Are learners ready for Englishes in the EFL classroom? A large-scale survey of learners’ views of non-standard accents and teachers’ accents

Exploring the Accent Mix Perceptually and Automatically: French Learners of English and the RP–GA Divide

“…Beyond Europe, the Vietnamese students in Phan (2020) gave higher ratings to GA (over RP), based on status (intelligent, educated, confident, clear, fluent, knowledgeable, authoritative, professional) and solidarity (friendly, attractive, cool, serious) traits. In a survey submitted to +1300 Hong Kong secondary-level EFL learners, Tsang (2020) found that, even though to a lesser degree than in previous studies (e.g., Kang 2015), students generally had a slight preference for teachers using RP or GA, especially those students who aimed at developing these accents. Some studies have, in addition to learners' attitude ratings, factored in actual recordings of learners and their explicit accent target.…”

Global Perspectives on English Teachers' Attitudes and Perceptions of World Englishes in TESOL Classrooms

“…continental Europe) countries (Seidlhofer, 2011). As a result of this, adherence to Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA), which have long been adopted as standard pedagogical models in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), has been challenged (Tsang, 2020). In this regard, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) scholars (e.g., Jenkins, 2006) have highlighted the importance of exposing second language (L2) learners to a variety of accents, especially in the contexts where English is taught as an international language.…”

“…With the ascendancy of English as the world's dominant lingua franca, there is a wide acceptance that English no longer belongs to the speakers of inner‐circle countries (e.g., U.S. and U.K.), as the language is being appropriated by diverse communities of speakers in outer‐circle (e.g., Singapore and India) and expanding‐circle (e.g., continental Europe) countries (Seidlhofer, 2011). As a result of this, adherence to Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA), which have long been adopted as standard pedagogical models in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), has been challenged (Tsang, 2020). In this regard, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) scholars (e.g., Jenkins, 2006) have highlighted the importance of exposing second language (L2) learners to a variety of accents, especially in the contexts where English is taught as an international language.…”

Swedish Youths as Listeners of Global Englishes Speakers With Diverse Accents: Listener Intelligibility, Listener Comprehensibility, Accentedness Perception, and Accentedness Acceptance

“…These concepts have been used extensively to evaluate second language (L2) learners as speakers and their pronunciation against a listener's judgment (see but seldom to assess learners as listeners of different Global Englishes accents and their listening abilities, which may have ecological validity, particularly in the context of international communication. Although there is an increasing trend in research on attitudes toward Global Englishes speakers in order to help inform the curriculum innovation process (e.g., Fang, 2020;Lee and Drajati, 2019;Tsang, 2020), the reports are usually about attitudes emerging from preconceptions of different accents; examination of listeners attitudes toward accents in relation to actual understanding of the speakers is seldom found in the extant literature. Our investigation of the understanding and attitude, emerging from the same speech stimuli, is to find out what pedagogical help learners need to become globally competent listeners.…”