Learning English with Elton John
When I was 12, my English teacher used some songs to train our listening skills. I remember two from Elton John: “Nikita” and “Sacrifice”. Looking back at the lyrics today, I fail to see the pedagogical elements in them. Maybe my teacher just liked the songs and used them in her class? Her name (and this fact will be relevant later on) was Mari Paz.
Music listening apart, the English curriculum was very similar across my younger years. It was made of big blocks of grammar, small parts of, er, grammar, and tiny bits of (checks notes), yes, grammar.
Kids today are not learning English that way. They start earlier, conversational exercises are more relevant, and, if there would be a teacher brave enough, Shakira’s English hits could replace Elton John’s.
But learners of English can only go so far. There is a language wall, made of accents, cultural references and seemingly illogical phrasal verbs and idioms, that we cannot jump. No matter how much we try, we will never be native speakers.
In this article we follow the life and adventures of Europelings of all ages learning and using the language that used to be of Shakespeare. We will approach as well the native vs non-native debate (with a bias of our own). And we will close with practical tips! In this case, about understanding fellow workers and students with strong accents.
Buckle up, we’re in for a ride!
Behold the Eurobarometer
In Europe, half of the adults, and almost three quarters of the kids, can speak English as a foreign language.
Europeans are increasingly speaking English, in particular the youth. But what sort of English are they actually speaking? British, American, or something else?
Maybe the only benefit of Brexit was this
Because until then, UK was a sort of guardian. English was already the language of choice of many Europeans to communicate with each other, but using it always carried some weight.
When the UK exited, French seemed to have a chance at replacing English. Some politicians, as then Commission President Juncker in the picture below, were confident of that.
But it was an illusion. English remained. Furthermore, without the UK as guardian, English became neutral.
The rise of European English
We talked with Marko Modiano, a Professor of English at the University of Gävle, in Sweden. He has been studying for 30 years the following topic: “European English”. What is this?
“There is a core of English elements that are more commonly used in Europe but less commonly in other English-speaking countries. It’s made of specific vocabulary, pronunciation, and some elements of grammar.”
In this core, there is some influence from European institutions. For instance, Europeans use “Member States” in capital letters to refer to the EU countries. Other speakers might wonder: members of what? But for Europeans it’s implicit. Another example is “Directive”. While in standard English this is any order from the top, in Europe it refers specifically to EU law.
How relevant is “European English”?
“European English is a force that can’t be stopped. English now dominates higher education and research publishing. Elements of European English are present in all the EU institutions and agencies, and English is now required for employment in many European companies.”
Modiano notes: not all Europeans speak English similarly.
“In Central Europe, many people are traditionally multilingual. In Northern Europe more than 95% of young people speak English, with figures lower, but still on the increase, in Southern Europe and Eastern Europe.”
How will European English evolve?
“There are three phases: first, “legitimisation” of its usage, when terms become widely accepted, then “codification”, when they start being described academically, and finally “standardisation”, for instance in the form of dictionaries.”
Modiano is a dual national: American and Swedish. From that angle, he brings another element into the mix of why we speak English the way we do:
“American and British English don’t provide Europeans with a sense of identity as citizens of the EU.”
Marko Modiano has written extensively on this topic. If you want to dig further, check out this text from 2024: Identity and standards for English as a European Union lingua franca.
Kids speak English with their friends
When multilingual kids are very little they might get confused between language and nationality: “If I speak English, am I English?”
Their families quickly correct this and soon they distinguish the languages that contribute mostly to their identity (usually, those spoken by their parents) from the languages that provide them mainly with communication (those used at school or in a social context).
To better understand this, we enter a home which is exposed to English at work and at school, but not so much at home. We’re welcomed by Rita Araujo, a Portuguese living in Brussels (and one of the earliest subscribers of The European Perspective). Having lived abroad for more than one decade, she starts off our conversation with this:
“We’re migrants from other countries of Europe, and English is our common language.”
