
the trainer 'rating' accents sounds like a tool and an unprofessional one at that

[QuintessentialOldDear]

Most foreigners are trying to speak the best English they can. They want to be grammatically and linguistically correct. They try to stay away from slang, from certain colloquialisms, such as "Innit", which is a not just very much a London sound, but a very "native" sound.

Most of us will be unable to shift or let go of our accents, I do sound Norwegian, or at least Scandinavian when I speak. You can easily distinguish a Polish from a French person from their accents, in the same way as you can distinguish a foreigner from a native English speaker.

Wanting to communicate correctly and be understood by native English speakers and foreigners alike is not snobbery. It is just a realization that our own foreign accents coupled with a mix of regional variations will make us sound ridiculous, and stand out in ways we dont want to stand out.

Have you noticed the way people correct grammar on this site? And pick on posters' use of English or their literacy skills?

This happens real life, too, you know.
I have lost count of how many people will actually stop me mid sentence to point out a pronunciation error, such as "Quint, you know you dont pronounce the L in salmon, you say sammon" etc. Or, "Quint, in London we say baarth not beth, in case you had not noticed". Etc Or just the word pronounced correctly, slowly, repeatedly.

I am shocked that so many native English speakers get their knickers in a twist and see it as "snobbery" when foreigners want to speak a consistent clear English, rather than pick and mix various accents happily. We just dont want to be judged, and laughed at.

[NomDeClavier]

But why, Burberry? Have you never as a teacher evaluated accents? This doesn't sound like a CELTA course, this is majority very advanced learners of English training to teach it in their own country as a second language. It stands to reason that they are likely to have a few words/phonemes that are troublesome. The only way they're going to have those picked up on and improved is if their own English is assessed.

And of course students pick up bits of pronunciation from their teachers. Towards the end of a year I often notice a shift towards my accent, particularly on vocab covered that year. I could also pinpoint pretty accurately who had spent which semester with which of my colleagues because specific areas of vocabulary had a slightly Scots or Irish tinge. I didn't correct them and insist on them pronouncing it 'my' way but it was there. I could also tell which ones can from the one lycée in the region with a native speaker of American English!

If this were a thread about a native speaker of English doing a degree/PGCE to be a French teacher in the UK we wouldn't bat an eyelid about their French, including their accent, being worked on. It's slightly ironic that the OP's DD is a native speaker but it sounds like their marking criteria isn't really set up to accommodate a blended, but perfectly authentic, accent. The point is a serious one - students are going to struggle if they can't understand a word she says and if the accent is wildly inconsistent they won't be Abel too because they won't be able to spot the patterns.

Can the course teachers actually understand her?

[Badgerwife]

Very interesting thread. I am French and was taught English in my last year of high-school by a French lady with the absolute worst French accent in the world, think pepe le pew (sic). I was good at English even then and could not take her seriously, she was so utterly hopeless. She marked me down all the time because of 'lack of engagement' with her class. I was also taking an advanced class with another teacher and got top marks there. it's not quite the same as being taught by a native, which I would have preferred by a long shot. It wouldn't have been such a shock when I moved to England later and spent three months not understanding a single word.

[JustBecauseICan]

All my students end up with a Nottingham accent.

They are going to model what they hear. And if Nottingham is it, then that is what they will produce. Obviously.

Another head-palm anecdote for you. dd is bilingual Italian-English. Her English teacher who misses out the verb "to be" in a sentence where she puts an 's possessive because she thinks it's the same thing gave her a poor mark in English because "she needs to speak more slowly because the other children don't understand her".

No shit Sherlock.

[WilsonFrickett]

Well Quint I must stand corrected because I would never correct anyone's pronounciation that way and I never correct grammar here unless the post is about grammar. How rude!

[QuintessentialOldDear]

[ouryve]

Geordie and Swedish have a somewhat similar lilt to them, which is probably why her accent is easier on the ear to the English teacher!

My accent would be confusing. I've lived all over the country and don't have a strongly identifiable single English accent. Living on Tyneside for 15 years has put a bit of that into my accent, but it's toned down in the 10 years since I moved a few miles South, into Billy Elliot territory. My family is from Hull, and I lived there on and off, in my childhood, with a 5 year stint in the Midlands in my teens! My ex's different yet again accent has also influenced mine a little.

[ouryve]

Quintessential - if someone in London told me I should be saying "baarth* I'd give them the look and tell them they were surely having a "laff".

[MissHC]

I get weird looks all the time. Dutch/Flemish native, studied and then worked in Newcastle for 3 years, DP is from Sunderland. Moved to London 3 years ago.

Parts of my English accent are Geordie/Mackem, part of it apparently sounds Irish (sometimes struggle with the "r") and most of it fairly standard English as learnt in school. The Geordie/Mackem is a bit less obvious now after living "down south" for 3 years. When I started my new job in London just after moving my colleagues where "but I thought you were Belgian?? Where on earth did you find a Belgian Geordie?

Re the Geordie accent - it took me at least 3 months after moving to Newcastle to understand the locals. I totally agree that teachers should have quite a standard accent - i.e. one that all native speakers can understand. So NOT a thick Geordie although a slight northern accent would be fine IMO.

[vikinglights]

accents are a funny thing
my kids english is a strange beast, with a mother with a VERY softened geordie accent, a norwegian father, and regularly speaking english with canadians....

The strangest one though was meeting a little girl who was growing up in california with a norwegian mother. The mother spoke very definately one norwegian dialect (trøndersk) whereas the child for some unfathomable reason spoke reasonable norwegian but with a very pronounced accent of someone from much further north (nordlending). Twas bizarre...