A sociolinguistically based, empirically researched pronunciation syllabus for English as an International language by Jennifer Jenkins

Many people contend that English is being used as an international language. In Korea, I did not think English as an international language, because American English had a power over the other Englishes. However, since I came here in America, I have had experience in using English as an international language. I have more opportunities to meet many international students than I expected. To my surprise, there are less Americans than international students in my classes. In this context, this article gave me some insights into learning and teaching English.
I realize that I need to be accustomed to different accents from international students. My classes, which consist of various students from different countries, are very good to receive much exposure to different pronunciations. At the beginning of semester, I wanted to listen to only native speaker’s pronunciation. However, as time goes by, I understand that listening to different pronunciations is very essential in learning and teaching English. Now I can guess which country the speaker comes from through his or her pronunciation.
Even though American English is so powerful in English education in Korea, there are some shifts in English education. When I was very young, I listened to American pronunciation in TV or radio, however, today, I can listen to different accents from Australian, Canadian and Newzealander. In addition, when I had an Internet Based TOEFL test, I had to understand the passage recorded by people with different accents. Not only in the world, but also in Korea, students need to experience different accents. However, it is difficult to cover all the different accents in the homogeneous classes. Therefore, it is very significant to listen to various accents through mass media. Before I came here, I did not realize how important to be exposed to different English accents through mass media. I am so pleased that Korean English education is on the right track.
Whenever I needed to teach pronunciation, I had plenty of difficulties in deciding what to teach. I did not have any confidence in teaching pronunciation, so the easiest way is to let students repeat after the native speaker’s voice recorded in CD. After I have read this article, I think that teaching some difference influencing the interpretability is very important when my students have opportunities to exchange some ideas with people from different countries. The ways mentioned in this article are very practical for me to cover in my classes. The tendency to compare my pronunciation with native speaker’s leads me to be frustrated and to lose my confidence when I speak and teach my students.