Rita’s daughters, Margarida and Isabel, attend the European School in Brussels. There are 37 European Schools across Europe, they exist mainly to serve the children of the European institutions staff, and they have a close relationship with languages.
In Brussels, where most of the EU staff reside, kids are schooled in their own language. Margarida and Isabel attend the Portuguese section of their school, which means that most of their subjects are taught in Portuguese. However, the number of subjects taught in their second language (in their case English) increases gradually throughout the school path, and at their age (17 and 15), it’s roughly half of them.
For example: Economics is taught in English, and several kids from the different language sections will attend. Apart from our Portuguese friends, there will be pupils from the Swedish, Italian, Lithuanian or Finnish sections in the same room.
At this age, kids are fluent enough in English so as to choose it as the main language to communicate among themselves. This mimics the situation of their parents at work: English is the main communication language. The students are advantaged though: they are faster mastering slang and new expressions.
Kids can choose University studies in English
Being proficient in English, their options increase. Now they can choose to continue their studies in their first language, or look at UK universities. And more and more, universities elsewhere in Europe offer graduate studies in English.
The most relevant one might be The Netherlands, where 30% of the places are reserved for international students. Dutch universities want to attract foreign students, and this has put them at a conflict with the far-right government of the country (in crisis as we publish this), which pushes to “de-anglicise” them.
There are more options across Europe. All Polish universities offer a Medicine graduate programme in English. Denmark and Belgium offer several programmes too. If we look specifically at Masters’ studies, English is everywhere in Europe.
The School of Computer Engineering of Oviedo, where I did my studies, used to have very little exposure to languages. In my time, there was only one Erasmus agreement. Today, it runs a graduate programme taught 80% in English.
So I went back to speak about it with one of my teachers. I called Jose Emilio Labra, who was for several years Dean of the School, and, as a researcher, has attended a good share of academic conferences in English.
Attracting Erasmus students to Asturias
Why is “Computing Oviedo” offering an English bachelor?
Labra explains: “For many reasons. Several software multinationals established themselves in Asturias in recent years, and speaking English is a great asset to work there. Also, many students already arrived at the University with a good English level from high school”.
So those are the perks for the internal students. But that’s not the whole story, right?
“And then, there is foreign students. Years ago, it was much more difficult to attract them. They would go to Valencia or Barcelona, but not to Asturias. And they had to speak enough Spanish to follow the lessons. Today, they can just speak English. It used to be rare, but nowadays, every year we have a handful of Erasmus students.”
Offering university studies in English is a win-win-win.
“The local industry benefits. Teachers are interested in expanding their academic profile publishing material in English, increasing the prestige of the studies. Students know they will be better prepared and will have more opportunities in the global market, and they will be able to pursue remote positions”.
This idea resonates worldwide. We have just heard it from Jose Emilio Labra, in Oviedo, Spain. But we heard exactly the same message from Eleni Symeonidou, who is Greek, and resides in Hong Kong: “Every self-respecting University will offer courses in English. This is true for Hong Kong and Singapore too.”
Becoming an English teacher
Eleni is today where some of the European kids learning English could be in 10 to 20 years. She attended an American high school back in her natal Thessaloniki. She then got a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature, and a Master’s in Teaching English. Even with all these credentials, it still wasn’t easy to get started.
“It took me months to land my first interview. And I was looking worldwide!”
The reason? She was not a native English speaker. Eventually, she got a job as an English teacher in Shanghai, and progressed to the higher ranks of the organisation. Today, she has switched from teaching to HR, and from Shanghai to HK.
But she remembers the bias of some of her students towards her: “Why are you teaching us? You’re Greek!”
Her experiences as a non-native speaker in the industry promoted her advocacy work. She has a message for both the industry and the clients/students about the importance of learning English from people who have themselves been through it, and have the right qualifications.
