Effects of teachers' English accents on listening comprehension ability of upper secondary school students

Abstract

The objectives of this study were (1) to compare listening comprehension ability of students listening to varieties of English accents and (2) to explore students’ attitudes towards varieties of English accents. The 412 participants were selected from Thepleela, Sripruetta, Triamudomsuksa Pattnakarn, and Howang School. There were 2 research instruments: (1) the listening comprehension test consisted of American, Thai, and Filipino accents and (2) the attitude questionnaire. For the first instrument, the multiple-choice test contained 48 items and aimed to assess the students’ listening comprehension ability based on various situations in everyday life. The attitude questionnaire was adapted from previous studies. The finding revealed that there were significant differences between the scores obtained from students listening to Filipino accent versus the other two at 0.05 level. However, there was no significant difference between scores of students listening to Thai and American accents. For data acquired from the attitude questionnaire, the mean scores clearly showed that the participants have higher attitudes towards American English more than other varieties in almost every aspect. However, one aspect that the Thai accent has the highest average score is ‘gentle’. On the other hand, the Filipino accent has the lowest score in every aspect. The results have pedagogical implications that Thai students should be exposed to non-native speakers’ English accent more in the classroom to increase their familiarity in order to promote a better understanding of World Englishes for Thai students