This chapter will tie the results and the discussion into concise ‘answers’ to the specific research questions that the thesis addressed.
1) What attitude do the groups have toward the two accents?
The two groups had very different attitudes toward the target accents. The Canadians were fairly positive toward all three accents and rated all three similarly while the Norwegians were noticeably much more negative to both the NE accents than the Canadians. Further, the interviews revealed deep-seated differences between the attitudes of the two groups. The Norwegians expressed internalized attitudes that the NE accents were undesirable, inferior to NS accents and inappropriate for the classroom, despite being aware of World English theory and the reasons why variation should be accepted in the language classroom. In contrast, the Canadians expressed feelings that communication and comprehension should override other issues of
pronunciation, and that they believed students’ aims would correlate to both location and integration aims.
The Canadians appeared more open to variation in general, but their position as Inner Circle native speakers may have led them to be unaware of the questions involved in ESL language teaching in regards to ELF. The more positive attitudes of the Canadians toward the NE accents are interpreted as a combination of a generally more open perspective, less interest in the repercussions of the research/ an ignorance of World Englishes, and a misrecognition of the NE accents as NS accents. It can be tentatively concluded from the research that NE accents are not represented through the media or otherwise in Canada, and are thus unfamiliar to Canadians.
2) How appropriate do they feel the two accents are in the classroom?
The Norwegians felt that NE accents were not appropriate or desirable in the classroom. Through the responses to the open-ended questions, they indicated a belief that NS and NNS teachers were fundamentally equal. However, through the results of the attitude surveys they conveyed that this is only the case if the NNS teacher has a native-like accent. The Norwegian interviewees communicated an understanding of the issues at hand and a regret that they were not able to accept NE accents, but felt that they simply could not shake the feeling that NE accents were not acceptable in the language classroom. They did, to a certain degree, accept an openness toward
‘neutral’ accents, though they ultimately preferred native-like accents for their students, themselves and Norwegians using English in public situations.
Through the results of the attitude surveys, the Canadians expressed that they felt the NE accents were very appropriate in the English language classroom; at least equally appropriate as the SC accent. Their misinterpretation of the NE accents as NS accents, with a majority of respondents believing them to be UK accents, means they might have aligned the accents with
‘expert’ native speakers of English and therefore rated them more positively in terms of appropriateness in the language classroom. Nevertheless, the results suggest that at a purely phonetic level, the Canadians interpreted the NE accents as examples of ‘good English’ and an appropriate pronunciation model for L2 English students.
3) What implications does this bring to the language classroom?
The results lead to interesting conclusions that are applicable on a practical level to the language classroom. Research suggests that NS accents are constraining and unrealistic for L2 language learners, and that poor self-confidence may negatively impact language acquisition. Despite the fact that a high percentage of Norwegian survey respondents were educated on this subject, Norwegians felt unable to fully depart from NS accents in the language classroom. They felt that their confidence as language teachers was linked to using native-like accents themselves while teaching. They believed native-like accents would create more confident students, and that removing NS models from language classrooms would pose major challenges in terms of grading or creating curriculum. The cyclical nature of stigmatization of NE accents (refer to Figure 7) means that Norwegians themselves are critical of NE accents, which in turn may lead to poor confidence when using a NE accent, and thus make it difficult to remove the stigma. The cycle of stigmatization and poor confidence makes it difficult to implement endonormative teaching models that could otherwise help shift the focus of L2 English teaching away from NS norms, for the benefit of students.
The research also has implications on a practical level in Canadian ESL classrooms.
Though issues and theories of English as a lingua franca are not as obviously central to English second language classrooms in Canada, both L1 and L2 English speakers from Canada will likely engage with ELF discourse at some point, despite living in an Inner Circle country. Due to the nature of English as a global language, it is essential that English second language teachers (and arguably English first language teachers) should have at least a rudimentary understanding of the challenges and theories associated with English in light of global English variation. The Canadians appeared to be unaware of the implications of global Englishes on a theoretical level, and although they seemed generally more focused on communication and accepting of variety, they retained a feeling that English speakers who did not conform to standardized forms would be negatively judged.