Teacher's Pronunciation on Learners' Interest: How Does the Pronunciation of a Teacher Affect Young Learners' Interest in Learning English: a Case Study in a HK School

This descriptive case study probes into the effects of a local Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten teacher's pronunciation on her students’ classroom interactions in English language learning. It also describes and examines the teacher's own perceptions of pronunciation competency as a language professional. In Asia, many non-native L2 teachers suffer from the "native-speaker fallacy" due to our historical and colonial backgrounds. A huge inferior complex element is still deeply entrenched in our cultures. This study aims to explore how we can change this imbalanced and misperceived self-worth among language teachers and tap into the rich resources from our L1 & L2 learning experiences into our current teaching experiences. To draw a compare and contrast model, two kindergarten teachers (Native English Speaker (NS) & Non Native Speaker (NNS)) with 36 young learners (K3) were interviewed and observed. Though the initial results show the non-native pronunciation of the teacher negatively affected or confused students' interactions in English language learning, this study has raised an awareness to address the generally non-RP standards of kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong.