ELT365 · Day 177 — Listening to Accents: Exposure, Not Drilling

Idea — Research (Derwing & Munro) shows that listeners adapt to unfamiliar accents through exposure, not accent-drilling exercises. Variety builds tolerance; correction builds anxiety.

Example — Learners who hear one unfamiliar non-native accent weekly for a term understand it significantly better by the end — without a single pronunciation lesson targeting it.

Try — Check your audio materials for this term. Are learners hearing only one English variety? Introduce one new variety next lesson.

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