Exploring the Preferences of Polish EFL Teachers towards the Accents of English
Exploring the Preferences of Polish EFL Teachers towards the Accents of English

Summary/Abstract: This language attitudes study investigates the preferences of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers from Poland towards the accents of English they speak and teach. Despite the substantial amount of re- search on EFL learners, little has been done to investigate the impact of preferences of Polish teachers for different variations of English language on their students’ language learning. This study’s aim is to bridge this gap and provide the analysis of data gathered from 102 English teachers from Poland in March 2020. The first part of the study focused on the abilities of the teachers themselves, while the second part covered the attitudes towards the students’ choices regarding the accents of English. The results show that among this particular group of Polish EFL teachers, American English accent is the easiest one to recognise and Filipino English the most difficult one to recognise. RP and General American accents prevail to be the most popular ones and there is a strong tendency to speak with these two particular accents, in favour to RP one. The findings are that Polish EFL teachers consider their own accents significant. The majority of the participants is satisfied with their own accents, but they still see the room for improvement, and they do not stop developing and upgrading their accent abilities and skills. When it comes to the attitudes towards the pronunciation of their students, Polish EFL teachers do not have any particular preferences considering the accents of their students or pupils. They let them freely choose the accent, and do not impose on them the model of pronunciation the teachers enjoy the most or the one they were taught to.

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