Non-native EFL Teachers’ Perception of English Accent in Teaching and Learning: Any Preference?

Abstract

This study studied the accent perception of a group of non-native pre-service EFL teachers in Hong Kong in order to see whether native English norm is of their preference for teaching and learning. Results found that participants all preferred traditional native English as learning model and seemed to have overlooked the principle of intelligibility, even there had been calls for using lingua franca core as learning model. Results show that participants all preferred using native English to be the model of teaching and learning. Among all the native English varieties, participants preferred the accent from the United Kingdom though not all could identify the accent they preferred. The study showed there was a mismatch between what the participants preferred and their ability of identifying accents of different kinds.