Experience: ‘I woke up with a Welsh accent’
This is a list of key vocabulary and expressions from the article in order of how useful they are. The student must choose 6 items from the list to study in the lesson.
To ignore (something/ someone)
To deal with (something/ someone)
To struggle (with something/ to do something)
To accuse someone of (doing) something
To make friends (with someone)
I do think my accent has affected my personality
To toy with the idea of (doing) something
To stick out like a sore thumb
15 conversation-provoking questions related to the article.
1. What do you know about Zoe as a youngster?
2. What did Zoe say about FND and the development of her new accent?
3. How did she and other people react to her new accent?
4. What other things does she say about her life with the new accent?
5. Would you be upset if you had foreign accent syndrome?
6. Do you change your accent and the way you speak depending on who you are speaking to?
7. Do you want to get rid of your foreign accent when you speak English?
8. English isn’t my girlfriend’s native language and sometimes she tells me that, when she speaks English, she worries that people think she isn’t as intelligent as she actually is. Is she right to think like this?
9. Can you tell if someone is rich or poor by the way they speak?
10. Has your accent changed over the course of your life?
11. In the UK, different groups of people have different accents and often use different grammatical structures. Should school teachers try to get all pupils to speak in the same way?
12. Do you think the next generation in your native country will speak better English?
13. In your native language, does your generation use different slang to other generations?
14. Does speaking English for a long time tire you out?
15. How much English do you speak in your daily life?