Raising Accent Awareness in an ESL Classroom: An Action Research Study

Within the US, accent-reduction courses are offered with the claim that they can help people "get rid" of their accents. As Ramjattan (2022) states, there has been an increase in these accent-reduction programs, which treat immigrant professionals' accents as abnormal. We argue that ESL students need to be aware of such issues and agree with Deutschmann and Steinval (2020) that one of the main challenges is raising self-awareness on unconscious bias. The present study aimed at exploring ESL students' attitudes towards accent bias and accent stereotyping. Specifically, we focused on L2 English accents in an academic setting in the United States. An accent awareness workshop was organized to collect the data. This workshop was audio-recorded and transcribed for data analysis. Another data point included students' written reflections at the end of the workshop. The data was analyzed through open thematic coding (Saldaña, 2015). Findings suggest that students were unfamiliar with outer-circle accents, and they tended to perceive negative attitudes towards those accents. The idealization of L1 English speakers made itself visible as participants indicated a desire to speak with a "native" accent. By the end of the intervention, participants encouraged appreciation for one's accent and identity. The findings have larger implications as they indicate that training on accent bias can be beneficial for ESL students.