Michael Harvey Research Project May 3, 2011 Students & Teachers: The Words and Worlds Between Them

As a future educator, I feel that most teachers will view me as one of their harshest critics in a classroom because not only do I learn from them, but learn what not to do from them. This isnt completely false since I have walked out of classes thinking Thats how to NOT teach. Whether it was a teacher making up numerous words, speaking in such a monotonous tone or even doing something that they clearly had no interest in. But now as time goes on I find myself trying to take away some positive from every experience I have, especially in the classroom. One of the most eye-opening moments of college was when an international teacher began to talk and I immediately felt like they might not be qualified to teach the class they were put in charge of. Although its an ugly assumption it is one that I feel many other students made and because of that, I chose to focus on the way accents affect students perceptions of teachers. When I first began this research project, I intended to look only into how a professors accent affects the way students react to them. An accent as I defined it at the time was merely a vocal factor but within my research and interviews I noticed it becomes much more than simply a sound, it is a way of communicating. To do this I find myself comparing several secondary sources that deal with accents, attitudes, geographical origin, and forms of communication; with my own personal experiences, as well as that of one of the people I interviewed here at the University of Illinois. I feel myself pulled to compare their experiences as academics with various backgrounds and the way in which some students viewed teachers with what they perceive as noticeable accents and particular modes of communication. I will draw my experiences from numerous teachers, one

Michael Harvey 2 which I will refer to simply as Prof. Cole. I find myself doing this project because in my research I read about a part-time math instructor whose foreign accent caused difficulty for a particular student (Deil-Amen, 78). I find it horrible that a student could blame a teachers voice for their academic problems. This research project is my way of honoring the educators around the world who are judged and labeled the moment they address their classes. The deepest problem I noticed within my own assumptions was that I originally only thought of international accents, and looked past the diversity of communication within the United States itself. In an article titled Teachers with(out) Class), Anna Rita Napoleone writes about her experiences with what it was like to be this New Yorker academic while overcoming all the stereotypes associated with it. First and foremost, I find this research to point out my own unintentional image of an accent as being something either foreign or from another area, as opposed to a class based system. However I saw within this article that it goes beyond the vocal, to the gaze of an educator and how it affects the students in general. Attitude itself factors into the perception of a teacher and how within a moments notice the teacher can be virtually stripped from all authority and become nothing more than a monotone recital of information. This relates directly to the presupposed condition I feel that many people can exhibit and that is that if a person who they are supposed to view as an authority figure, more specifically a teacher in my research, has an accent they perceive to be different than their own, it is viewed as inferior. Within Coles class she once discussed with the class how she had lived in New York for an extended period and had the accent, however when addressing the students in class, she would utilize an almost Midwestern accent. I find this to be rather striking since even she admitted that many people would view her as less intelligent if she were to speak with such an accent and how she had to adapt to the region she was currently teaching in. And furthermore, the way in

Michael Harvey 3 which she claimed that although capable of suppressing a vocal accent she still constantly used certain gestures and facial features that she had developed over her time living there as common forms of communication. This performance, of a Midwestern Accent, made me realize that being a teacher is a performance of this knowledgeable person who is there to impart knowledge to the students. This however causes two concerns to arise in that Ive always felt that there isnt a Midwestern accent but instead it is possible to differentiate people who may live within 30 miles of each other, and also how do I recognize my own accent? My accent, my dialect, my English is not standard as far as I am concerned. I view the way I communicate as English without giving it any second thoughts and as far as language is defined thats what I speak in, write in, and think in. However my accent and dialect is something that I hold onto as my own. My father is from Kentucky, a working man from whom Ive become used to the terms aint, gully-washer, yonder, yall, reckonin, and Is. I dont notice when I leave certain sounds out of words or how I occasionally pronounce ing as in. My mother comes from Chicago and as far as I know, she is one of the most articulate and wellspoken people I know, but that may simply be because it is the dialect I have always heard. The neighborhood I lived in before coming to U of I was surrounded by diversity and was a part of that diversity. It is because of my formal education that I understand certain phrases and meanings in words, and in no way could the honors classes keep me from learning what cakin is or what it means to be called a Dave. I recognize my accent as a part of the way I speak, the way I write when its not for a grade, and the way in which I think. My accent is SouthernChicago Southern, and thats the only way I can imagine putting words to it. My first interview, with a man named Chase took place one evening in a coffee shop. Chase offered me several insights that helped progress my theory on how accents are generally

