Korean Elementary School Students’ Understanding of Differently Accented Englishes

In English classrooms in Korea, General American accent (GA) is almost the only available variety of English that learners are exposed to. However, if accent familiarity is an important factor in understanding of English in different accents, then this biased exposure to only a particular accent could cause problems to prepare our learners as successful communicators in the global context. This study investigated whether 6th grade Korean elementary school students who had been mostly exposed to the GA for three years have difficulty in understanding English in unfamiliar accents. 109 participants took transcription and translation tests with listening materials produced by American, British, Pakistani, and Chinese accented-speakers. The quantitative research findings revealed that the participants’ abilities of understanding English in unfamiliar accents are significantly lower than those in the familiar GA. Also, qualitative data based on phonetic analysis indicate that participants had difficulty perceiving particular segmental and suprasegmental features of unfamiliar accents that diverge from the GA. This study proves that accent familiarity is a significant factor in understanding differently accented Englishes. It also suggests that Korean learners should be exposed to various accents to raise their awareness in different English accents.