In some Asian countries this bias towards native teachers is even embedded in their legislation. Let’s now go back to Europe, where thankfully these things don’t happen…
Except when they happen
“It should not happen, but it does. Europe legislates against discrimination based on the country of origin, which is what happens when you prioritise a native teacher. But reality is different. Many schools prioritize hiring native English speakers over equally qualified non-native speakers.”
These are the words of Meri Maroutian, an English teacher in Italy. She takes a strong stance in favour of non-native teachers (her own website is called “The non-native speaker”).
She recalls how she got into teaching.
“I started teaching business English. At that time, I still didn’t have my qualifications. But when they heard my English accent, they immediately hired me. I’m Armenian, but I was perceived as native.”
When schools prioritise native teachers, the message they’re sending to non-native teachers is that they’re not good enough. But that’s not true. They can be as good as native teachers. And many times, they have had to prove themselves further.
The takeaway message for schools is relatively simple: “native speaker” is not a skill. Instead of advertising posts for “native speakers”, they must select their staff based on their actual qualifications, from wherever they happen to be.
What kids today think of native English teachers
I think again of Mari Paz, my English teacher in secondary school. I don’t know what her credentials were. But one day, Graham, a native teacher, joined the school. If my memory serves me well, we, the students, were excited with the novelty, and we immediately considered that a native teacher was a better teacher.
However, in the 90’s, as it is now, it was possible to be a good English teacher with vast knowledge and adequate teaching skills, but without a British accent. Not only: a non-native might be in a better position to develop successful learning strategies, and to understand the struggle of the students. Did we realise this back then?
I got in contact with another pupil of Mari Paz, who went on to study English as a translator, and has ended up becoming a teacher. Her name is Paula Claros. I asked her about the students today: what do they think of this native teacher thing?
Looking at the input from the students, two things caught my attention:
- First, they look at bilingual University studies as something interesting for those that plan to move abroad. Here, they miss the importance of English for those that will stay in Spain.
- Second, they see the added value of having a native teacher, but they add a critical element to it. It’s a “Yes, but”. Yes, an English teacher, but they should also know your local language to help you navigate your typical errors. Yes, but with adequate training.
Graham, the native teacher that arrived at my secondary school 30 years ago, still teaches today, and he might have become precisely that type of teacher: the one that knows the local language so well so as to understand how the regional variations influence the errors that kids typically make when learning English. This is a “native” teacher that has acquired “non-native” teaching skills.
Moving away from mimicking English accents
If you listened to the three teachers I have mentioned, you would notice different accents. Graham has a native British accent. Paula has a more standard accent but you can probably tell she’s not native. And if you heard Mari Paz, you’d find out she’s Spanish right away.
Note how I have refrained from qualifying their accents. It’s not that one is better than the other. They’re just different. They’re all equally valid.
When you learn as a kid, it’s easier for you to replicate the accent. You learn by repeating. Some kids don’t even know how to write, but their English accent is similar to their teacher’s.
Adults find it more difficult. Mimicking English accents is a game we can’t win. Maybe we shouldn’t be playing it at all.
Let’s go back to Marko Modiano:
“Europeans learning English should be graded on their ability to communicate cross-culturally in the English medium, not on their ability to mimic native speakers of American or British English.”
Maybe it’s time to stop thinking that our accent is wrong.
“Accent-shaming goes against the values of the EU, where unity in diversity is a guiding principle, and European English, which is in the process of becoming an authentic variety of the language, as well as the diverse accents found in the English of Europeans across mainland Europe, are worthy of our respect and admiration.”
Intelligibility
Several of the interviewees have said the same from different angles: “There’s no right or wrong”, “People simply use the language differently”.
But this can’t be the whole morale of the story. We can let go the will to sound British, but is it the same as uncritically sponsoring an extreme accent? (No, of course I’m not referring to yours, but to the terrible accent of your co-workers!)
The goal has always been the same: to communicate with each other. If the message doesn’t get through, we have a problem.
