British AccentsPart I. Introduction1. Talk about the following in pair. To what extent do you agree

with them?

I want to speak English without any accent from my own language. Having the right accent is essential for business success. (Think of Dovy

Keukens… ;-)) The Queen’s English is much better than an American accent. In my country, an accent can tell us if someone is intelligent or not. I would pay big money to be trained to have an accent that will help my

career. There are accents in my own language that I hate listening to. Accents are one of the most difficult parts of understanding English. I want to speak with an accent that doesn’t tell people where I’m from.

2. The main regional accents in Britain

a) Here are some of the main regional accents from the UK. Each is associated with a city. Do you know where they are? Write numbers on the map:

Geordie 1. Newcastle

Cockney 2. London

Brummie

/ Black Country

3. Birmingham

/ Wolverhampton

West Country 4. Bristol

Scouse 5. Liverpool

Glaswegian 6. Glasgow

Yorkshire 7. Yorkshire

b) Received Pronunciation

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The non-regional accent of British English is called Received Pronunciation (RP). This can be associated with being educated at public schools, although people can adopt features of the accent without speaking with it all the time.

What is a “non-regional accent”?Why is this non-regional variety called “Received Pronunciation or RP”?What do we call this variety in Belgium for our language?What is a public school?

c) Accent versus dialect

English is spoken by about 359 million people as a first language, but not all speak ‘the same English’, they all have their own dialects and accents, which is called ‘regional variation’. Look up in Macmillan Dictionary.

DIALECT =

ACCENT =

4. Where are these famous people from? And who are they?Choose 10 of them. Which accent do they have?

Gordon Ramsay, Adele, One Direction, Dizzee Rascal, Emma Watson, Alex Turner, Kate Moss, Pierce Brosnan, Calvin Harris, JK Rowling, Cara Delavingne, John Lennon, David Beckham, Robert Pattinson, Jamie Dornan, Keira Knightley, Charlotte Church, Colin Firth, Daniel Radcliffe, Mumford & Sons, Dev Patel, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Bishop, Ewan McGregor, Kate Middleton, Jamie Oliver, Florence Welsh, Hugh Laurie, Lilly Allen, James McAvoy, Amy Winehouse, Jude Law

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