To those of you who don't know me, I'm an ESL teacher based in Southern California. I've been teaching English since 2007. My career started in Japan, where I lived for about 6 years, and then continued in the U.S. I'm also half-Japanese, spent every summer as a child in Japan with family, and studied the language and eventually go to the point where I could conduct my daily affairs with nearly zero difficulty. I use this experience of learning a language and living in a foreign culture when teaching students. This podcast is intended primarily for English learners who know me personally, whether as former or current students, but all are welcome to join in. I started this as a way to add some variety in my English teaching career. Here are some of the key takeaways from this episode. First of all, just keep in mind everyone has an accent. An accent just means the way a person or group of people (such as an entire country) pronounces words. And there is nothing necessarily wrong with having an accent that is different from the majority of those speakers so long as we can understand each other. But then you get into the situation where each Anglophone country is speaking correctly, as they are native speakers, but many people still have difficulty understanding each other. I go into my experiences with this while working in Tokyo with English-speakers from the U.K., Australia, New Zealands, etc. I also touch upon the difference between accent and dialect. Keep in mind that standard pronunciation and dialect change over time. I ramble on about these aspects of how accents change: center of power, “broadcast” English, natural evolution, and flattening of accents and language overall due to mass media and increased contact. Again, comprehensibility is key. I give examples of three French actors to illustrate my points. Although English learners sometimes complain about having to speak with classmates who have “foreign” accents, remember it’s still speaking practice for you and you need to understand foreign accents depending on where you live. Accent (and dialect) are also tied up with identity. Consider these factors: socio-economic status, ethnic background, subculture, geographical location. I also explain how native-speakers of English frequently switch between accents and dialects. As always, I ask you to reflect critically on your English learning practices and goals. If you’re anxious about your pronunciation or are working hard to improve it, ask yourself why it’s important to you. At the end of the video I spend some time giving my response to a student's question about the differences between how Americans and Japanese think.

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