Attitudes toward diverse English accents among Japanese elementary school students

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores Japanese elementary school students’ attitudinal responses toward diverse English accents presented in their multimodal course material. In the study, 86 sixth‐grade students (m = 48, f = 38) watched four self‐introduction videos representing Inner Circle and Expanding Circle accent varieties and rated the comprehensibility of each accent using 7‐point Likert‐type scales. In addition, they answered questions about proximity to their own accent and desirability as a learning model. Significant results suggest two major contradictions from previous studies; (1) that the White male American‐English speaker was rated least comprehensible among the four; (2) that the participants did not base their appraisal on closeness to a “native‐speaker” model in evaluating the idealness of an accent as a learning model. Based on the findings, I discuss the possible relationship between extended exposure and enhanced comprehensibility, the absence of “native‐speaker” benchmark among novice learners, and novice learners’ agency as an English user.