Focus on Australian English: a critical learning portfolio pedagogy

ABSTRACT

Drawing on critical pedagogy, this study challenges the hegemony of Standard English (SE) to promote inclusive approaches which recognise and tolerate the variation of World Englishes to prepare students for intercultural encounters with interlocutors speaking different varieties of English. To enhance students’ ethno-sensitivity and receptive competence in the use of English as a lingua franca in response to the curriculum blueprint proposed by Matsuda and Friedrich [(2011). English as an international language: A curriculum blueprint. World Englishes, 30(3), 332–344], in this study I conducted a critical learning portfolio pedagogy in my ‘Introduction to English Linguistics' class at a national university located in central Taiwan with the focus on Australian English (AuE), in contrast with General American English (GAE) as a reference of point, which is the main variety of English taught as SE in Taiwan. In this class, 70 Taiwanese undergraduates first wrote down their impressions of Australia and AuE and then searched for relevant information to support, dispute, or modify their initial impressions. Next, they were given a total of eight hours of learning activities to explore AuE from the perspective of World Englishes. The findings show that their stereotypes, misconceptions, and generalisations were replaced with an increased sensitivity to English variation, cultural diversity, and linguistic differences between AuE and GAE.

KEYWORDS:

• Australian English
• critical pedagogy
• world Englishes
• general American English
• English accents

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank his students for their input and participation. He would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the pedagogical report, which have substantially improved this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Information about this test is available online: http://www.etsglobal.org/Tests-Preparation/The-TOEIC-Tests/TOEIC-Listening-Reading-Test.

2. The keywords developed by Wells (1982) are used in this study to designate vowels under discussion.

3. The PRICE vowel might be realized by broad AuE speakers as /ɔe/, whereas the MOUTH vowel might be realised by broad AuE speakers as /æɒ/ or /æu/ (Horvath, 2008, p. 95).

4. Horvath (2008, p. 101) notes that the alveolars preceding /u/ might not be palatalised but followed by /j/, as in such words as attitude, news, and students. These consonantal variants do not appear in GAE. Furthermore, Tollfree (2001) found that the intervocalic voicing of the consonant /t/ does not occur in words like attitude, beauty, data, and city, and that both /t/ and tap might appear in words followed by a syllabic /n/ like mutton and baton or in words followed by a syllabic /l/ like bottle and subtle.

5. According to the International Association for World Englishes, the issue of World Englishes was first raised in 1978 in response to the increasing number of nonnative speakers of English in the world.

Additional information

Funding

The author gratefully acknowledges the grant partially offered by Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology for this study concerning the teaching and learning of English accents worldwide.