The Impact of British Versus American Accents on Learning English as a ‎Foreign Language at the High School Level

This article examines the impact of British and American accents on learning English at the high ‎school level, and its findings show that the phonetic, grammatical, lexical, and spelling ‎differences between the two varieties create significant challenges for language learners. In the ‎area of pronunciation, the difference in the pronunciation of the letter "R" (pronounced in ‎American and unpronounced in British) as well as the thicker pronunciation of the vowel "A" in ‎words such as "fast" and "dance" in British, have a direct impact on students' listening ‎comprehension, and those who are only familiar with one variety are confused when faced with ‎the other. In the area of grammar, the use of the auxiliary verbs "shall" and "will" is much more ‎common in British than American, and the use of "should" in advisory sentences such as "I ‎should dress warmly" is considered to be unique to the British, while Americans use "I would". ‎Lexical differences such as "lift" versus "elevator" and "flat" versus "apartment" and spelling ‎differences such as "colour" versus "color" are also major challenges in reading and writing. ‎Citing research such as Bakhshi-Nejad's (۲۰۱۶) study, which showed that making language ‎learners aware of the differences between the two types improves their listening performance, ‎and Tepal's (۲۰۲۲) study, which categorized ۲۶ differences, the article emphasizes that neither ‎type is superior to the other and that the goal of education is to familiarize students with both ‎types in order to communicate effectively in the real world. Finally, the article concludes that the ‎choice of accent should not be a final decision and that awareness of linguistic differences is an ‎essential part of communicative competence.

کلیدواژه ها:

British accent ، American ، learning ، English language ، high school level