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The value of an accent cannot be over-rated. They are regularly an immediate indication of origin & class and can, quite effectively, shape your first impressions of someone.
When learning a modern language, it makes more sense to prioritise intelligibility over accent.
I don't think language students are very aware of what accent it is they're being taught in, at least not till Int. That's not to say that they can't distinguish between 2 different accents - maybe they find one teacher's accent easier to understand and, shhhhhure why wouldn't they! But they will certainly point out when they can't understand something. My point is that a student's capacity to understand a language and a student's ability to reproduce the correct stress and speed are quite different.
(It might be that English shares more phonemes with their L1, or the students may simply have been exposed to original version t.v. series and films from a young age.)
Having spent extended periods of time in different countries speaking the languages, I can certainly appreciate the effect an accent, whether clear or mumbled, can make. Someone might argue that it need not be a second language, as is often apparent on the Oireachtas Report, as it does take even native speakers time to fine tune to regional accents.

I really like using different accents in class as a way of demonstrating the variety of English-speaking accents out there. For example, as an introduction to my voiced and unvoiced /th/. First, I write up my speech and drama-inspired
"This, that these and those, that's the way the /th/ goes" rhyme and help the students to underline all the /th/s (there are 7). Next, I use 'ze' stereotypical French 'aksont' (Zis, zat, zeez and zose, etc) to repeat the phrase, asking the students to count the number of times they see the tip of my tongue (Zero). I then respectfully repeat the rhyme in de Dublin accent (dis, dat, dez and doze, etc)and again ask them to count the number of times they see the tip of my tongue (zero). Finally, I repeat the sentence in my own (insert here) accent and they count 7 sightings. A brief description and demonstration of how the sound is produced and then out come the post-its, on which I ask them to write the rhyme. By putting it on a post-it, it allows the students to stick it on a mirror and practise while counting their 'tongue sightings' themselves, therefore encouraging them to connect sounds to shape.
After all, pronunciation is like a sport - your coach can show you the technique but if you want to get to the Olympics, you gotta do the hard work yourself!
One thing I like to emphasise is that regardless of whatever accent I use, they can all understand what I'm saying, more or less, emphasising the importance of intelligibility over accent.
This helps the students understand that, really, accents are second in importance to being understood.

Fergal

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Like most of the other guys I use my natural accent, which is a neutral Northern Irish accent. I've never had a strong Belfast accent which is much more distinctive and nasal. Although I sometimes mimic a strong Belfast accent for fun in class. I recently did an activity with my Pre-Int class on the two pronunciations of 'ow' with the /aʊ/ as in 'now'. Once they had them I messed with it a bit by putting "How now brown cow' on the board and getting them to say it in a very RP way. Eliza Doolittle would have been proud! Once we had drilled it a few times I told them that's not really the way I pronounced the /aʊ/ sound in 'How now brown cow' and asked them to see if they could tell the difference.

When I pronounced it with my Northern accent they went mental! They thought I was having a laugh. I got them to have a go in copying me and they did ok, then I got them to hold their noses so they could get the nasal sound down. One student did a Belfast accent so well that I was totally thrown! It was very funny. Also it raised their awareness that there is no 'best accent', there are loads, and as long as they are intelligible they're all good. While I agree with Underhill that you should only teach your own accent I think that it's helpful, and amusing, to point out to learners how different pronunciations are possible and may make comprehension difficult when they're listening for another sound.

For the voiced and voiceless 'th' I used similar techniques to those that Maria mentioned, since the first workshop I now routinely bring students' awareness to how the air moves or doesn't move when they are trying to make these sounds. I've found the most effective method is when they put their hands in front of their mouths and pronounce the words because it's a reminder to them that they have the skills to test their own pronunciation. It's immediate and it gets results, it focuses them on the physicality of pronunciation – something that I've only started realising makes pronunciation easier and more fun.

