Need help to teach ESL Indian Students

[1praveen1]

Dear All'
I have an ESL Class in INDIA Named Raj Spoken English class in Bhilai-Durg-Raipur and I use to write some article for that like the use of could
use of can
so I want to teach us accent to my students if anyone has ESL materials to teach us or UK accent so kindly help me.

Regards

Praveen

 

[jutfrank]

Training your students to speak with a US accent is probably the last thing you should be worrying about.

 

[emsr2d2]

[STRIKE]Dear All'[/STRIKE] Hello everyone.

I have an ESL Class in [STRIKE]INDIA[/STRIKE] India, named Raj Spoken English class in Bhilai-Durg-Raipur and I use to write some article for that like theuse of could
use of can I don't understand the underlined part.
[STRIKE]so[/STRIKE] I want to teach my students to use a [STRIKE]us[/STRIKE] US accent. [STRIKE]to my students[/STRIKE] If anyone has any ESL materials [STRIKE]to teach[/STRIKE] for teaching [STRIKE]us[/STRIKE] a US or UK accent, [STRIKE]so kindly help[/STRIKE] please let me know.

[STRIKE]Regards [/STRIKE]

[STRIKE]Pravee[/STRIKE]n

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Please see my multiple corrections above. What age group are you teaching? What teaching qualification do you hold (for teaching English)? Why do you want to teach them a specific accent? It would be better to teach them basic English first and worry about their accent later (or let them worry about it!)

 

[NinjaTurtle]

I, for one, would like to applaud Praveen for wanting to distinguish British English and American English from the very beginning as he/she teaches EFL in India. I have taught EFL for many years in Mainland China, and Mainland Chinese students have no idea of the difference. The result is a mess. They will speak British English in one sentence and American English in the next, and it sounds terrible. The sooner they can learn that there is a difference, the better. (As a matter of fact, I have each student declare from day one whether they want to learn British English or American English, and then I hold them to it.)

Praveen, please read my post in this thread, post #8, for ideas on how to teach EFL and how to create EFL materials.

https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/260438-IELTS-Life-Skills-A1-for-an-absolute-beginner!!

 

[NinjaTurtle]

Hi everyone!

I thought I’d give everyone a feeling for what it is like to teach the differences between British English and American English to students at a university in Mainland China.

Because of the severity of the problem, I always take a few minutes of each class (no matter what the subject is) and teach one or more examples of British English and American English. First, I write an example of one or the other on the board. Then, I ask the students to identify if it is British English or American English. (In a class of 30 students, five or six students will usually get it wrong and two or three students will get it right, but I believe this is mainly to lucky guessing). If it is American English, I ask them to tell me the British English equivalent. Or vice versa. In eight years of teaching in Mainland China, I have had them get this right perhaps twenty times (mainly because they have heard of “vacation” vs. “holiday”).

 

[jutfrank]

Can I ask what you mean by British English and American English? You're talking about vocabulary, right? Could you give some examples of some differences that might come up (other than holiday/vacation)?

(This post is addressed to Ninja Turtle.)

 

[NinjaTurtle]

Jutfrank,

Mostly what I am talking about are vocabulary differences (petrol/gas, flat/apartment) but there are also small grammar differences (in hospital vs. in the hospital). There are hundreds of differences, if you are interested.


(Sorry if I have hijacked the original intent of this thread.)

 

[emsr2d2]

I completely understand the desire to explain the differences in vocabulary and some points of grammar, but I really don't think the accent should be the main thing to concentrate on.
I have only ever taught one Chinese student (in Spain) and he really struggled with any kind of pronunciation. He was a relative beginner but, even so, I certainly wouldn't have taken him to task for pronouncing one word in a British accent, one in an American accent and the next in an Australian accent. I simply wanted him to speak!

It would be good to hear something from 1praveen1.

 

[NinjaTurtle]

emsr2d2,

It is all about the level of the student. The vast majority of Mainland China English students are “false beginners”. They have a high level of passive knowledge of English but their ability to speak in complete English sentences is terrible.

Regarding the teaching of pronunciation of British English vs. American English differences: I have put together a curriculum of British English vs. American English. The pronunciation differences are taught at an appropriate point in the curriculum, taught to students with an appropriate level of English speaking ability. Pronunciation differences are taught as just one more group of differences between of British English and American English.

The British English term of "go on holiday" is a term that even beginning students should learn and be aware of.

They always find the differences between "mountain" and "moun'n" to be hilarious! I get them to say, "President Clin'n climbed Yellow Moun'n to drink from the foun'n." It really cracks them up. (Yellow Mountain is a famous mountain in China.)

 

[jutfrank]

Ninja Turtle

I still don't really understand your difficulties, to be honest. Why all the fuss about British and American English? If you can't teach them International Standard English, then why not just focus on American English? I can't imagine why you are trying to emphasise the British variety, which, judging from what you say, is confusing them.

 

[NinjaTurtle]

There is no such thing as International Standard English. I have been affiliated with many EFL organizations over the years, and every organization (school) has always leaned towards either American English or British English. My present university in China has tried to pretend this problem doesn't exist, and I feel it has led to bad feelings all around. When a class has an American teacher at 8 am, an English ("London") teacher at 10 am, and a Scottish teacher at one-thirty, and everyone says there is no difference, this is doing a great disservice to the students.

A good EFL speaker will be comfortable in both American English and British English. A speaker who speaks a mish-mash of both sounds terrible.

A Chinese person who comes to America and only speaks British English comes across as being rather odd. And a Chinese person who comes to America and doesn't know the American equivalent for "go on holiday" sounds both odd and uneducated.

 

[jutfrank]

When a class has an American teacher at 8 am, an English ("London") teacher at 10 am, and a Scottish teacher at one-thirty, and everyone says there is no difference, this is doing a great disservice to the students.

What do you perceive to be the differences? Regardless of where the teachers come from, they should all be teaching the same language. I appreciate that there are some differences between how Americans, English and Scots speak, but most of these are with pronunciation. Teachers need to make sure they try to standardise the forms they teach in class as much as possible.

Other differences are those of vocabulary, but I can't see how this is a problem. You don't have to teach them to say holiday when you can just teach vacation. Of course, there is some lexical difference between varieties of English, but not a lot in the core vocabulary. And besides, all native-speakers worldwide can understand American English without any problem.

A Chinese person who comes to America and only speaks British English comes across as being rather odd. And a Chinese person who comes to America and doesn't know the American equivalent for "go on holiday" sounds both odd and uneducated.

I don't really agree, but it's interesting that you think that. There is not enough difference between them for this to be an intelligibility problem, in my opinion.

 

[NinjaTurtle]

jutfrank,

I appreciate how you think this is not important, but I think it is.

 

[J&K Tutoring]

If we could perhaps circle back to the OP, I don't think it's at all unreasonable for a teacher to want to teach a specific accent. Customer Service Call Centers need workers who can use the same accent and idioms as their customers. However wrongly, callers don't have much confidence in the knowledge of a responder who speaks with a heavy (foreign) accent.

For the American Accent, the OP might take a look at: American Accent Training by Ann Cook (ISBN-13: 978-0-7641-9651-5) It's a book and 2CD set designed for self study, but I think better with some coaching.

 

[Tdol]

If you look at or for accent reduction, you may find some help:

https://www.usingenglish.com/links/Speaking_and_Pronunciation/Accent_Reduction/index.html