TURKISH EFL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THEIR L1-ACCENTED ENGLISH

Emerging different English accent varieties as a result of the recognition of English as a lingua franca all around the world has led many researchers in different contexts to explore the attitudes of the students towards their pronunciation. To report on the perspectives of the English learners in Turkey, which is one of the EFL contexts, the present study aimed to explore the attitudes of Turkish male and female EFL learners towards their English pronunciation. It was conducted with 60 students studying at English preparatory school of a state university in Istanbul, Turkey. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire which was designed by Tokumoto and Shibata (2011) to examine Turkish EFL learners’ self-assessment of their English accent. The items of the questionnaire measure cognitive, affective and behavioral components constructing learners’ attitudes. The results showed that Turkish EFL learners highly agreed that they had a non-native accent and their accent was not understandable enough for both native and non-native speakers of English. Although both genders reported negative beliefs for the acceptability of their accent for personal cross-cultural communication, female participants were found to believe that their accent was acceptable for international business and for an English teacher more than male students did. Additionally, Turkish EFL learners did not feel confident in their English pronunciation and they did not want to keep their accent, they would like to sound like a native-speaker instead. Based on these results, practical suggestions regarding the role of accent in language classes were discussed.