A student I thought had a bad accent... and it turned out she didn't want to present as someone imitating a native accent--when that is exactly what you have to do. Once she realized it was ok, I realized that she had the right accent inside of herself--a student otherwise multilingual with English and another native language learned in the home. She ended up showing us (me and the rest of the class) a much better accent IMMEDIATELY.
I had approached this before as either, some students don't have a good ear, or you just have to explain what the sounds are in Spanish. No I am seeing that this student (and maybe others), is not wanting to sound inauthentic by taking on an accent not their own.
1 comment:
I wonder if this insight also applies to academic style. Is a fear of looking inauthentic holding people back from writing as lucidly and intelligently as they can? (Or is it the opposite? Maybe students think authenticity is to be avoided in academic writing?)
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