Would you accept a non-native English speaker to criticize your English accent and pronounciation?

Question

I recently resided in Asia and teaching English here. Got lots of criticism and troubles about my Canadian accent. For example, will you put the stress on the 1st syllable for MIS~chievous? Or will you say "Have a good rest!" to your students before you call it for a day? That's totally bizarre for me!

Answer 1

"I recently resided in Asia and teaching English here."

Hmmmm... strange use of the past simple and present progressive there. I'd love to know how you could explain that sentence to your students.

I would be hesitant to allow my students to correct my pronunciation, unless I knew they had experience in another English-speaking country. When I was teaching in Europe my students often questioned my Canadian pronunciation and countered it with the UK pronunciation. I had no problems with that. As for expressions like "Have a good rest", I would only permit that if I knew they were going home for a short nap!

The world of ESL teaching is really having to adapt to new ideas about pronunciation and language acquisition, in that a lot of students want to learn English but they want to sound like Koreans or Italians when they speak it. As long as their pronunciation doesn't prevent the listener from understanding the meaning, you may wish to consider letting it slide. In your Needs Analysis at the beginning of the course, you can discuss pronuncation with the students and see which method they'd prefer.

Answer 2

dont worry the asians doesn't like anyone whose english is better
so dont bother about it
the accent is ok and the pronunciation is ok too it doesn't matter that u speak tothem in australian or with a british accent but the grammar has tobe focused on
i think u shud use those words and lines which r commonly used in that country so that the students dont feel totally alienated it wud be good if u learn a couple of their typical phrase it helps u alot
dont worry u and the students will get used to each other
as mine have after 5 months!!!!!

Answer 3

I speak what is regarded as Standard English in the U.S., but I live in the South. My husband has been speaking some form of English since he was 6, and since he's been married to an English teacher, he has gotten brutal accent lessons. Consequently, he can reasonably cringe at the "native" speakers around here, whose dialect is often unintelligible to his English-as-a-Foreign-Language, married-to-an-English-teacher mind.

I think "Have a good rest" is perhaps awkwardly phrased, but you will note the principal pronunciation, the most commonly accepted one what is listed first, DOES in fact espouse the pronunciation of mishchievous that you find unusual.

Answer 4

I'm British and teach American English in Brasil, nice to have two accents hehehe! My students often tell me that they find it easier to understand my pronounciation and accent than the model they listen to on the media. Generally I don't get complaints about my accent but more about phrasal verbs etc. The students here try to translate them and then find that in Brasilian Portuguese there is no match for the phrase.

Answer 5

Absolutely! Grammar is grammar, whether you learn English as a first language or one thereafter. Oftentimes, ESOL folks have a better handle on grammar than those of us whose first language is English.