So aside from all the traveling I have been doing this year, it has finally come to the point in my academic career to finish up and write my last research paper EVAR... my Dissertation.
Title: The attitudes and perceptions of university students towards lecturers with non-native accents at an American university.
Having been a student in an American university, I often had lecturers who did not speak stellar English but for some reason, I didn't mind so much. My friends, however, seemed to care more. I guess that's what prompted me to write about this subject. I want to know what these biases are and how people feel about having non-native English accents in the American classroom, especially at the university level.
Here's the kicker. I need current American univerisity students to help me out with gathering data.
If anyone wants to help out, please do!!! It is an online survey that will take about 15 minutes of your time. It's completely anonymous so you can be as honest as you'd like. I would really really appreciate it.^_^;;
I'm not too picky, honestly, I know what limitations this study will have. It doesn't have to be very scientific either. Just... do the survey please :D Thank you guys!! I guess Canada is techincally America... North America...
On July 25 2012 01:19 lilsusie wrote: I'm not too picky, honestly, I know what limitations this study will have. It doesn't have to be very scientific either. Just... do the survey please :D Thank you guys!! I guess Canada is techincally America... North America...
Hmm I don't know if including Canada is a good idea, they have two languages after all, so they are probably more tolerant towards different accents.
You only want current though right, not people who previously attended? Edit - Never mind clicked through to view it and saw that one of the questions is what grade level you are at. Good luck
As a german student who heard lectures in english, non-native english, german and non-native german and it seems that people didn't care as long as they understood everything. When it comes to "making fun" about people, we think german accents such as a the bavarian one, have way more potential since those people lived their lifes in Germany and talk weird.
But most of the time the student aren't bothered by it (as long as they understand the lecturer). And we never ever think that someone who was born in another country has to be perfect in german or english, so we try to ignore the accents as much as we can. I didn't participate in your survey because you don't want though ;_;
On July 25 2012 01:19 lilsusie wrote: I'm not too picky, honestly, I know what limitations this study will have. It doesn't have to be very scientific either. Just... do the survey please :D Thank you guys!! I guess Canada is techincally America... North America...
Okay, done survey! (I am a SUPER SENIOR according to your category lol)
I had an international law professor that was from Nigeria. His grasp of English was impeccable (by far better than most native English speakers) but he had a thick accent, but I could understand him without much trouble at all and it was never an issue -- at least one that couldn't be corrected by asking him to repeat. I noticed the people that complained were only the ones that opted to not to partake in readings, refused to gander at supplemental material, didn't take detailed notes, argued over nothing, and gave credit to the mantra of political science majors being air heads (sort of a blunt way to put it, but more or less it just seems to be the people that just want to get by and need an excuse). This has been the overall experience with my professors that are non-native English speakers, regardless of their nationality and subject being taught.
i dont mind accents with lecturers, but i sure as hell didn't pay tens of thousands of dollars to listen to a professor i cannot understand and then learn from a book. understandable accent = completely acceptable. whatthefuckdidhe/shesay accent = unacceptable.
My uni is French so I won't fill out the survey but I'll say that I've had some teachers that were incredibly hard to understand because of their very thick accent, and it's frustrating because sometimes my grades suffer because of it. I have the utmost respect for most of my teachers, knowledgeable and proven PhDs - but still if I have to pay double the attention to pick up on what they're saying, my grades suffer.
Asking questions helps, but in 150-250 people seminars, it's not always possible.
Just saying that some accents give me a hard time feels like I'm being a douchebag, but I can't help it, sometimes trying to keep up is mentally exhausting, especially since classes can last up to 4 hours.
I had professors with a foreign accent who were easier to understand that a professor with no accent but bad speech. But both were great professors nonetheless.
I found that, as an engineering undergrad, most of my teachers had a foreign accent of some variety. Even the white guys (no racist) were something like Jamaican hahaha. Coming from a really multicultural area growing up, it really didn't bother me as much since I was already largely acclimatised to some of their accents, but I can see where others would get a bit rattled by it.
Actually, I really like the responses you guys put in this thread. It gives good insight on how people think. I specifically wanted USA Americans (more or less) because that is the environment that I am most familiar with.
I would categorize myself as a native speaker though. International students might have a different opinion than me, however, if they pay $20934820934 to attend Uni abroad and then get a professor or lecturer who doesn't speak "native" English, ya know?
