“Teacher, I need to fix my accent. Nobody understands me.”
Zara pulled me aside after class, frustrated and exhausted. She’d been in the US for a year, her husband was in a PhD program, and she was trying to build a life here. But every day felt like a struggle. Her neighbors kept saying “huh?” when she tried to make conversation. Store workers couldn’t understand her questions. The people at the leasing office didn’t understand her concerns about the broken dishwasher.
She wasn’t a beginner. Even for her level, her English was quite good, and her grammar was pretty solid. But her accent was heavy, and people weren’t even trying to understand her. They’d just smile awkwardly and walk away.
She didn’t want to erase her identity. She wanted to be able to ask for help at Target without feeling like an idiot.
And that’s a perfectly reasonable goal.
Here’s the thing about accent reduction
We’ve swung so far into “all accents are valid” territory (which they are!) that we’ve made it uncomfortable to acknowledge when students genuinely want and need help with pronunciation. Nobody’s saying students MUST sound like newscasters. But when a student tells you their accent is holding them back, believe them.
They’re living it. They know.
I grew up in Oklahoma with a heavy Okie accent. When I moved to New Jersey for a brief time, people stereotyped my intelligence every time I opened my mouth. If they weren’t dismissing me as dumb, they were practically patting me on the head and calling me cute. They loved what I wrote. But the second I spoke? I turned into the female version of Gomer Pyle in their eyes.
I would have given anything to be able to speak without that accent. Eventually, I got really good at it.
People judge. We just do. And while we can argue all day about how the world SHOULD be, our students have to deal with how it IS.
The stakes are higher for our students
When people judged me as a redneck, I never had to worry about my safety from anti-immigrant violence. They knew I was from Oklahoma, not overseas.
Our adult ESL students face different risks. Accents identify outsiders, and sometimes that puts them in danger.
I lived overseas for years, and I tried to subdue my accent when being identified as an American made me a target. I wasn’t great at it, so I had to limit what I said. I saw accent reduction as just another precaution, like not walking down certain streets after dark.
For students who want the ability to code-switch, who want to decide when their accent shows and when it doesn’t? That’s a skill worth teaching.
This is the reality they often don’t see coming…
Most of my students were preparing to take English proficiency exams to gain admittance to university. They were focused on TOEFL and IELTS scores and grammar tests. What they didn’t realize? Passing the exam was just the beginning.
I was getting my master’s while teaching full-time in an IEP, so I saw what happened to international students once they got to campus. Impatient professors who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) understand them. Classmates who actively avoided working with them in group projects. Study groups they got excluded from because “it’s just too hard to communicate with you.”
Their English was good enough to pass the proficiency exam. But their accent made other students dismiss them, ignore their contributions, and sometimes just talk over them like they weren’t even there.
And beyond campus? The daily grind of living here. Ordering food, making appointments, explaining a problem to a customer service rep, talking to neighbors, and asking questions at the store. The spouses in my classes felt this every single day while their partners were off studying.
Right or wrong, people give up trying to understand you when your accent is too heavy. They don’t have the patience. They don’t have the experience with ESL students that we do. They just… stop trying.
Here’s what teachers can do (and why we should).
Too often, we get so accustomed to heavy accents that we become experts at deciphering what our students mean. We fill in the gaps automatically. Our brains switch sounds around until everything makes sense.
But what happens when your students leave your classroom and try to communicate with someone who doesn’t have that experience?
A speech therapist or qualified accent reduction coach would be the best option for students who want to reduce their accent, but how many have the time or money for one? ESL teachers can be one of the steps on that path, and we should be.
This isn’t EFL, where students are surrounded by people who speak English with the same accent. Your students need to LIVE their English, not just use it. Being understood clearly helps them navigate their daily lives at the grocery store, at their apartment complex, at their kids’ school, and in their neighborhood. For university-bound students, it helps in class discussions and meetings with professors.
But for everyone, it’s about basic dignity and being able to participate in their own community.
First, do your research.
Search online for common pronunciation difficulties based on your students’ language backgrounds. Do this BEFORE you start listening critically, because your brain is probably auto-correcting their mistakes without you even realizing it.
I’d been teaching Saudi students for years before I really focused on their accents. Their habit of using /b/ instead of /p/ was obvious to me. But I hadn’t even noticed they struggled with vowel sounds until I concentrated on HOW they spoke. Meanwhile, people in the community kept telling me they couldn’t understand the Saudis.
My brain had been doing all the work for me.
Second, focus on what they actually say.
Listen to your students speak with fresh ears. Record them if you can (with permission, obviously). What patterns keep showing up? Which sounds are they consistently missing or replacing?
Third, gather minimal pairs.
Minimal pairs are words that sound exactly alike except for one vowel sound or one consonant sound. For example: peach/beach, very/berry, wrist/rest.
Use those minimal pairs to help your students first HEAR the difference in sounds, then practice producing them. With pronunciation, repetition helps. They need lots of drilling and lots of practice.
Fourth, make it functional.
Don’t just drill sounds in isolation. Use them in words, in sentences, in conversations, in contexts that matter to your students’ lives. Have them practice asking questions at the store, explaining a problem to a landlord, ordering at a restaurant, and making small talk with neighbors.
The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is being understood clearly enough that the cashier at Walmart doesn’t give up and call over a manager.
You’re not erasing anyone’s identity.
When Zara asked for help with her accent, she wasn’t asking me to erase where she came from. She was asking me to give her options…you know, the ability to code-switch. The choice to decide when her accent shows and when it doesn’t.
