Акценты и диалекты в английском языке. Как говорить по-английски правильно?

Деловой портал  www.delo.ua совместно с British Council запускает новый проект « Английский язык on -line ». Каждый четверг в рамках проекта на портале будет появляться видео-интервью с преподавателями British Council.

Тематика видео-интервью – новые методики и подход в изучении английского языка, интересные факты и практические советы по улучшению произношения и увеличения словарного запаса.

Тема первого интервью – диалекты и акценты в английском языке. Интервью дает преподаватель British Council Браян Смит (Brian Smith ). Он обращает особое внимание на тот факт, что сейчас нет «единственно правильного» английского языка. Подход, декларирующий, что именно BBC English является наиболее верным, уходит в прошлое. 

Текст интервью:  

Hello. My Name is Brian Smith, I’ve been working at British Council for about six months now.

Today I’m going to talk about accents, especially in relation to ELS classroom and for students learning the correct pronunciation of English.

First I want to discuss difference between accents and dialects. Accents are regional or country pronunciation differences, so for instance an American accent vs a British accent. But even within that though you have regional accents so for instance Liverpool accent or a Newcastle accent.

It’s important to stress that there is no correct accent in English, they are all acceptable. That said as a student what you want to do is you want to be able to produce English so that it is understandable. So you want to reduce major accent problems. To do that as a teacher the best technique I find is to do lots of drills for the student. You need to model the correct pronunciation and then have the students repeat the words to you until you have accent reduction of the non-native accent.

As well as this in terms of listening skills it’s important to realise that as a learner of English you need to be able to understand a variety of different accents. At British Council we have a policy of rotating teachers, we have the benefit of having teachers from a variety of different countries with a variety of different accents. And if you can expose yourself to the most accents possible that’s better for your English. Especially in terms of travel and business where English has become a globalised language and you’ll be … a variety of different accents.

The last thing I’d like to say is the understanding of different accents is a positive thing in terms of tolerance for other people. There used to be a stigma that received pronunciation. The BBC English was the only correct accent in English. That’s changed now. It’s much better to understand that English is a rich and various language with different accents. Thank you.