I am safely in my second destination: Málaga, Spain. As I await my first interview with the next school, I will take a few moments here to review the work I did in Cusco, Peru.
As a reminder, I am studying different approaches to English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching with a focus on accent training.The different schools I will observe differ with regard to two main features: first language backgroud (i.e. Spanish in Peru) and program centralization (how many locations the school has vs. how standardized or regimented their curriculum is).
“Accent Training” is a loaded term. I will not study accent correction or accent coaching, which is when a student seeks to “improve” or “neutralize” their so-called foreign accent in, for example, thier English. Everyone has an accent: you, me, our President, the neighbor down the street. My accent, the Californian accent, happens at this moment to be a prestige accent in the world; therefore, many ESL learners want to speak with my accent. But what about in 50 years? What will the prestige accent be then? My point: while everyone has an equal accent, society constructs a valuation system that categorizes accents within a heirarchy.
Instead, what I will study is a metric called accent differentiation, or the frequency and amount of different accents students hear, For example, students who hear many different accents very often have a higher degree of understanding for an additional language than students who hear one accent (their teacher’s) and no other accents with any frequency. I inquire in my world study whether ESL teachers are listening to this key bit of language acquisition research.
Main Points from Cusco:
– The accent differentiation at Maximo Nivel was incredibly high. I observed over 10 classes and no two teachers had the same first accent background. The students change teachers each course cycle and get firsthand exposure to different accents. Their course materials also include a wealth of different accents, which they utilize for examination preparation each term.
– The consequence was that the teachers had an incredibly hard time with the turnover rate of each class. Most of the teachers in the program were also new to ESL teaching, and I wonder whether the lack of experience somewhat mitigates the affects of high accent differentiation at the program. (All teachers are trained, but for many they are brand new to Peru and on their first teaching assignment.) Thus, is there a way to make the teaching environment more suitable for new teachers?
– Accent production is another telling metric to look at because it can give some insight into the efficacy of accent training: if a student benefits from accent training, they will be able (for example) to differentiate better between minimal pairs (bag vs. beg vs. big) when they speak. Antiphonally, I found several examples of intermediate and advanced students who were not yet able to differentiate between minimal pairs in speech.
– A short 2 weeks, COVID, and Ukraine crisis contribute to my inability to measure students’ progress as a result of accent training. However, I was able to observe a variety of different levels of coursework, different course aims (test vs. fluency), and different class sizes (2 to 13 students).
– My interviews with the coordinators and co-founder of Maximo Nivel were extremely telling as to the institution’s philosophy of accent training as a part of the curriculum and textbook system they developed. I look forward to incorporating a discussion of their ideas into my paper.
More to come within the week about Málaga!
Cheers,
MEG