English Pronunciation Standard Preferences among Students of Polish Universities — Self-reports

Abstract

For many years now the debate as to the English pronunciation model to be selected for training both in academia and for schools in Poland has proved unresolvable. When pronunciation instruction is executed, anything that conspicuously departs from spelling pronunciation is accepted. It appears that teachers implicitly and largely unconsciously follow the idea of the somewhat impoverished instructional model of English as a Lingua Franca ELF put forward by Jenkins 2000. Until recently, no reasonable, well-argued-for alternative was available, whereas now the model suggested in Szpyra-Kozłowska 2015: Native English as Lingua Franca NELF fulfils the needs of both students in English departments as well as ordinary users of English. This paper reports on the preferences as to the desirable standard in pronunciation instruction among students in academia — but not among those of English language departments — as learners of English as a Foreign Language for whom language proficiency may be an important professional asset in their future careers. To investigate the above, a research survey of the quantitative-qualitative type was implemented in the form of a questionnaire. The focus is not so much on the numerical favourites as on the reasons behind a stated preference. The respondents seem to aspire to realistic but nonetheless high goals.

The dynamic role of the English language in contemporary Poland

“…To remedy this situation, some (like Paciorkowski, 2022a) have called for more training of in‐service teachers, while others (such as Szymańska‐Tworek & Sycz‐Opoń, 2020) have argued that the problem is more systematic and is unlikely to be resolved through education alone. Yet others, like Szpyra‐Kozłowska (2014), have proposed alternatives to ELF, such as Native English as a Lingua Franca (NELF), which emphasizes practical advantages in ‘adopting the ready‐to‐use native variety as a training model and goal’ (Buczek‐Zawiła, 2017, p. 97). In other words, the NELF model imagines the possibility that Inner Circle varieties can be stripped by the teacher of their ideological, cultural and historical baggage.…”