Ali :)

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I think the writer takes the sensible approach with regard to accents. Model using your own accent while making students aware of your accent type, a middle class Irish accent in my case. Very often I don't have the time to put on a CD for a listening or it's too much hassle looking for the damn CD so I will read from the audio script. I Read it semi-fast or at a natural speed. If the student don't understand a phrase or word, they have to interrupt using functional phrases for interrupting that are on the board. Real-life pratice. If I see any useful connected speech or useful phrases, I often say then fast and ask students to write what they hear.

Anyway, I was going off topic there. The important point the writer made was reassuring students their accent is ok and that what they need is not so much learn"how to pronounce words correctly", instead, they need to be understood and intelligible while having their accent. The focus should be on how the learner's accent or mother tongue impedes communication or comprehensibity.

A cricially important point the author makes is regarding exposure to variation. Exposing students to a variety of accents- and not just native speaker ones! Most of the time learners will be communicating with other second language speakers, so textbooks need to use more second language speakers in their listenings.

Enjoyable readings here. Thanks for sharing Billy.

Patrick

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Task 2 - Accents and modelling sounds (Maria)

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Task 2 - Accents and modelling sounds (Maria)

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I usually model my own accent in class. I generally tell the students that my accent is quite neutral, though I do have a hint of Italian due to my linguistic background (bilingual: English and Italian). However, I try to draw attention to different accents as much as possible. When it comes to certain sounds I would always model British pronunciation as most of the listening tasks follow this particular model. This is particularly the case with vowel sounds followed by /r/, as my own accent would follow the Irish pattern in which we tend to say the /r/, as opposed to the British equivalent.

I recently focused on the unvoiced th , /θ/ and its voiced equivalent /ð/. I began by explaining tongue position and the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonant sounds. I got the students to touch their necks, as they were pronouncing different voiced consonants to make sure they could feel the vibrations in their vocal chords. I also showed them where to place their tongue and explained that when air is involved in producing the sound, the sound is voiceless. Similarly, I asked them to place their hands in front of their mouths before pronouncing the voiceless th in order to feel the air. I went around the class and assisted specific students individually to explain exactly why they weren’t producing the sound correctly and modelling the correct form for them until they did.

Interestingly enough, I found that these sounds are perfect to illustrate the importance of accent. I explained to the students that while in Ireland we tend to replace the voiceless th with a /t/ as in the adjective, thin, which Irish people pronounce as tin, in the UK, some accents transform the same sound into an /f/, for instance the verb think can be pronounced as fink. In addition, I addressed words in which the H in the voiceless th is silent, for instance in the words Thomas and Thailand. I think it is interesting that despite being spelled with the  /θ/ , Thailand is an example of a borrowed word, which actually follows the local pronunciation rules of the Thai language, in which the th is pronounced as  /t/. Students were very interested in the different accents and were also able to give me some examples of words they had heard in Dublin, which did not match the RP rules for pronouncing /θ/.

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I tend to use my own accent in class. I am careful to point out that it is closer to an American accent and make sure when modelling sounds to model my pronunciation first and then play the recording which is usually British. I point out the differences and make it clear that if they feel that they want to “copy” an accent they can choose whichever suits them most or find easier to pronounce. I think that exposing students to different accents is very important for two reasons. First, it helps them realize that there isn’t one pronunciation which is “correct” or “better” and this can potentially relieve them from some of the stress they may feel when learning pronunciation (and take some pressure off the teacher too :) ). Second, I believe it is to their benefit to realize that there are many varieties of native speaker English accents and so many non-native speakers who also have different accents and they should feel comfortable with their own accent as long as their pronunciation is clear (If that makes any sense).

Regarding sounds I have taught in class, for the past few weeks I have been working with /θ/ and /δ/. These seem to be quite a challenge for students, most noticeably those who have Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese L1s. What I try to do is demonstrate the position of the tongue and try to get the students to copy that. I isolate the sound, let the students practice and then practice words which include the target sound. In some cases I have been successful but students still have problems with them. I have noticed some students referring to those exercises when they come across those ‘difficult’ sounds so I assume they find it helpful.

