KOREASCHOLAR

Despite the validated EIL status, native English accents are commonly regarded as the most appropriate pronunciation-teaching norms, while nonnative accents are still considered inappropriate. This study attempts to explore Korean-speaking elementary teachers’ perceptions of native and nonnative English accents and find out the extent to which the teachers’ ratings of the accents show variance and correlations as regards likeability, familiarity, intelligibility, comprehensibility, and instructional model suitability. For these, 53 in-service Korean-speaking elementary teachers were asked to evaluate two native (American and British) and two nonnative (Filipino and Korean) English accents by the five variables. The results were as follows: 1) The AmE accent was rated most positively, while the FiE accent was least favorable in all the variables; 2) The KoE accent was evaluated to be more familiar, intelligible, and comprehensible than the BrE accent at a significant level. In contrast, the two accents exhibited an insignificant difference in likeability and suitability; 3) Significant correlations were obtained among the variables except for comparisons of likeability-intelligibility, likeability-comprehensibility, and familiarity-comprehensibility; 4) The instructional model suitability had a significant correlation with the four remaining variables. Based on these results, pedagogical implications and implications for teacher education were suggested, followed by this study’s limitations.

I. Introduction
II. Theoretical Background
    1. Native and Nonnative English Accents as Instructional Models
    2. Pronunciation Intelligibility, Comprehensibility and Familiarity
    3. Previous Studies
III. Task Design
    1. Participants
    2. Procedure and Stimulus Text
IV. Results
    1. KSETs’ Ratings of Accents by Variables
    2. Correlations Among Variables
V. Discussions and Pedagogical Implications
References

• Miae Park(Dept. of English Chuncheon National University of Education)
• Youngok Park(Geunhwa Elementary School) Corresponding author