Pants On Fire!
Okay, okay, hiatus, hi-schamtus…
Apologies, eh?
I dug up one of those things I was rabbiting on about in my previous post. It’s a hardcore linguistics research program so as I said previously, I’m not sure I’d use it tons in class. But for what it’s worth…
Check it out: Sound Comparisons
Look in the right-hand column and you’ll see a list of example words. You’ll want to click one of these. This will bring up a grid with examples from a staggering set of English accents (both current and historic).
Hovering your mouse over the hyperlink should activate the audiofile example.
Now, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the Super-Linguistics-Nerds’ phonemic script
attached (yeah, um… that’s the official, academic nomenclature, incidentally)…
And I certainly wouldn’t be discussing it with students if you do decide to send them here.
But where I find this site potentially applicable is in dismissing the notion that you can learn “American English” or “British English” or “Australian English” and so on.
Now, I don’t deny that these varieties of English exist, of course. Nor do I deny that there are distinct differences in accent.
It has been my experience, though, that students seem to think that there’s “a” British accent, or “an” American accent–when clearly if they thought about it for more than 10-freakin’ seconds they’d realise that this is not the case.
So showing them “in living color” (to grossly and unashamedly butcher and expression) might well assist in dispelling that myth.
Somewhat.
Maybe.
On a more practical level…
If you actually work in ESL, as opposed to EFL, as I assume most readers of this blog do, you may well be able to find a set of very useful examples from the local-ish accent and use these in class with your (presumably migrant) students.
You might also use this website to contrast what they hear everyday in their workplaces, for example, with what they hear in textbooks and in movies.
Simply being able to hear the differences between the sounds and then “compartmentalise” them may well help them cope better in their everyday interactions with locals.
Dunno. I’m an EFL teacher.
And I wouldn’t think to use this site extensively in an EFL classroom. It would simply be an awareness-raising tool for me.
I would, however, love to know how you’d use it or, indeed, whether you think it’s useful at all!
Cheers,
P.S. Will post again in a couple of days regarding the brief chat I had with the teacher who was having trouble getting her students involved in lessons. Til then!