But I agree with those lecturers supplementing with pictures or hand outs. This is great stuff, thanks so much guys.
Just finished taking the survery,. It was pretty interesting and it took longer than I thought it would. Are these your friends that you're recording for the audio? I could even hear skype in one of them lol.
But yeah as long as what they're saying is understandable then there's not much of an issue. However the moment their accent gets even a little in the way of what they're trying to say, that's when your brains starts sending "WTF" signals. I came from a really diverse background so I don't mind thick accents at all but god did the students in my classes have a fit. It's ridiculous how openly rude they are, even with their "soft" murmurs behind the professor's back. Of course this was in freshmen year so some "weeds" weren't pulled out yet, but in general people from well surburban communities with little diversity are more likely to have more of a fit.
Waiting for LFD2 to download, nows the perfect time. Umm... I lost my survey about half way through, probably my fault. I don't want to say how far I got because it would interfere with anonymity, but is it saved semi-complete? Or would it be ok if I did it again? I dont' want to double up and affect the sample.
Edit 2: Nevermind, got it back. Everything should be ok.
On July 25 2012 01:19 lilsusie wrote: I'm not too picky, honestly, I know what limitations this study will have. It doesn't have to be very scientific either. Just... do the survey please :D Thank you guys!! I guess Canada is techincally America... North America...
The girl in the pink shirt throws a mean right jab, Brave ain't got shit on her.
I never knew scottish accents were that hard to understand lol. Accents are pretty interesting to learn, the slightest change in your tone or pitch with certain vowels, words, or phrases can totally change your image.
Did you guys know that Australians like to say "heaps" as in "lots" or "tons" as an equivalent? When I first found out I had a real kick out of teasing my Australian friend lol.
I currently live in Manchester and the words they use! They tend to use "well" in place of "very" and have tons of slang that only the locals would understand. Accents are a ton of fun to study but unfortunately, had to narrow it down to what is relevant to me. :D I suppose in America too, there are regional accents that give our location origins away
people from up north in england have the same reputation as people from down south in the US
i suddenly feel so bad for you. how come you are doing a study on american universitys if you live in newcastle at the moment? wouldnt it be easier to do the same subject but on 'foreign' accents for english people?
Left a comment at the end of the survey. I answered under the assumption that the speakers weren't completely familiar with the material they were reading, so that's why they'd be shaky at times.
Overall on the accents, I found that they were understandable and that the last speaker was by far the best due to the emphasis when she spoke.
I also realized I love British/NZ/Aus accents and could listen to them all day.
On July 25 2012 09:02 turdburgler wrote: i suddenly feel so bad for you. how come you are doing a study on american universitys if you live in newcastle at the moment? wouldnt it be easier to do the same subject but on 'foreign' accents for english people?
I'm in Manc, not Newcastle. I'm studying Americans because I am American myself and want to know if others have similar thoughts as I do
On July 25 2012 09:27 SirKibbleX wrote: I hope you realize TL is almost certainly horribly biased sample group.
Oh, I do. I'll explain it in the "limitations" portion of my paper. No worries I've been on TL a long, long time now, long enough to know to take everything with a grain of salt. So far the responses have been great though, so I am far from complaining.
The girl in the pink shirt throws a mean right jab, Brave ain't got shit on her.
I never knew scottish accents were that hard to understand lol. Accents are pretty interesting to learn, the slightest change in your tone or pitch with certain vowels, words, or phrases can totally change your image.
Did you guys know that Australians like to say "heaps" as in "lots" or "tons" as an equivalent? When I first found out I had a real kick out of teasing my Australian friend lol.
I'd love for nothing more than to have a month to travel around the UK and take in as many different accents as possible, it certainly is a fascinating thing to look into. While on vacation in Cancun visiting family, I met a large number of South Africans from Namibia, and I loved talking with them.
I find accents to be really distracting and difficult to understand in lecturers sometimes but it's usually not the accent that gets me. Its usually the lack of confidence and command of the English language that often comes with a non-native speaker that makes a lecturer difficult to understand. Things like, "um's", breaks in speaking rhythm, use of contractions, etc... are things that scream bad public speaker and not confident lecturer to me. I think a lecturer should be a good public speaker and I would hold them to, if not the same standards I would hold myself to as a competitive speecher(*sic)/debater, definitely similar standards.
