Introducing World Englishes Accents to Elementary School Learners

Panisara Sriwang ,Denchai Prabjandee ,Punwalai Kewara

doi:10.7176/jep/11-33-19

Abstract

Exposing learners to various accents is important in the age of globalization since it prepares learners to communicate with sociolinguistic reality outside the classroom. This research aimed to investigate the effects of teaching World Englishes accents on learners’ intelligibility and attitudes towards learning English. The study was conducted at a private elementary school in Chonburi province, Thailand. The participants were 34 elementary school learners, who enrolled in the English club. The study used a mixed-methods approach to guide the data collection and analysis. Three World Englishes accents were included in the instruction (English, Filipino and Chinese) because they were the accents available outside the classrooms. After the instruction, the learners were interviewed to explore their attitudes toward learning English. The findings indicated that the learners’ intelligibility score after receiving the accent instruction was significantly higher than before the instruction. The interview also indicated the learners reported having positive attitudes toward learning English and the World Englishes accents. Keywords: World Englishes accents, elementary school learners DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-33-19 Publication date: November 30 th 2020

Highlights

Introduction of World Englishes accentsIn this step, the learners were asked to listen actively to the vocabulary pronounced with three different accents (British, Filipinno, and Chinese)
Based on the global spread of English, it is safe to say that the status of English has truly become a global language being the official language of the international and multinational industries, and the language of Internet (Crystal, 2003)
When English users become more diverse, the English language is spoken in various accents from different parts of the world (Sung, 2016)

Summary

Introduction

In this step, the learners were asked to listen actively to the vocabulary pronounced with three different accents (British, Filipinno, and Chinese). Based on the global spread of English, it is safe to say that the status of English has truly become a global language being the official language of the international and multinational industries, and the language of Internet (Crystal, 2003) It is a truly global language since approximately 1.5 billion people across the planet speak English, representing 20 English users worldwide (Crystal, 2003). Of these speakers, Crystal (2003) estimated that 375 million people are native English speakers, and 1.2 billion people are non-native English speakers. When English users become more diverse, the English language is spoken in various accents from different parts of the world (Sung, 2016)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion