Native English: ESL learners’ perceptions of female speakers’ accents
This paper presents some preliminary findings of a study which investigates undergraduate ESL learners’ perceptions of British, American, Australian and New Zealand English accents. The participants were 66 Malaysian undergraduates from a public university in Malaysia. They were presented with sp...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/52121/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/52121/7/ABRM%20Female%20speakers%27%20accents%20%281%29.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/52121/19/52121_tentative.pdf |
| Summary: | This paper presents some preliminary findings of a study which investigates undergraduate ESL
learners’ perceptions of British, American, Australian and New Zealand English accents. The
participants were 66 Malaysian undergraduates from a public university in Malaysia. They were
presented with speech samples of four female native speakers reading a short passage. The
students were asked to rate the speakers for a number of items including the ease of
understanding, sounding comfortable to the ears, being an ideal English teacher and being a
speaker they would want to sound like. The learners were also asked to state the nationalities of
the speakers. In general, the study found that the speakers whose accents were familiar to the
learners were rated higher in terms of the items examined. The study also found that the speakers
whose accents were familiar to the learners were better identified for their nationalities than those
whose accents were less familiar to them. Pedagogical implications of these findings on English
language teaching and learning in Malaysia are discussed. |
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