For my past blog posts, which you can retrieve and read here
and here , you and I have explored the kind of rejection, intimidation, and
stigmatization English Language Learners feel upon arriving in America. We
together have understood the many aspects of culture shock the Spanish ESL
population faces in school and in their everyday lives. It seems as though
everything is against them. The media constantly puts out negative images of
immigrants, while politicians denounce certain populations who have immigrated
to America. Together, we have looked closely at statistics of dropout rates for
ESL students, and we have gained insight on the growing population in school
districts. For the last post, we will talk about language bias among language
learners, and the truth behind an accent.
Language
Bias is something ESL students will face in their lifetimes, and could be a
reason behind their insecurities, such as public speaking. Written in an article by William Chin , “A 1981 study found that listeners gave lower ratings
to Mexican-American speakers with a high degree of accent. In the study,
Mexican-American and White high school students evaluated Mexican-American
speakers of English”. English speakers
with an accent are often looked down upon, or made fun of, especially if they
are from Spanish speaking populations. Shireen Baghestani sheds light on this in her article , saying “It is an ongoing reality that non-native speakers of
English receive unfair treatment in this country because of the way talk. It is
easy to see that fear plays into people's consciousness when they hear a
language other than English being spoken”.
Baghestani also adds that some groups are targeted more than others;
native Spanish speakers file more discriminatory acts than “such groups as
Swedish, Dutch and Gaelic speakers”.
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| Pronunciation Tips for ELL students |
So is
there a way to combat language bias for ELL students? Is there a way to help
students with their accent as they are learning English for the first time?
Researchers suggest that if the language is learned before or during the
mythical “critical period” of language acquisition, speakers will not maintain
an accent. This “critical period” has been debated over decades; some
researchers predict this period begins around the age of 2. Others say this
“critical period” of language learning starts in early childhood and ends
around the age of 12, or the age of adolescence. In an informational article by Palea and Bostina-Bratu, they explore different theories of the critical period,
and include research such as “Research published prior to the mid-1990s claimed
that people learning a second language after puberty still retain a foreign
accent, while those who acquired it before puberty did not. Scovel suggests
that if a second language learning begins after the age of 12 years, learners
can never ‘pass themselves off as native speakers phonologically’”. Accent
depends on when the learner acquired the language; to combat language bias,
language should be taught to learners as early as possible.
