Yes Accent Matters!
If you speak English, your accent matters. Do not listen to them English teachers and professors because they are full of bull. If you speak English and live in an English speaking country like the US, Canada, Australia or Britain, your accent does matter. No question about it. That’s natural. And oh by the way it’s not racist, bigoted or discriminatory if your accent matters. It’s human nature.
General speaking, people form opinions of each other based on how they look and how they sound. Let me say that in a way that is easy for you to understand. Going into a job interview speaking English with an awkward accent is like turning up wearing ripped Jeans and worn out shoes. Is that fair? No. But hey! It’s human nature. No one will give you a job if you turn up to the job interview looking like a homeless dude. In a word, it’s about impression. We judge a person by the way he or she sounds. So, the stronger accent you speak with, the harder it is for people to trust you, to relate to you, to feel comfortable talking with you.
Smart English Teachers Do Not Agree
Ironically, the only people who do not agree with me in saying that are English teachers and academics. Sure. The High & Mighty English Teachers. The Very Educated & Smart Academics! The Open-minded & Friendly intellectuals. They represent only 1% of English speakers but want to speak for all English speakers. They want to have you believe you live in a world THEY built out of fiction. Of course, it is a perfect world. It is a world where people are so forgiving and accepting. A world where political correctness is a virtue and human nature is a vice. A world where helping someone to learn the language of the land as spoken by the people of the land is frowned upon and considered racist.
Native Accent Is Not Native-like Accent
Next point to make is that native-like English accent is not native English accent. Speaking with a native English accent could be impossible for most adults, while speaking with a native-like English accent is rather achievable by most learners. The teachers must be REAL teachers though, properly trained with a tremendous amount of love and passion for English as a second language. Furthermore, the students must be very hard working and motivated. Although learners are expected to run out of motivation, the teachers must give them a hell of a shake and get their motivation back up.
For English learners, the only difference between studying English in an English speaking country and studying it in their home country is that hope of achieving native-like fluency and accent. Even when they pack up their suitcases, cross the seas and pay a fortune to learn to speak English the way the locals do, we just go “Don’t bother. We accept you as you are.”
The Disappointment
Poor rats. Someone had told them that by living among the locals, they could actually pick up the language before they would even know it. Little had they known that their trip would be pointless, useless and ineffective. Little had they known that we would give up on them. Little had they known that they would get scammed in the name of political correctness.
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