University Presentation Showcase: Graduate Division

“I Could Not Understand Anything They Said!”: Non-Native English-Speaking Instructors, Online Learning, and Student Anxiety

Presenter Hometown

Putney

Major

General Psychology

Department

Psychology

Degree

Graduate

Mentor

Hung-Tao Michael Chen

Mentor Department

Psychology

Abstract

It has been previously shown that non-native English speaking (NNES) instructors have been rated lower within course evaluations and are typically criticized for their accents (Rubin, 1992; Subtirelu, 2015). Reasonings behind this have not been researched much, though the relevance of this topic is continuing to grow through online learning. The current study aims to determine if the presence of an NNES accent brings about more anxiety whilst learning new material compared to an instructor with a standard American accent. Participants were given a set of four videos divided into two segments: one containing videos with an NNES and the other containing videos with a standard American-accented speaker. After each video, participants were asked recall questions about the information that they had just received before moving on to the next video. In between the two segments, participants were given an anxiety scale to measure the amount of anxiety they felt whilst listening to the two videos. At the end of the study, participants were asked to fill out a Chinese language experience form and demographic information. Our findings indicated the instructor's voice influenced recall and anxiety. Findings from the current study have implications for distance education and pedagogical practices.

Presentation format

Poster

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“I Could Not Understand Anything They Said!”: Non-Native English-Speaking Instructors, Online Learning, and Student Anxiety

It has been previously shown that non-native English speaking (NNES) instructors have been rated lower within course evaluations and are typically criticized for their accents (Rubin, 1992; Subtirelu, 2015). Reasonings behind this have not been researched much, though the relevance of this topic is continuing to grow through online learning. The current study aims to determine if the presence of an NNES accent brings about more anxiety whilst learning new material compared to an instructor with a standard American accent. Participants were given a set of four videos divided into two segments: one containing videos with an NNES and the other containing videos with a standard American-accented speaker. After each video, participants were asked recall questions about the information that they had just received before moving on to the next video. In between the two segments, participants were given an anxiety scale to measure the amount of anxiety they felt whilst listening to the two videos. At the end of the study, participants were asked to fill out a Chinese language experience form and demographic information. Our findings indicated the instructor's voice influenced recall and anxiety. Findings from the current study have implications for distance education and pedagogical practices.