That being said, I have definitely had lecturers who have had accents that genuinely get in the way of understanding for someone who is used to Western/uniquely American accents. A good lecture is already a fast moving vehicle with way more information than a person could possibly take in but adding in the mental processing required to decipher an accent or sift through a distracting speech pattern makes it near impossible to get the most out of the lecture.
Man, I'm not sure how much the accents really had to do with comprehensibility or skill at lecturing, but the last two people spoke with much better diction.
Also, by the 5th speaker, wouldn't most people have some idea of what was coming up, and they could sorta force themselves to understand the words if they remembered what a previous speaker said at the same point in the speech? I guess you could have varied the section each speaker read aloud.
Alright tried it again and site works fine. Hope you liked the answers, tried to really explain my thoughts while listening. I must say for me almost any accent is easily understood once I adjust to it which doesn't take very long. So hopefully that doesn't bias my answers too much.
On July 25 2012 13:07 Vod.kaholic wrote: Man, I'm not sure how much the accents really had to do with comprehensibility or skill at lecturing, but the last two people spoke with much better diction.
Also, by the 5th speaker, wouldn't most people have some idea of what was coming up, and they could sorta force themselves to understand the words if they remembered what a previous speaker said at the same point in the speech? I guess you could have varied the section each speaker read aloud.
I think varying the section read aloud would mean that the experiment is less controlled, i.e. different words being read. You can't win D:
Was bored to I decided to fill this out as well good luck with the big D!
Should put "Other" and "Do not want to disclose" (or a similar choice) under the gender question. Just a friendly fyi. I know ppl who would opt out of surveys if you don't include such choices.
Can anyone explain what might this "What is your grade level?
Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior Super Senior" be?
I can only assume this refers to the # years at university...although nobody uses this kind of terminology around here but I'm guessing Super Senior refers to >4 years?
Yeah that's how we've always classified it, it was my way of making it "american" lol.
Also, for the gender question, I put it that way because I wanted to see if men/women gave different answers. I know it sucks, I should have put a 3rd option, but it was for the sake of making easy graphs, etc. Just choose one that you most relate to.
There are alot of papers on attitudes towards accents, none native or otherwise that would be suitable for the purposes. Especially English English accents. Good luck though, wish I could help however I really can't as I'm not american.
Would love to have a read of it though...sounds super interesting
On July 25 2012 16:13 OptimusYale wrote: There are alot of papers on attitudes towards accents, none native or otherwise that would be suitable for the purposes. Especially English English accents. Good luck though, wish I could help however I really can't as I'm not american.
Would love to have a read of it though...sounds super interesting
Oh I know. That's why my study is more about foreign English accents in a native American English environment and what people expect of them. Thank you so much guys, once again! I have until the end of July to have consolidate results!
Best English accent....God bless you noddy....long live the black countray accent
or this one
If possible, could I get a copy? I did linguistics as a my graduate degree...and loved socio-linguistics more than anything (due to me having the accent above). Foreign accents are amazing, and personally I had 3 or 4 foreign lecturers who were incredible. 2 Germans and a Japanese guy.....their accents just make it more interesting
Once I'm done with the dissertation, if you guys want a copy, let me know. LOL. Dunno if you wanna read 15000 words of my rambling about accents though!
Also, many of you commented that they are reading the same thing - I had to do that to control what was being said. If the topic is more / less interesting each time with a different accent, your opinion might change and it's just another variable that I would need to account for. Hmm maybe I should have each audio come up randomly....
On July 25 2012 15:26 lilsusie wrote: Yeah that's how we've always classified it, it was my way of making it "american" lol.
Also, for the gender question, I put it that way because I wanted to see if men/women gave different answers. I know it sucks, I should have put a 3rd option, but it was for the sake of making easy graphs, etc. Just choose one that you most relate to.
In central Ohio, we always referred to the 5th year of undergraduate as the "victory lap". I was totally unfamiliar with the term "super senior" lol.