Michael Harvey 4 perceived as purely vocal, but go so much further beyond the sound of speech. At first asking such formal questions about professors and their forms of communication I began to see something even deeper, something I hadnt noticed in years of friendship that pointed me to see what underlying systems were at work in education. At the very beginning I asked what an accent was and to this Chase responded about when a person is speaking, that they pronounce it differently from what you expected to hear. This really began to cause my mind to revolve as it clearly shows that within at least one persons view, it shows a preconceived notion of what something should sound like, but when it isnt as expected, it is considered an accent. And further along, when I first asked Chase if he had an accent he referenced that he would pronounce words in a certain way that sounded odd to him, but never said that he had an accent. This made me think about my own accent because Chase and I have been friends for several years and having spent the last decade or so in the same area showed me that I had never treated my own accent as something that may be different than what people expect me to sound like and how we both said that accents shouldnt make a difference but there is this inherent comfort level with people who sound similar to ourselves. I grew up in a suburb right off of the South side of Chicago and when addressing someone from the Western suburbs for example it is clear to me that they are from a different area than me. This has always caused me a certain level of stress in college because I realized I was being judged in respect to where I was from. From people telling me that didnt seem like a neighborhood Id want to stay in for too long to the condescending Oh wow, and youre at U of I now? it shows how even within the smallest areas of a country, communication varies and judgments are made the moment someone meets you. I find it very intriguing how within the article by Lecourt and Napoleone, the two professors tested how accents would lend to the way

Michael Harvey 5 students reacted to them. The anecdotes that mention how students believed they were witnessing an act or performance when in reality the two women were communicating in a way that felt most natural to them. The students found Napoleone to seem like this stereotypical New York Girl who they viewed as: the Sopranos; Carmela from the Sopranos; Jennifer Lopez; the mafia; tough guy; uneducated; not sophisticated; rough around the edges. The way my students imagined my accent marked me as not having acquired the status of an academic (Lecourt & Napoleone, 88). One way in which I saw this notion furthered in my interview with Chase was the way in which he talked about grammar because it shows how knowledgeable and educated a person is. Then when I asked him if grammar was linked to education he stated its more intelligent which to me spoke volumes of how people associate the way a person speaks to their level of education. Grammar has become an expectation in a sense that if someone doesnt have this Standard English grammar, they are viewed as less educated, further supported in the way students responded to Napoleones accent as both stereotypical, and uneducated; not sophisticated; rough around the edges. Now I feel it is important to focus on the actual outcomes of classroom experiences with teachers who have a perceived accent and how students reacted to their teachers voices. As far as my first interviewee Chase has experienced, he claims to have had both positive and negative experiences with teachers, such as his current class about Latin America with a Teaching Assistant who has the accent of a Latin American. When asked about the effect of the accent, Chase said it adds a sort of ethnic touch to the class and when asked if it was a hindrance he immediately replied it was not. He stated No, if anything it acts as an enhancement, it sort of builds the confidence that hes Latin American, a Spanish speaker, so hes kind of going to know more about the region if hes actually lived there. This reflects a claim made by Ketevan

Michael Harvey 6 Mamiseishvili and Vicki J. Rosser when they discovered that international faculty members are often assigned to teach courses that are related to their ethnic or national background, which might further undermine their role as an expert teacher of American-based subjects (102). This supports the idea that universities actively recruit people who have experiences which would make them more knowledgeable on the content area. Yet at the same time diminishes their credibility in teaching American-based subjects because they are then attributed to being teachers of these different cultures, as opposed to being able to teach other courses. This almost becomes a less active role in prejudice as institutions of higher education assign a specific group to teach specific courses. When I asked Chase if he had ever had a class in which the teacher whose, whether accent or different form of communication caused them to view the class negatively he began speaking about an experience with a teaching assistant. Chase began to recall: yeah, there was one science class that I actually took for almost two months and then I dropped it. Now I could be biasing this but from what I know of Chase, he isnt one to give up on a class, or anything for that matter. He went on two of the lecturers, one had an Indian accent and I understood what he was saying, and then I had one with a thicker Asian accent and during lectureI couldnt follow what she said sometimes so I resorted to using the book and was a little frustrated and I ended up dropping the class. When I asked him whether it was the accent, different forms of communication or both he responded that it was the accent, and her grammar was a little off. I mean the accent wasnt the sole reason I dropped the class, I had other reasons in play, so the accent was definitely a factor that gave me a negative viewpoint on the class. This really showed me how a student may completely drop a class because of difficulties understanding the teacher and the way in which they communicate.