The good news is that it is possible to be understood in an international English setup. It turns out that there are some pronunciation features that are crucial to get your message across, and others that are less. Polish researcher and English teacher Marek Kiczkowiak gives a lot of examples in this 1-hour masterclass.
For instance, it’s crucial to get the consonants right, and especially the groups of consonants. Pay full attention when you say “screen”, pronounce correctly the “scr” or you’re SCRewed.
With an exception: the consonant sound /ð/ (the one in “brother”). This, you can substitute almost for anything, it doesn’t matter. “Brover”, “broter, “broder”, “brofer”, all of them will do. Some British dialects even use them (and they’re native!).
What about vowels? It’s less important to say them properly. Say “run” or “ran”, we will understand. There’s an exception here: the sound /ɜː/ as in “turn”. That you should make an effort to pronounce correctly.
It’s not very important to get the internal stress of the words right. Either “butterFLY”, or “BUtterfly” would be similarly understandable (maybe even “buTTERfly”?)
But what is called “nuclear stress” is important. This is the emphasis you use when you say “I didn’t call YOU. I called HIM”.
The pronunciation characteristics that Kiczkowiak presents here are known, in academic terms, as the “Lingua Franca core”. The concept of “English as Lingua Franca” was introduced by the British researcher Jennifer Jenkins around 2000, after studying interactions of students of English in her classroom, and it is the final destination of our trip today.
Focusing on communication but not on correctness: English as Lingua Franca
I went running with some friends a couple of Sundays ago and we ended up in a bakery (stay with me, this is relevant to the topic).
Because the bakery is part of the running plan, of course. In the counter, we saw a French puff pastry with chocolate inside. My running mate Ed recognised it: “Look! They have pain au chocolat!”
Using that expressions indicates two things:
- Ed is multilingual.
- He doesn’t restrict himself to the English vocabulary. He chooses the most suitable words from all of his linguistic resources. Capisci?
That’s what English as Lingua Franca is about: it’s English in a multilingual world. In this case it happens that Ed is a native English speaker, but in general this mode of communication is common among non-natives.
In the video above, the concept of English as Lingua Franca is introduced by Dr Alessia Cogo. In her words, this approach makes English “less foreign, and also less English”. Maybe that’s why the computer dictionary insists in underlining “au chocolat”.
English as Lingua Franca is a good way to understand how Europeans speak English. We want to get the message across, and we’re less concerned about being correct. We carry with us one or more other languages, and we use them. We move away from the native norms, for instance about accent.
However, if the listener hasn’t been in France or Belgium, and hasn’t been exposed to “pain au chocolat”, we might have a communication breakdown. What happens in this case is that you renegotiate with the other speaker, trying to find common references to convey the idea as accurately as possible (chocolatine? couque au chocolat? napolitana? shokocroissant? chocolate croissant?)
In the end, why have I written all this?
These are the ideas where I wanted this article to land:
- Don’t feel bad for your English accent. But pay attention to the sounds that make you more intelligible. At the same time, expose yourself to a diversity of English accents.
- Learn the standard, and also how to deviate from it.
- English is yours too. As a European, “European English” is the variety that you’re probably speaking and you can feel supported by the academic work on the topic, and more generally, on English as Lingua Franca. Don’t get your text reviewed by a native.
One of our interviewees, Jose Emilio Labra, said that European academics in international conferences don’t manage to be fully themselves because of the lack of proficiency in English. I would like to direct to him a response from another of our guests, Marko Modiano: “Don’t apologise, just be comfortable”.
Stories that continue from here
Today we have sampled some stories, but several others have been left out, on purpose. For instance, the point of view of native speakers is not included here. It would be interesting to know why some native English speakers choose a local language for their kids’ school instead of an international one.
We’re asking to relax the rules when speaking English. We should be equally open to relax the rules when other speakers use our first languages. A similar blending of the language might be happening in large European cities when migrants come, learn the local language, and use it to communicate among them.
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