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.(1993: 73 & 75)All told, the picture of a real Estuary English speaker does not correspond tothe stereotype: Doctors, scientists, lawyers, teachers, lecturers, industrialists andpoliticians who appear in the media can be heard using mild Estuary English oranother mild regional accent. (Kerswill 2001).Let these examples speak forthemselves.49 Chapter 4Estuary English and foreignersI love Estuary English! I wish I had a teacher who would help me with that accent.It'sthe real McCoy! Let class and social taboos not hinder your using that accent.The above quotation is a fragment of a posting to the author s Internet forum:"Estuary English" as a pronunciation model for TEFL (Teachers Forum1).But does it reflect the enthusiasm for Estuary English of the majority offoreigners?1.Estuary English as a pronunciation teaching modelReports of increased popularity of Estuary English among the British, especially theyounger generation, multiply.Estuary is said to promote an upfront image and lend street credibility.For this reason, it might be a good idea to employ it inforeign language classrooms, but is it? This section will present the issue from thepoint of view of professionals engaged in educational affairs, and then their opinionswill be confronted with available research findings that reveal students attitudes toEE.Some of the views demonstrated below have been published, but the others havebeen obtained through personal communication.The author has been permitted toquote the latter in this paper.1.1.Lecturers and teachers opinionsIn her search, the author failed to find positive answers to the questionwhether to teach Estuary English to foreigners, and the negative opinions werejustified in a number of ways.Trudgill (2001), for instance, thinks that the teaching of Estuary would be the worst kind of metropolitan bias .A similar view has been expressed by RichardBolt, Teacher s Forum editor:For most people in the UK your home region is very significant and as most Britishpeople do not come from or speak such an English (including myself) - so I ampersonally not in favour!!! How long will Estuary English last? To many British people50 it would seem like the latest in a long line of attempts by London to tell the rest of ushow to behave, and to impose that on the rest of the world is a kind of nightmare.(Bolt2003 p.c.)Jane Setter, Director of English Pronunciation Research Unit School ofLinguistics and Applied Language Studies The University of Reading, provides forcertain technical difficulties: I personally do not think EE is a particularly goodmodel for ELT; many students and teachers find glottal stopping particularlydifficult, for a start! And in any case, one cannot choose to use a certain accent as amodel when it doesn't really exist. (2003 p.c.).Wells (1998-1999), despite his approval for Dutch students speaking EE,recommends the teaching of modernised RP.Similarly Coggle (1994 & 1998-1999),happy when overseas students sound like natives even when using EE pronunciation,opts for teaching Estuary abroad only for recognition purposes until EE has becomemore firmly established as the new RP .Bex (2003 p.c.) himself confessing a democratic approach to teaching variousaccents warns that EE might not be respected by examination boards and may notfulfil students needs: & it is very important to offer the pupils a variety that willbest serve their needs.At the moment, I think it doubtful that EE fulfils that function.At the very least, it is not likely to be recognised by examiners as having muchvalue .Native teachers of English themselves will probably not adjust their ownaccents to teach Estuary English: I don't have any strong feelings on EstuaryEnglish.If that's what the teacher speaks, or what the students want, then why not?You tend to teach with the voice and accent you have, so I don't teach EstuaryEnglish per se. (tdol teacher, in Teachers Forum 2).Andrew Moore (2003 p.c
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