Anglish English

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

Part of the challenge in tutoring ESL (English as a Second Language), is that many international students are coached in only one kind of accent. They are often told "Americans say it this way" while they learn inflection and accent. However, this does the student a disservice; as America is a nation of immigrants and native peoples we have many different dialects and regional accents.

I have been asked my several Wyomingites if I am from another country. When I tell them that I am from northern California and they become quite confused. Amusingly enough, my sister and I have both experiences with southern Californians asking if we are from Ireland. Apparently the nor Cal accent has many more dental and clipped consonants than in other parts of the country.

Many of the international students hear my nor Cal accent and become confused when I pronounce a word without the broader heartland accent that their Wyoming teachers have. I have to remind them that the sheer size of the United States contributes to several different accent regions, and in highly mixed populations, such as urban New York, they might find dozens of different accents within a hundred mile radius. I've described the southern drawl, the nasal accent of Queens, and the rough, bass accents of the Bronx and Brooklyn.

My own accent is compounded with a little bit of the Canadian and British accents; as a child I often watched the Public Broadcasting System in the days before America had its own version of the BBC. I picked up on their ways of saying "programme," "advertisement," and "schedule" rather than the usual American pronunciations.

I wonder why teachers of second languages often neglect to teach accent and dialects. These students often seem unprepared for encounters with actual languages.

When I was taking high school French from Madame Soper I was lucky; she taught about the regional accents of France and its outlying territories while simultaneously requiring us to speak with the Parisian accent. One Spanish teacher I knew of only required her class to learn the vocabulary; the accents of her students came out flat and obviously generic American.