Best British English accent for ESL teachers in Thailand

So you've got a job teaching English as a foreign language in Thailand. And for the purposes of this short article, you hail from the U.K. You want to do your best and teach as effectively as possible, unfortunately you have a broad scouse or cockney accent! Yikes, will all those kids end up talking like those brookside or eastender dummies? I wouldn't even wish that on my worst enemy!

So what can you do about your accent?

Well in my view strong accents are a no go when teaching English. Oh yes, some people might think that it's clever to say things like...

Twe – i instead of twenty or di - unt instead of didn't or finkin instead of thinking. In other words I really don't consider it fair on the unknowing students to expose them to strong accents and bad regional grammar traits.


What can I do about my accent and grammar?

Firstly you can practice consciously cleaning it up, after a while you'll get better. As for the accent. Well most cockneys, scousers,Scots or Essex folk that I've met in Thailand are not broad. A lot of them have been teaching English in Thailand for a number of years. They've actually worked on ridding themselves of that strong accent and in most cases succeded. It can be done. The motivating factor for this is employment. Most Thai teachers and employers are now getting wise to strong regional accents and can usually spot teachers that speak with them.

What's the best accent to speak with?

You don't have to speak with a plum in your mouth! I really don't think that there is a best British English accent. All you need to do is speak clearly and use the correct grammar. Nothing too hard about that now is there?