Question:
Why is it that US-published ESL texts avoid dialects other than "General
American" broadcast English, not only in their examples for imitation, but also
in their listening exercises?
There is always rhetoric about teaching the student to function in American
society, to reach communicative competence, etc., yet every day I run into
situations in which a third-year ESL student should be able to function but in
which many might not be able to, because their preparation gave them no
exposure to non-rhotic pronunciation or various widespread vowel differences.
The British textbooks I used in Europe did not handle things this way. They
started with about four standard accents and kept adding more, so that by the
end of the second year, my students could understand almost anyone, no matter
where in the world they were from. The students did not get "confused" by
these accents, since they mainly imitate their teacher anyway. Meanwhile, the
American materials I have seen do not even prepare students for the accents
they'll encounter within the United States.
Answer:
You will probably have to ask the publishers why. Far be it for
us lowly EFL teachers to explain the stupid things they do and do
not do.
What I want to know about big ESL publisher policy is why they
peddle such boring books, and why they continue to sell all over
the world ESL texts meant for people learning English in the USA
or the UK. I avoid them like the plague and generally write all
my own stuff so that I can localize it, make it interesting and
funny, and suit it to the students' immediate needs. [MORE
COMMENTS BELOW]
I don't think you've listened to enough American ESL listening
text tapes if you think that broadcast English is the only
dialect provided. I don't remember the name of the text, but I do
remember that Addison-Wesley, one of those nasty American
publishers, put out a beginner-level listening text with the
numbers spoken by people with strong regional accents from a
number of different places in the USA. I don't normally teach
listening courses with such tapes here in Taiwan, nor did I in
Japan, because the local teachers teach those classes for the
most part. However, here is at least one example that contradicts
your assertion. I am confident that there are more. I am not in
any way defending the publishers, though, merely questioning the
truth of your assertion.
Rhetoric is just that, only I spell it more simply: BS. If you
look at all the tetbooks put out by the communicative
rhetoricians, you will see an inherent violation of their primal
principle: student-centered learning. You will also find as much
boring material there as in those dreaded teacher-centered books[My dictionary says that "rhotacistic" is the adjective.]
In any case, the only accents without an excessive use of "r" [=
rhotacism] are found in the NE states and, perhaps, in that oilo
we call New York City (specifically, in Brooklyn). The vast
majority of Americans speak not "General American" broadcast
English, but a combination of Mid-Western and West Coast
American. That is what is heard most on the radio and on TV.
When I moved down to Atlanta, GA, from NYC, I didn't have a bit
of trouble understanding the thick and thin southern drawls I
encountered, but I knew lots of native English-speakers who swore
that they could make hide nor hare of 'em. The same goes for a
wide variety of British English accents--I have little trouble
understanding any of them, except when they are used with
vocabulary and grammatical constructions that are totally
regional--but many Americans I know cannot grok 'em at all.
If these ESL students are in the USA, then they undoubtedly watch
television, go to movies, and listen to the radio. That is all
the preparation I received in understanding English speakers with
accents other than my own. That and actually talking to live
human beings and trying to figure out what they were saying from
the context of the conversation. ESL students are not stupid and
are quite capable of doing the same thing. I know that my
students here in Taiwan have no trouble understanding my English
from the very beginning, and, at the same time, they have no
trouble understanding the very often extremely different
pronunciations given by their classmates, their Chinese teachers
of English, and the other native English-speaker teachers they
have had (UK, US, Australian, NZ, Canadian, South African,
Irish), none of whom speak broadcast American English. And they
do sometimes have trouble understanding different accents of
Taiwanese and Mandarin not familiar to them.
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