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There is no Standardized English dialect, the way that Mandarin Chinese might be Standardized with the Beijing accent (The People’s Language). This can be difficult for the English teacher to negotiate for a number of reasons. Number one, your class might feel that there is a superior variation of English between American and British standards and insist on one over the other. Secondly, as the teacher you might only feel comfortable instructing in your native dialect. As the teacher, it is ultimately up to you to decide how to approach your class’ needs and wants to best prepare them for using English in the real world, with all of English’s idiosyncrasies. Most adult English learners are aware that British people and American people speak English in different ways. Thus, they will be interested to learn where their teacher comes from and which English they will speak in. It is important for the teacher to instill confidence in their students that, regardless of the English the teacher speaks naturally in, they will still be able to deliver the core skills that English requires universally. Since native speakers don’t generally think about the technical masteries of their language, it is important for the teacher to gain confidence by studying and mastering the skills they require from their students. Staying sharp with grammar rules, sentence structure, parts of speech, and other more academic elements of English will help the teacher maintain confidence that the English they impart will be useful and correct. However, it is incredibly useful to know what your class’ needs are. If you are an ESL teacher in England or the United States, it is most likely appropriate to teach the local dialect. However, if you are teaching EFL abroad, then it is a good idea to learn what your students’ English goals are. Maybe they are planning to travel or work with a specific English speaking nation, then you may want to tailor your lessons towards that nation’s English. A native English speaker may care more about the pronunciation and vocabulary differences between American and British English, but the English learner may be more immediately interested in the spelling differences. The British use of ‘ou’ where Americans only use “o,” or the reasoning between the use of “s,” “c,” or “z,” (even the name for the letter “z!”) all may feel arbitrary to the learner. These frustrations may be inevitable for the learner, but the teacher may be able to mitigate their student’s frustration and foster student success by making it clear to the class which variety of English they will focus on. This can be done by simply informing the class during the first lesson. If there is interest in the variety of English not being covered in class, it can be handled with minimal time as a simple footnote to the vocabulary or spelling presented. In general, the operation of an English classroom is not dependent on one variety of English or another, and focusing on the different varieties is not a high priority for class success. The most important thing to do is to teach the English the students need to learn to meet their individual goals, and to make it clear early in the class which English you will be instructing in.
