In today’s increasingly global world, it is vital that the next generation of leaders can listen to and learn from individuals who do not speak English as their first-language. Institutions of higher learning such as the University of Oregon have become centers for students to learn to work with individuals from other cultures with nearly 12% of the student body comprised of international students. It is important to understand how young adults interact with these foreign accented individuals not only as peers, but also when they are in positions of authority and teaching. In most major corporations, the workplace is full of daily interactions with both colleagues and supervisors who are foreign accented.
Despite living in a socially progressive world, in the US discrimination on the basis of accent is a largely accepted way for people to express their prejudices. These biases have implications in employment as native-speaking teachers have preferential treatment over non-native speakers in terms of hiring, salary, and employment perks (Kamhi-Stein, 2004). Additionally, foreign accents can influence comprehension rates. A 1992 study of undergrads from a large southeastern university showed that perceived accent based on the ethnicity of the instructor influences students’ comprehension (Rubin). The students listened to a lecture recorded in Standard American English while seeing a picture of either a Caucasian or Asian instructor. Then students were tested on their listening comprehension as well as asked questions about the attitude, background, value, and appearance of the instructor. The responses to the ethnically Asian instructor were in line with what responses would be had the speaker been nonstandard accented. Additionally, listening comprehension decreased with the perceived nonstandard accent.
Familiarity with the accent also plays a role. In 2017, Ballard and Winke conducted a study with 121 students from a midwestern university. Using an online survey, they had students listen to speech samples about familiar and unfamiliar topics and then rate speakers on intelligibility, comprehensibility, accentedness and acceptability as a teacher. When the students perceived the speakers as native, they increased their ratings for the acceptability as a teacher as well as comprehensibility. There may be an unconscious bias that occurs in students against understanding non-native speakers. To combat this bias as well as the conscious biases students hold, universities may need to look into how they facilitate students’ relationships with and opinions of these non-native teachers. If the university has the goal of equipping students to succeed in the global workplace, it needs to help prevent students from developing or expanding upon biases against non-native speakers.
My research will aim to understand how students’ evaluations of professors relate to accent and language. Additionally, the goal is to further understand at what point accent becomes an important feature for students to evaluate professors. A lot of previous research on students’ opinions of non-native teachers revolves around language teachers. This research will expand on the understanding of students’ attitudes across different subjects. When the student perceives the class subject to be harder, is there a more negative attitude toward the accent? If this is the case, perhaps students are using accents as excuses for their own lack of understanding. This could be causing a dangerous way of thinking for future employees. These biases that may be strengthened and justified in the classroom may influence how willing we are to learn from non-native speakers. Ultimately, understanding how non-native accents are used to discriminate will be helpful to our collective understanding of the discrimination that is still prevalent in our society.
Works cited
Ballard, Laura and Paula Winke. (2017). 7 Students’ Attitudes Towards English Teachers’ Accents: The Interplay of Accent Familiarity, Comprehensibility, Intelligibility, Perceived Native Speaker Status, and Acceptability as a Teacher. Second Language Pronunciation Assessment: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 107, 121-140.
Kamhi-Stein, Lia D. (2004). Learning and Teaching from Experience: Perspectives on Nonnative English-Speaking Professionals. University of Michigan Press.
Rubin, D. L. (1992). Nonlanguage factors affecting undergraduates’ judgments of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants. Research in higher education, 33(4), 511-531.
V Árva, P Medgyes. (2000). Native and non-native teachers in the classroom. System, 28(3), 355-372.