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Shuwen Zhou

Samantha Kirby

English 106

21 April 2017

Do we really need to follow native speakers of English and pronunciation model?

Nowadays, English is becoming a dominant language in the world, many countries

and their people start to learn English. Except United States, United Kingdom and other

original-English countries, some non-English countries like China also learn English at

school. When they learn English, they need to know how to pronounce the word and this

makes people have varieties of accents. Some people want their accent to sound the same

as American or British. However, others think it is unnecessary for an accent to be same

as American or British. An author, Chit Cheung Matthew Sung, wrote an article called I

would like to sound like Heidi Klum, talked about accent people wanted to sound like

and also discussed whether teachers should teach native-speaker pronunciation as a

model. I agree with the author that people should not sound like native-speakers of

English and it is unnecessary for teachers to teach native-speaker pronunciation as a

model because of the Sungs article I want to sound like a Heidi Klum, David

Graddols article Who is Native Speaker? and my personal experiences as an English

as an additional language speaker.

First and foremost, it is unnecessary for people to sound like a native-speaker

English. I want to briefly summarize the ideas from the Sungs article. In his article, he

introduced English and the accent, then he described different types of ideal accent

models which people wanted to sound like. I also want to explain a concept called
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native-speaker English (Graddol, 110). The native English speakers are speakers who

think the American or British accent is the standard style accent. It is true that having a

standard native-speaker accent may make other people understand your meaning

clearly and this is also known as intelligibility. I heard many students saying that their

teachers have a weird accent so that they may not understand what the teacher said.

Because they could not understand teachers meaning, they may have trouble on

homework and this may cause them failed in midterm or final exam. Therefore, they may

have a low grade on their course. As a result, people tend to pay attention to the

standard accent. However, this is not absolutely true. Most people may know others

meaning whatever their accent is. For instance, I studied in seashore education in order to

pass the TOEFL test. One of my teachers that taught me the writing had a strange accent.

Although I cannot comprehend part of her meaning, I could still understand her meaning

roughly and completed the task very well. This demonstrated that the accent did not

affect the meaning completely. In conclusion, I agree the Sungs opinion and it is

unnecessary for people to sound like a native-speakers of English.

Another argument is teachers should teach native-speaker pronunciation as a model

which is not true. First of all, many people do not know which the real native-speaker

pronunciation model is. Every teacher has their own style to teach pronunciation. Even in

United States or United Kingdom, these two countries teachers still have different ways

to educate students how to pronounce words and how to pronounce sentences. Secondly,

it may affect students descriptive skills. Connections exist between pronunciation and

speaking skills. If teachers just teach the prescriptive part of native-speaker pronunciation

model, this may finally affect students practical speaking skills. Because of paying
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attention to learning native-speaker pronunciation model, students may just focus on the

prescriptive part of speaking and they will ignore the other important part: descriptive

speaking skills. For example, in China, our teachers just taught us the basic pronunciation

only in order to make us know how to read these words. This finally caused the problem.

Even if we know how to read those words, we still cannot speak fluently because when

we speak those words as sentences, we may just think how to express them correctly.

This may make us speak rigidly regardless of thinking the whole sentences tones. We

also do not care about perfecting our speaking skills when we have trouble on the

descriptive skills and this is also the current condition of Chinese peoples speaking

skills. As a result, we may not get improvement on our speaking and this finally make our

speaking skills worse and worse. Thirdly, teaching native-speaker pronunciation as a

model may make students lose their independent thinking ability. Because it is a model,

all things have been set at the beginning. Teachers just express the concept and educate

students. Students will also just accept these. They may not point out problems or make

innovations because they have been bound and they just follow the requests and tasks,

and finally just completed them. As a result, this will restrict their independent thinking

ability. When they lose this ability, they may not make amazing innovations any longer.

In conclusion, I agree with the Sungs point that teachers should not teach the native-

speaker pronunciation model.

A writer called David Graddol, wrote an article Who is a native speaker?, also

discuss the native-speaker model. In his article, he points three problems about the

native-speaker model. One of those is Native-speaker models are less useful (Graddol,

114). In his opinion, he thought English has become more descriptive. This is true, with
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the expansion of English, other non-native English countries not only maintain the

original English, but also innovate new contents from their ideas. Because the world is

developing, we need to have some new things to appear, not just follow the old.

Therefore, there are many different accents appearing in the world. For instance, in

China, we also design our own style of accents in order to make English more modern.

We invented our Chinese-style pronunciation in order to mainly communicate with

Chinese people, not foreign people. We created the pronunciation such as yingoulixi

which means the word English, kasitamen means customer. We created these

unique accents in order to help us to remember the words and their pronunciation more

quickly. This may break through the traditional English model and integrate new changes

into the modern English. Also, many teachers are trying to use new ways to teach the

pronunciation. They use pictures to attract students paying attention to the contents.

Several years ago, people just used the phonetic forms to teach pronunciation. This can

be called a model and people followed it for many years. However, at present, things

need to change. Students may pay more attention to the picture rather than the phonetic

forms because the phonetic forms are really boring. They just show the alphabets and

pronunciation so that it may not interest them. Hence, if teachers can use pictures, which

combine with the pronunciation, may make students remember them more quickly and

also stimulate their inspiration on study. As a result, I agree with Graddols point Native-

speaker models are less useful and it is unnecessary for teachers to teach native-speaker

pronunciation as a model.

In conclusion, because of Sungs article I want to sound like a Heidi Klum,

David Graddols article Who is Native Speaker? and my personal experiences as an

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English as an additional language speaker, I agree with the Sungs and Graddols opinion.

Although English are becoming dominant and it may be considered having native-

speaker accent and pronunciation model, people still do not need to follow these two

models. It is also important for them to have their own style of English accents. They also

need to pay attention to thinking whether it is necessary for teachers to teach native-

speaker pronunciation model. Therefore, in general, people should not sound like native

speakers and it is unnecessary for teachers to teach native-speaker pronunciation as a

model.

Cited

Sung Chit Cheung Matthew (2013). I would like to sound like Heidi Klum: What do

non-native speakers say about who they want to sound like? English Today, 29, pp

17-21 doi: 10.1017/S0266078413000102

Graddol David, Who is a native speaker the English Next, British Council 2006,

pp 110-117