 Re: Sick n /Tired of being expected to be a Yank
If you teach in Europe, you're just as likely to find the opposite. here UK English tends to be the norm, though obviously companies who have strong contacts with the US may want to know the differences between the two dialects. I work with people who are involved in meetings etc at an EU level, and the demand is primarily for standard UK English - at most a "mid-Atlantic" variety, which personally is what I tend to teach. If my (Italian) students are mainly going to be speaking to Germans, Czechs or Koreans they have no more need to understand someone from the Isle of Dogs than someone from the Bronx. 90% of our students now need English as an international language. Specific native speaker varieties are irrelevant to all but the minority who intend to live in those areas or work closely with native speakers. |