I was wondering, what do you call a dissertation in USA ? Because in france, a dissertation is a 2 or 4hours exam, which you answer a single question (most of the time philosophy or litterature) in ten f*cking pages. God I'm glad I'm not doing this anymore ^^
On July 26 2012 00:58 oGoZenob wrote: I was wondering, what do you call a dissertation in USA ? Because in france, a dissertation is a 2 or 4hours exam, which you answer a single question (most of the time philosophy or litterature) in ten f*cking pages. God I'm glad I'm not doing this anymore ^^
In most schools, for a PhD, it is paper that you publish. The guidelines are generally that it must contribute to your field of study. For a Master program as in the case with the OP this is obviously way less strict.
In my school you go through a defence. Where you present to a group of professors. These professors will question and ultimately judge whether what you have done warrants a PhD.
For Mathematics, in my school, to put it simply, making a contribution to the field is generally proving something that has never been shown before.
People will spend years working on a proof or a paper. In some cases the final paper or proof may be the length of a regular book, 100- 200 pages. Depending on complexity.
I wish I could have just done a little survey, and wrote about the results for my degree. :-(
On July 25 2012 21:36 lilsusie wrote: Once I'm done with the dissertation, if you guys want a copy, let me know. LOL. Dunno if you wanna read 15000 words of my rambling about accents though!
i love linguistics research so i would enjoy seeing the paper for sure
On July 25 2012 21:36 lilsusie wrote: Once I'm done with the dissertation, if you guys want a copy, let me know. LOL. Dunno if you wanna read 15000 words of my rambling about accents though!
i love linguistics research so i would enjoy seeing the paper for sure
It is interesting material. I just finished reading a ton of chomsky, although I'm not sure I'd be able to understand that dissertation. Plus from what I can tell chomsky is quite controversial, even in that field.
On July 25 2012 21:36 lilsusie wrote: Once I'm done with the dissertation, if you guys want a copy, let me know. LOL. Dunno if you wanna read 15000 words of my rambling about accents though!
i love linguistics research so i would enjoy seeing the paper for sure
On July 25 2012 21:36 lilsusie wrote: Once I'm done with the dissertation, if you guys want a copy, let me know. LOL. Dunno if you wanna read 15000 words of my rambling about accents though!
Won't mind at all, do share when you're done please :D
On July 26 2012 00:58 oGoZenob wrote: I was wondering, what do you call a dissertation in USA ? Because in france, a dissertation is a 2 or 4hours exam, which you answer a single question (most of the time philosophy or litterature) in ten f*cking pages. God I'm glad I'm not doing this anymore ^^
In most schools, for a PhD, it is paper that you publish. The guidelines are generally that it must contribute to your field of study. For a Master program as in the case with the OP this is obviously way less strict.
In my school you go through a defence. Where you present to a group of professors. These professors will question and ultimately judge whether what you have done warrants a PhD.
For Mathematics, in my school, to put it simply, making a contribution to the field is generally proving something that has never been shown before.
People will spend years working on a proof or a paper. In some cases the final paper or proof may be the length of a regular book, 100- 200 pages. Depending on complexity.
I wish I could have just done a little survey, and wrote about the results for my degree. :-(
I proved something that had never been shown before in my bachelor's thesis.
Just make a bunch of assumptions, apply some game theory and voilà!
Economics is awesome.
Math sounds rough though
EDIT:
On topic I've actually had lecturers that literally was not comprehensible, that kinda sucks ^^
On July 25 2012 21:41 lilsusie wrote: Also, many of you commented that they are reading the same thing - I had to do that to control what was being said. If the topic is more / less interesting each time with a different accent, your opinion might change and it's just another variable that I would need to account for. Hmm maybe I should have each audio come up randomly....
Ah, okay. Thanks for explaining why you used the same text, That makes sense. I was going to ask about this. I don't know much about running experiments, but my thought was that, by having them read the exact same thing, it might make it easier for people to understand what subsequent speakers are saying because the listener knows the content of the text and can adjust what the speaker is saying to fit it? It's almost like giving subtitles, I suppose...but I may be off the mark here.
On July 25 2012 01:19 lilsusie wrote: I'm not too picky, honestly, I know what limitations this study will have. It doesn't have to be very scientific either. Just... do the survey please :D Thank you guys!! I guess Canada is techincally America... North America...
Hmm I don't know if including Canada is a good idea, they have two languages after all, so they are probably more tolerant towards different accents.
