The evaluation of lecturers' nonnative-accented English: Dutch and German students' evaluations of different degrees of Dutch-accented and German-accented English of lecturers in higher education

Abstract

The increase in non-native English (NNE) instructors involved in English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has led to growing concerns about the evaluation of lecturers' NNE accents. Potentially important considerations that have largely been unexplored thus far are the impact of lecturers' accent strength and of shared L1 background between lecturers and students. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how Dutch and German students evaluate Dutch and German lecturers with moderate and slight non-native English accents in terms of speaker competence and likeability, teaching quality and intelligibility. In an experiment, 293 Dutch students and 274 German students evaluated fragments recorded by moderately accented, slightly accented Dutch and German speakers and native English speakers. Findings showed that, generally, lecturers with moderate non-native English accents were evaluated less positively whereas lecturers with slight non native English accents were evaluated similarly to lecturers with native English accents. The Dutch moderately accented speakers were evaluated more positively than the German moderately accented speakers. The findings indicate that it is advisable for NNE lecturers involved in EMI to engage in pronunciation training to minimize features of a moderate non-native accent and that it is important to challenge nonnative students' ideas about pronunciation standards.