While in London recently, I came across a book entitled Get Rid of Your Accent: The English Pronunciation and Speech Training Manual. My initial reaction was to get quite annoyed, and my feeling hasn’t really changed since then. Accents and pronunciation are often on my mind, as an English teacher, and at the time I was particularly conscious of this area of language as I was on a course with fellow teachers from England, The Isle of Man, Scotland, Australia, India, Serbia and Portugal. Everyone of course had quite different accents, but was perfectly comprehensible, which is obviously important for an English teacher.

And comprehensibility is naturally a primary concern for language students. You want to make sure that people can understand you when you speak. Which is why I understand when students are concerned about their accent causing communication problems. And that can happen, depending on the person’s native tongue, nationality, and particular way of speaking. Therefore one can help students with developing their accent in terms of certain words and phrases, or specific sounds. But getting rid of one’s accent? Not only do I think that it’s never necessary, I actually find the thought quite abhorrent. Continue reading →