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What accent I would teach: I'd teach the accent I speak. I'm too lazy to try and pretend I have a different accent, though my "current accent" is definitely subject to change, as a non-native speaker with an ear for languages. Once I almost found myself speaking Belfast English after spending 3 days in Belfast, with Belfastians. I'm looking forward to a year when the 1st of April is a weekday, as then I can waltz into class speaking the most paprika-stained Hunglish I can muster ;-)

My accent is quite the mixture, so I would model whatever way I say something. I've definitely had some challenging moments teaching the /ð/ and /θ/ to students. My accent is not Dublinese enough (yet?) to say /triː/ when I say "tree", but I would draw my students' attention to it, as they might hear it at home/in work/etc. Usually my students can manage the /ð/ and /θ/ in isolation, but I think they rarely produce it themselves.

A month or two ago I felt like I had to think on my feet when a Japanese student asked me to explain the difference between "lovely" and "robbery". In that case, I later realized that I had forgotten to mention that "lovely" is two syllables, while "robbery" is three, I was so focused on trying to get him to understand the difference between L and R by explaining the tongue position. I'm not entirely sure I did a great job in the 5 minutes after class...

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I agree with what many have said about accent in class, that teachers should, for the most part, speak with their own accent. Adrian Underhill suggests this too in his article on OneStopEnglish, and says that standardised accents like RP, or General American (GA) are merely points of reference, rather than being a "preferred" way of speaking. This being my view of things, I generally speak with my own accent, mostly unmodified, but there are some sounds that I change sometimes. For example, the strong DUblin "U" is quite specific to this city and therefore might be a slight problem for students if they go to another country - so a lot of the time I use the slightly more typical (in British and American English) sound "^," as in "D^blin." Of course, I often slip back into my usual way of pronouncing this sound, so students ask me about it, and I explain that the U sound is different in Dublin (and much of Ireland) to the U sound in other anglophone areas. It tends to become a source of amusement, with students doing impressions back to me with elongated vowels. Words like "pub" (pUUUb), "club" (clUUUb) and Dublin (DUUUblin) seem to be students' favourites. Also, I suppose taking some amusement in pronunciation differences between dialects helps raise students' awareness of accent, so this is likely to benefit them in the long run.

While I have this way of modelling my own accent, I don't usually encourage students to use a particular accent or way of pronouncing words. For example, the "th" sound often causes problems for students so I give them an option. They can try to say it the "correct" way with the clear "th" sound, or if they find this difficult, they can say "tink" (like many Irish people) or "fink" (as do people in some parts of England). It seems that the preference comes down to the student's L1, and I find the Brazilians, for example prefer "fink," while Spanish speakers often prefer "tink." I don't know a lot about these languages, but I suspect it's relates to sounds/pronunciation tendencies in their L1. I've noticed this with other sounds too - for example, Japanese and Korean students seem to prefer to say "car" as "ka," quite similar to "RP," while speakers of European languages often prefer to say "kar," rather like Irish-English and American-English.

These are just some of my approaches to accent in class, but I suppose that my main philosophy in this regard is a pragmatic one. I think we should try our best to use a neutral (ish) accent in class, and to encourage students to use sounds that work for them ("Ka" vs. "Kar" for example), rather than getting hung up on pronunciation in an idealised way.

Tom

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Accents is an interesting one - I'd like to think I would model a 'middle class neutral Dublin' accent haha !-However as Billy pointed out, your accent is not as important as well pronounced words, accurate sentence stress, and giving students a chance to model proper intonation in areas like- correcting information, requesting something, asking an open vs closed question.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       I tried a good activity in pronunciation games which was stress in sentences. For example 'Close the door'  - OoO     or 'It's time to go' -  oOoO.  I believed students found this very helpful.  I will try it with my lower levels tomorrow!                                                                                                                                                                                                   Regarding unvoiced sounds, I will try Underhills video drawing attention to the vibrations in your vocal cords your feel when something is voiced rather than nothing when it's unvoiced. Also the release of air (plosives). Finally Billys 'tongue chart' will be a great to help some Asian students of mine better pronounce their words. I'll let ye know who I get on.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Abby!