Good luck with your dissertation! :D
Not in any of the non-quebec provinces. Here in NS we have a nice solid hate for our french-accented profs. At least at my school a lot of the kids in my year hated the profs with french accents.
I have had several professors that have had rather thick accents, but after a week or two I would understand relatively everything they said, and had no problem with the accent. I feel as though my opinion might not be fairly common as both of my parents have very strong accents when they speak english, so I am rather good at interpreting broken english. My only difficulty with understanding a prof with an accent is when have horrendous grammar, which I guess isn't the fault of their accent, but it makes them even more difficult to interpret.
On July 25 2012 21:36 lilsusie wrote: Once I'm done with the dissertation, if you guys want a copy, let me know. LOL. Dunno if you wanna read 15000 words of my rambling about accents though!
i love linguistics research so i would enjoy seeing the paper for sure
It is interesting material. I just finished reading a ton of chomsky, although I'm not sure I'd be able to understand that dissertation. Plus from what I can tell chomsky is quite controversial, even in that field.
Chomsky is a chump...Halliday is where it is at! Choskian research has died a death as of late, with more and more evidence pointing to the fact that there are no universal grammar structures which destroys his theory altogether.
The Piraha tribe in South America have a language where the is no number, and stories go back at most 2 generations, and even then they only speak in the present tense (or something) so stories are lsot. They have no written history, they have no spoken history...they live in the present as thats all they can speak about...pretty sweet read up if you can find it :D
Alright. I am a 4th, 5th, or 6th generation Caucasian American. I am also mildly "fluent" (I use this word sparingly) in Mandarin Chinese. I speak it well enough to Study in a Chinese university if I wanted to. Basically, I passed the TOEFL for Chinese.
Last semester I was studying abroad in Taiwan and me and three other foreign classmates gave a presentation in Chinese for a Taiwanese Culture and Folklore class. However, I was the only non-Chinese student. My three classmates that assisted with the lecture were American-born Chinese.
When I delivered my section of the report to the class, in Chinese, I was so embarassed. All of the girls in the class were giggling because of my accent and or pronunciation. That was the most painful five minutes of my life, it felt like.
Frankly, I feel insulted whenever a monolingual American talks about a lecturer or professor's accent without first being proficient in another language themselves. It is unfair to me, and unfair to the professors who are qualified and obtained the credentials that it takes to be a professor or lecturer.
On July 25 2012 21:36 lilsusie wrote: Once I'm done with the dissertation, if you guys want a copy, let me know. LOL. Dunno if you wanna read 15000 words of my rambling about accents though!
i love linguistics research so i would enjoy seeing the paper for sure
I second this.
I third it.
Lilsusie, do you study psycholinguistics? Sociolinguistics? Sinolinguistics?
EDIT: This strikes me as interesting because I am a little torn between studying for Chinese Linguistics for my master's degree and studying Translation for my master's. Either way, I'm going for my master's in Hong Kong, or I'm gonna try at least.
Poor sample of population to use a gaming site, though i'm sure you are just posting this too many friends etc. it's still a bit iffy. You also don't seem to have a real check if people filling this in are really americans or have studied at all, I just checked quickly to see what it was about but it's not unreasonable to think many non-americans or whatever fill this in if you advertise it through a site such as TL. Also using terminology like 'so-so' on your scale is a bit unprofessional.
I know doing proper scientific research is usually not the most important thing for dissertations in language studies etc. but it's still silly to see poor methodology like this so much.
Nevertheless the problem at universities of poor language is quite common especially here in the Netherlands. Lectures are often in english while practically none of the speakers are native english. Most of the dutch teachers are easy to understand but poor pronounciation can range from quite good to often very unprofessional. Accent I don't find so troublesome mostly except for the distraction because it's humorous, wrong choice of words is often worse. Most classes I had are fairly small though and had good reference works (sheets and books) so even if a lecturer was downright awful it wouldn't be that bad..
I know this isnt the best way of getting data - and I obviously will include that in a section in the paper. But this paper isnt being written to be published either. And I don't have much time.
I'm doing Applied Linguistics actually. A little bit of psycho and socio mixed in.
Just wanted to say a HUGE thanks to those of you who filled it out! I'll be processing the info in the next few days. So many good comments, thank you again!
EPT
