Learners' Attitudes Towards Different Accents of English

Abstract

Listening is one of the most difficult skills in foreign/second language learning. Learners' ability or difficulty in understanding what they hear may depend on several factors which may include accent. In Scales, Wennerstrom, Richard, Hui Wu study (2006)* it was found that there was a considerable correlation between the accent the subjects voted the easiest to understand and the one they preferred. Based on aforementioned study, this study aimed to focus on the accent perceptions of both current and former language learners at Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages. In order to analyze learner perceptions, each subject listened to the same talk by different speakers with different accents of English. They then were given some questions and state their perceptions-preference and opinions about each accent. In the end, the answers were collected and analyzed to find out how accent was seen by the learners.