Is there a way of teaching a regional accent to people learning English?

Answer 1

You can let a student of English soak up a regional accent by living in a place, but this often results in a half-half mixture of their own accent and the local one.
Many speech teachers can do the job significantly faster and more thoroughly, pinpointing exactly how individual pronounciations are formed in the mouth.
Actors who need to learn accents quickly and thoroughly use voice coaches (speech teachers by another name) to do the job. Think of Renee Zellwegger as Bridget Jones, or Meryl Streep in countless roles. Things have come a long way since the dire days of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins!


The Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama would be a good place to go for recommendations for teachers who can help:
http://www.stsd.org.uk/

Answer 2

If the Teacher has a strong regional accent then the pupil will use many of the accented words.

For instance School with a London accent is 'skule', but with a Scouse (liverpool) accent it's more 'sk-ewel'

Other than that, once the pupil has learnt English. Go to the area with the accent you want and spend about 10 years there. 1 mix of the original accent language with the new region!


:~}

Answer 3

Your question is very big because I do not understand if you are teaching beginners, intermediate or advanced speakers?!

For beginners and intermediate learners I think you should stick to a neutral accent so that they can learn more of the conversation such as vocabulary and some grammar.

Is your situation immersion? Such as the learners are in an English speaking country? If so, then it seems obvious that the teachers (who have grown up in the area) and the people around the students will be speaking their own dialect to them. Therefore, the students are going to pick that up.

Is your situation where you are teaching in another country (that doesn't speak English) and you're teaching English? I would suggest teaching a standard dialect for the beginning and intermediate.

For advanced learners or immersion you could examine songs, and literary works (Mark Twain works have many examples of Southern speech; Toni Morison gives many examples of African-American dialect). There are websites that the students can hear different dialects of English

International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA)

http://web.ku.edu/idea/europe/england/england.htm

Speech Samples

http://accent.gmu.edu/

Answer 4

Yes ,use someone who has the particular regional accent to teach the English.
I met a Frenchman several years ago who spoke English with a Scots accent because he`d learnt it from a Scottish person.

Answer 5

yes. Even as I type this response I Am doing my British accent. You have to tell them to study a given speakers mouth. Also, you have to practise in the mirror.

Answer 6

Just immerse them in that environment and think the accent comes to them naturally.

Answer 7

interesting question - i had this problem when learning French -Parisian accent was the norm . go to Nice though an they don't like it

Answer 8

get them taught by someone with that accent.

Answer 9

they need to live in the region to pick it up. it can't really be taught without sounding stupid.

Answer 10

of course it can be taught, what do you think actors do?