(As we know it)

Part 2 of 2. You can read Part 1 of 2 here.

Accent doesn’t matter. If I could sum up the previous post in a sentence, that’d be it. But that’s not quite true. Well, it is. But it’s not. Complicated, isn’t it? So, let’s break into pieces.

When we say that accent doesn’t matter, we mean that the pursuit of an accent is inadequate. (And I’m getting the feeling that this post will be a little bit formal. I’ll try not to do that. Moving on…) We will always be in a stage called interlingua. This means that we’ll will never become a native speaker. But we can narrow the distance between our language from the one we are learning. To narrow the distance is important. And to show this to my students, I have them watch another TV show — How I Met Your Mother.

The show is about a guy who’s telling his kids how he met their mother. He’s been telling them the story for six years now and he still didn’t reach the part in which the meeting actually happens. In fact is still not a character in the story. See it and you’ll get it. (Extra info here and here.)

In the show, we have a Canadian character.

Canada. English speaking nation. Native speakers only. (Except those two provinces that speak French. But neither France gives a penny about them so why should we? Just kidding. I love France and French Canada. Where was I?... Oh, native speakers of English in Canada.)

This Canadian character, Robyn, she is mocked all the time because of her accent. Do Canadians have accent? OMG, they do. And they have Thanksgiving in October. I showed them an episode just for fun and I highlighted this fact, the accent. They say “about” like /ə'boʊt/ and Americans (at least the New Yorkers, because just like in Brazil, they also have regional varieties) speak “about” like /ə'baʊt/. This happens with most of the –out sound that we have in English. Cool, isn't it?

But why? Because too much of an accent may cause troube, trouble, trouble. Aguilera. Take Gloria from Modern Family, for instance. She says custom like costume. Too much of accent may cause misundertandings. Or worse. People might pick up on you. And that's not good.

So teachers, accent is like sugar. Not too little, not too much.

It’s the end of the world

Part 1 of 2. You can read Part 2 of 2 here.

World English — that’s where all the fuzz is about these days. Not that I’m complaining or anything. It’s good that this kind of discussion is being brought up to light. As every single one of the language schools keep bragging about their accent orientation, it feels good to shout out loud: this sooooo 2000-and-late (thank you, Black Eyed Peas!).

Let me break it into pieces. English is spoken as first languages in a gazillion of countries. (And I wrote “gazillion” expecting to see it being underlined in red but it didn’t! It’s really a word!) And there are also those who speaks it as second language. And those like us, who have speakers of English as a foreign language. This is so well-known that there are acronyms for all that — NE (native speaker), ESL (English as second language), EFL (English as foreign language).

Now you tell me — will we become a native speaker someday? Let me tell you — no, we won’t. So spending extra money to get this or that accent is nonsense. Because we’ll always be ESL speakers and we’ll always speak English with a Brazilian accent.

Enough chatting. I developed a lesson plan to show my students that they don’t have to care that much with their accents. And it worked really well. I have them watch an episode of Modern Family, an American sitcom. (You can know a bit more about it here and here.) The episode was the second one from the second season. It’s fantastic.

Sh*t, I’m talking to much! So, I have them watch the show and to pay special attention to the scene in which the 30-year-old Colombian wife of a 60-year-old American businessperson gets pissed because he’s always picking on her accent and Colombian beliefs. So she pretends that she is reeeeally upset. He tries to apologize. Then, she makes him slap the chicken and yell to scare death away from the food. She tells that it’s a Colombian custom. And he does that to make up. Cute, isn’t it?

What did I do after? A little talk on the way Gloria, the wife, talks, the way she moves her hands and her voice tone. And her accent, of course, which makes me laugh all. The. Time. And a little talk on the way Jay, the husband, talks. Low voice, restrained. Theeeen, I made them role play! The role class! Together! They had to mime Gloria and Jay with all their idiosyncrasies! Isn’t it great? I loved it. And they loved it as well, I think. Did you?