Which Variety Of English To Teach?

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Isabell REFLECTION I Course: Academic Writing 2 Lecturer: Beate Walter February 04, 2011 Which English to teach? American English is everywhere. However, is this the most convincing argument to teach AE only? During the last week we had a heated discussion in class, about which variety of English should be taught at school. This conversation made me think about this topic a lot. In fact, the two main, competing varieties of English are American English (AE) and British English (BE). British English could be regarded as the “original” English, due to the colonization and the emigration of the British in the 17th century. In addition to the geographical location close to Germany, the British English is for most German learners of English, easier to learn - as the BE pronunciation is much more related to the German one and rather similar to the written English words, than the American English. Therefore, BE is clearer and easier to imitate. This could be one prominent argument to establish the British English as the most suitable English variety for Germans. A study, carried out at the University of Giessen in Germany, says that twenty-five percent of the asked first year students of English, think that BE should be taught at school exclusively. They consider British English as the ‘native English’. Their decision is based on the arguments cited above. Only six percent of the students regard the American English as the best variety of English. American English is unavoidable! English media is full of AE - English movies and the participating actors are mainly of AE origin and therefore speak with an American accent. Major online companies, which are very successful in Germany as well, like Google, Facebook, MySpace, Amazon and YouTube are originally American companies, which make use of AE. (i.e. Google:

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