Michael Harvey 7 My second interviewee, Mr. Poole, made many points that reflected the thoughts and responses of Chases interview, however there were several distinct points that completely jumped out and at and truly impacted the way I perceived the response about grammar equating to knowledge from Chase. Mr. Poole showed quite a different view point when he stated that children who are learning the rules of the language, theyll definitely like make mistakes grammatically and in what they are saying. This struck me as a truth that I never acknowledged that is so deeply engrained in my own experiences. Grammar is corrected when there is an assumption that someone is aware of the rules; however parents are able to understand their childrens broken English without problems. As a society we dont judge children on grammar while they are still learning the language; yet when an adult is learning the language the learning process is completely marginalized. Both interviewees mentioned having teachers with accents and the inability to clearly communicate their ideas, while children are fully capable of making themselves understood through various means. This showed me a bias I held once again that my expectations, along with those of many students, are against the teachers in our classes the moment they step into the room. The notion of an accent was something that Mr. Poole showed a very simple outlook on in qualifying it as the way a person speaks based upon a region they have grown up in. This focus on the phonetic sound of a word showed what I used to believe was the qualifier of an accent but through my research it is obvious that its only a facet of communication. A very important statement that Poole made that connects back to readings from the class (ENGL 401) was when he said that the characterizing part of the accent is that it sounds different from how I speak and how the people of my region speak. Later he would expand upon this by mentioning the way in which people perceive the Chicagoan accent and Central Illinois accent as two

Michael Harvey 8 distinct differences in that Chicagoans talk faster, while thinking Central Illinois accent is slower. In class this was mentioned in Lippi-Greens chapter on The Standard Language Myth in which she mentions Prestons analysis indicated that these informants found the most correct English in five areas: North Central (including their own speech); Mid-Atlantic (excluding New York City); New England; Colorado; and the West Coast (Lippi-Green, 57). This study involved students from Southern Indiana and as explained by Mr. Poole, it shows that people hold their accent as superior and the further from the geographical region one goes, the more looked down upon the accent becomes. In the EIU IDEALS archive I found a project that focused on the difficulties with communication with international TAs and in a survey found that thirteen students even said that they switched out of a discussion section just to avoid the communication problems that they would have incurred had they stayed in the section (Language Barriers and the International Community, 11). Thirteen out of sixty is roughly twenty one percent of the students asked. To me this amount is pretty steep because it shows that a portion of students (one-fifth) have dropped classes because of issues with communication. That being said, with this I see the two sides of teachers with accents as it can function as both positive and negative traits for a teacher as well as the way their students perceive them. In my interviews both explained how the accents shouldnt count against a teacher, however both voiced the opinion that at the University of Illinois the Asian accent is one that is often viewed as inferior by the student body. Now this doesnt mean that my interviewees have this prejudice, but that they share an almost inability to admit a viewpoint that would portray themselves negatively, but once reflecting on the student body acknowledge the hierarchy of accents on the campus and how these stereotypes still exist. Yet again my two interviews both suggested that within the University, and even in the world

Michael Harvey 9 that the accent that is superior in a sense of being described as: cool, intellectual, knowledgeable is the British accent. Both Chase and Mr. Poole said this about Britains accent and dialect which once again shows that there are these deeply engrained ideals that students notice and take into account without thinking about it. And it all leads to this conclusion that I can no longer argue against or hope to find some sort of alternative. When it comes to the views of an accent here at the University of Illinois it is defined by what it is not. It is not the Midwestern accent; according to my interviews the Midwest doesnt have an accent. Accents are defined by what they are not. The term accent applies to someone from somewhere different and it is through that difference that they are viewed in turn as different. Whether it relates the sense that it is because of sound, grammar, or other forms of communication the difference is very real in the minds of the students. As a future educator I set out to find this answer that would explain why students and people in general automatically have these judgments of the educators based solely on the first words they utter. I have to come to grips with myself to understand that I cannot hope to erase these judgments but instead to understand why they exist and it is because students, who once they decide a teacher is different from themselves, begin to take on a negative viewpoint of the teacher in most cases. Unless the accent is one that is considered cool or intellectual it is something that is almost always inferior and thus not as effective as the students own way of speaking. From this I dont know if I should apologize to my past educators, or even current ones, for the way I reacted to them based on their style of communication. If this research at least teaches one other person it has fulfilled its purpose two-fold because it has already taught me.

Michael Harvey 10 Works Cited Deil-Amen, Regina. "Socio-Academic Integrative Moments: Rethinking Academic and Social Integration Among Two-Year College Students in Career-Related Programs." Journal of Higher Education 82.1 (2011): 54-91. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. Garcia, Noreida; BTW 250-D2_06-02; Roeder, Graham; Saleh, Farah Josephine (2006-05-15) Ethnography of the University Initiative. 2006. <http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1895> Lecourt, Donna, and Napoleone, Anna Rita. "Teachers with(out) Class: Transgressing Academic Social Space through Working-Class Performances." Pedagogy 11.1 (2011): 81-108. Project MUSE. Web. 22 Jan. 2011. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>. Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the U.S. London: Routledge, 1997. Mamiseishvili, Ketevan, and Vicki Rosser. "International and Citizen Faculty in the United States: An Examination of their Productivity at Research Universities." Research in Higher Education 51.1 (2010): 88-107. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 15 Mar. 2011.