[etni] Re: Standard English

  • From: Doron Narkiss <doron.narkiss@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: etni.list@xxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:32:58 +0200

To add my 2 grush:
Vee argh Izraeliz, end vee dont hev to spik (or teach) BBC, or any other
kind of English *accent*. Now *pronunciation* is a different matter - of
course our students need to know, sound and hear the difference between
"bad" and "bed", "cat" and "cut", etc. But let's not take our biases to the
absurd: as Barry notes, each one of us feels that his or her *accent* is the
correct one - yanks, brits, aussies and sith ifricans - and secretly look
down on everyone who doesn't sound like us. But we have no right,
pedagogically speaking, to force our students to speak like us. If your
students (or their parents) want to sound like Americans, let them listen
to, mouth and mimic Britney Spears. We have enough to do in the classroom
without this.
On a different level, this whole discussion is disrespectful to the many
excellent English teachers whose mother tongue is not English: are they less
good teachers because they have other accents? Why is okay to speak Hebrew
with an appalling anglo-accent, but not okay to speak english with a
russian, hebrew, or arabic one? The world has moved on since BSE - British
Standard English - was the only standard, and not only at the BBC.

As my esteemed lecturer, Prof. Yael Ziv of the English Department at Hebrew
U., once said: listen to what I say, not to how I say it. Would that we
could all follow her advice.

Doron


-- 
 Dr. Doron Narkiss
Department of English
Kaye College



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