Develop accent when teaching English overseas

Posted 19 Feb 2010

A new report has shown that it may help pupils of those teaching English overseas to put on a foreign accent when speaking their native tongue.

Linguists at the University of Haifa, Israel, discovered that children learning English found it easier to understand sentences when spoken with their accent, rather than the standard accent of the language, Haaretz.com reports.

Published in the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, the study looked at 60 participants aged 18 to 26 and the speed in which they could identify information given in a sentence of foreign language depending on the accent used.

Academics Raphiq Ibrahim and Mark Leikin said the results showed that using an English accent when teaching the language "is not necessarily the best and certainly not the most expeditious".

The Liverpool Echo recently reported that National Centre for Languages research found that people in the UK are regretting not learning a foreign language and considering a TEFL course.

Category: General Travel, Teaching and Learning