That’s not cultural erasure. That’s empowerment.
The Bottom Line
Your students get to decide what they want their English to sound like. Some won’t care about their accent at all, and that’s fine. But for the ones who do care, who have concrete reasons for wanting to reduce it, who are asking you for help?
Help them.
Oh, and that heavy Okie accent I used to have? I reduced it significantly. Now I’m judged by WHAT I say rather than HOW I pronounce it.
And that was exactly what I wanted.
Except for “y’all”. I’m keeping that forever.
That’s it from me. See you in the next post!
Read more about adult ESL pronunciation!
- Pronunciation Truly Matters: The Spelling Quiz That Made My Students Question Everything
- When Your Best Student Is Also Your Most Incomprehensible
- Two Ways to Teach Pronunciation in Adult ESL Classes
- Sh/Ch: 3 Must-Have Methods for Successful Pronunciation Tweaks
- 4 Strategies for R/L Pronunciation That Don’t Involve Parroting
I’m in total agreement with everything you’ve said! As a fellow southerner who lived many years on the East Coast, I had very similar experiences. Accent neutralization was key in moving to the executive ranks. Now, as an accent trainer for international executives, I see first hand how affected people are by their inability to speak clearly and be easily understood. Their livelihoods literally depend on it! I can tell from this article that you see this too with your students! Great article! Thanks for writing it! I’d love to connect with you for support and tips.
You’re an accent trainer? Wow, that is impressive! I wish I could have taken classes with you back when I first entered university. I had to struggle against not only my redneck Okie accent but also a German-flavored one. That combination was certainly never something that worked in my favor!
Hi Rike. Got to say that I strongly disagree with this one. While it is essential that students are taught to be understandable, I think that too often “neutralising” is taken to mean speaking with an American accent. I am someone with a thick Welsh accent and sometimes people might find it difficult to understand me (especially after a few pints!). But, that is my voice, my accent and a part of my identity. While I do slow down and try to speak more clearly depending on the audience I would never want my accent to be “neutralised” or watered down. I imagine it must be the same for a lot of students, too.
Some students will specifically say “I want to speak with a more British/American accent”- so it is fine to teach them specific sounds.
For others, though, I believe that neutralising their accent means robbing them of part of their identity and forcing them to blend into an Americanised ideal of English.
I believe you teach/taught in South Korea, right? So, while it is essential to teach students things like saying ‘judge’ instead of ‘judgey’ and ‘phone’ instead of ‘hand-uh pone’, not all aspects of their accent need to be neutralised. As I said, understanding has to be the first priority – that should be our goal. If they can retain a localised accent with understandability, that would be the best result (in my opinion). Again, though, I think this should be something the students should be asked, rather than just taught to do.
haha, this sounds a bit more ranty than it was meant to! Any thoughts?
Hey Dylan! It’s been awhile. How’ve you been? ^_^
I knew that if I took a strong stance on this, SOMEONE would pipe up. 😀 Thanks for being that someone! 😊
I think it’s funny that you say you sometimes need to slow down and try to speak more clearly depending on your audience. I do almost the same thing, but instead, I try to speed up! Okies aren’t really known as speed talkers, my sister the air-traffic controller aside. I’ve seen the look of irritation on people’s faces as they waaaait for my words to finish. hahahaha~!
To me, that IS neutralizing my accent. I make it less strong depending on my audience in order to be understood, be taken more seriously, and to be viewed as more professional. Try talking about linguistics with a Southern accent—no one believes you even know what you’re saying!
The majority of my students (bored spouses aside) have always had big plans to go on to university or to improve their job prospects. Having the ability to speak in a manner that does not immediately identify them as a non-native speaker has been one of the goals of every single one of them. They are very aware that the more versatile they are in their speech, the more situations they can blend into and become a part of instead of being regulated to the sidelines.
By neutralizing their accent (not killing it entirely), more doors open to them. Being denied opportunities because of their accents is certainly not just, but it happens. I want all my students to always have the ability to speak to match the environment or situation they are in OR progress beyond that environment/situation if that is their goal.
I’ve even taught my students (the ones who showed interest) how to sound more like an Okie. Being able to switch things up like that made it easier for locals to relate to them. When they sound less foreign, their neighbors became more trusting. It’s simply mirroring who you are around.
Native speakers of any language do it all the time. When we are in a conversation with someone who speaks loudly, we’ll get a little louder. When they speak slowly, we slow down. On a flight from Germany back to America, I sat next to a little boy from India. During that flight, I lost the German accent I had picked up and arrived in Oklahoma with an Indian accent! Hours of speaking with him and subconsciously mirroring him did that. Of course, not being around any people from India, that disappeared quickly, and my Okie accent returned to the forefront.
While I still subconsciously mirror other people I’m speaking with, I can also do it purposely, with intent. For example, during a job interview. You can bet I drop that Okie accent before I walk through the doorway! I also don’t use it while teaching. By teaching with a more neutral accent instead, I’m making it easier for my students to go anywhere. The ones who moved to New York City? I know they’re glad they don’t talk like an Okie.
I believe international students should be taught to have the same ability to neutralize their accent when they believe it’s warranted. I would hate for my Vietnamese students, for example, to lose out on better job prospects because they were unable to speak clearly enough to be readily understood. I’d also hate for them to get the job, but then get humiliated when trying to deal with customers, clients, or co-workers who don’t have the patience needed. A more neutral accent just makes their lives easier.
Does this make sense?
And, so good to hear from you again! ^_^