Lesson 1 – Identity and overview of Accentism

Lesson objectives

The aims for the first session are to establish the themes of accentism and identity,
which will be achieved by the pupils exploring their own accents, as well as the
Birmingham one as a whole. The various sub themes of this will include the origins of
the Birmingham accent, stereotypes and influences on these.

Activities

Starter Activity (5 minutes)

- Write on a piece of paper your accent and a list of stereotypes are associated with it
o Discuss these as a class

Main Activity (40 minutes)

- Where does the term Brummie come from?
o Originally, Birmingham was founded under the name Brummagem around 600
AD and despite the name altering over the centuries, the original name has
been used to label the community who reside in the region.
- Background information on Brummie accent:
o Many words, phrases and pronunciation, are similar to the traditional Saxon
accent. This is due to the Anglo Saxons who resided there for nearly 500
years and being in the centre of the country, Birmingham was at low risk of
being invaded and slow to adapt to any of the changes that new influences
brought to the country.
o The Industrial Revolution had a large influence on the Birmingham accent as
new groups of people moved in from surrounding areas.
o “The accent is a dialectal hybrid of northern, southern, Midlands,
Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire speech, also with elements
from the languages and dialects of its Asian and Afro-Caribbean
communities.” (Thorne, 2003)
o The Welsh accent has had an influence on the tonal quality.

● Words like “realize” and “tried” with something like IPA ɒi (so that these words sound a
bit like American “realoyze” and “troyed”). This is vaguely reminiscent of how some
contemporary Australian English speakers say these words.
● As in Northern English accents, the vowel in “puppies” and “blood” is pronounced
 higher in the mouth than in Southern English accents, ranging from IPA ʊ to ɔ (i.e.
“puppies” sounds a bit like “pooppies” or “pawppies”).
● The diphthong in “about” and “house” is raised, with a prononunciation ranging from
IPA æʊ to ɛʉ (“heh-oose”). This is similar to how the diphthong is pronounced in some
middle-class Dublin accents.
● Words like “most” and “homes” are pronounced with a very low-starting diphthong,
typically IPA ʌʊ although it can start even lower, making “goat” sound like “gout” to
outside ears. This pronunciation sounds a bit like exaggerated Cockney.
● You may notice that I’ve referenced four other dialects here. That is because Brummie
tends to sound like it has been patched together from different bits and pieces of other
accents. To put it crudely, it sounds a bit like somebody put Cockney, Australian,
Northern English and Irish accents through a linguistic blender

- Can you think of any celebrities/ TV shows (media forms) that feature a Birmingham
accent?
o A presentation of a collection of photos of celebrities and asking students to
think about how these people have altered ways in which people think about
Birmingham accents.
o Examples:
§ Peaky Blinders Masculinity, gangs, violence
§ Fred and George Weasley Humorous
§ Ozzy Osbourne Wild, Rockstar lifestyle

Plenary (10 minutes)

- Can you think of any Birmingham slang words/ terms that are specific to
Birmingham?
o Are there obvious themes to the words/ terms?
● What would these suggest about the Birmingham lifestyle?

Lesson 2: Effects of Accentism

Lesson Objectives

The second lesson is intended to raise an awareness and interest into the effects of
accentism. The key objective is that students learn of the pernicious, and often
unnoticed, impact that accentism has on individual lives and how easily accentism can
facilitate more recognised forms of discrimination such as classism and racism. This
lesson should give students the chance to evaluate the biases they hold towards other
accents and any possible internalised linguistic values that are self-detrimental.

Starter Activity (5 minutes)

As a warm-up activity, students will be split into three groups and asked to create a
mind-map exploring their pre-existing perceptions of accent discrimination. It should be
stressed that there isn’t a ‘right’ answer to this task, as it is merely a formative exercise.
The mind-maps should cover the following aspects:

- The importance of accentism

- Any personal examples of experienced/observed accentism

- Possible consequences of accent discrimination

Main Activity (40 minutes)

The main activity will continue using these three groups, each of which will be given a
different case study (news article) that details the impact of accentism in British society.
The case studies will also be relevant to other forms of discrimination. Students will be
tasked with reviewing the details of their case study, drawing on them in order to answer
the following list of questions.

- How do accents impact how people are perceived?

- How do accents impact the way people interact with others?

- How can people be disadvantaged due to their accent?

- How may accent bias relate to other forms of prejudice?

- Why is it important to respect all accents equally?

News Articles

Group A:

Sky New: ‘Accents that face the most discrimination revealed in study’
 https://news.sky.com/story/revealed-why-your-accent-could-be-holding-you-back-
11871382

Group B:

Daily Mail: ‘House-hunters with English or French accents get better customer
service than those with an Eastern European or African twang, study finds’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8494777/People-English-accents-
likely-better-customer-service.html

Group C:

The Guardian: ‘UK's top universities urged to act on classism and accent prejudice’

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/24/uk-top-universities-urged-act-
classism-accent-prejudice

Plenary (10 minutes)

The lesson will conclude with each group presenting an overview of their case study to
the wider class, after which they will directly answer each of the questions provided.

Summary of takeaway points:

- Accent bias is something we all hold, and we are often not conscious of it.

- Because accent bias often goes unnoticed, it can influence people’s self-
worth without them realising it.

- The associations we have with different accents are determined by

inequalities rather than truths (e.g., Liverpool = working class = unintelligent)

- Because accent can correlate with race, wealth, and privilege, accentism can
sometimes be a form of racism, classism, etc.

- The perceptions people have of different accents can result in certain

groups/individuals being disadvantaged (e.g., find it harder to get a job)
Lesson 3 – Unlearning Accentism / Applying it to the Real World

Lesson objectives

The aims for the third session are to promote possible solutions for Unlearning
Accentism. These will be achieved by proposing a lesson divided into 3 sections:
• Starter activity → prevention: promoting activities aimed at preventing any
discriminatory behavior
• Main activity → real actions which are further divided into:
- Counteracts
- Affirmative actions
• Plenary → monitoring: statistical monitoring of cases of discrimination and
verification of the effective application of the principle of equal treatment
Activities

Starter Activity (5 minutes):prevention

- In your opinion, what are the possible solutions to prevent discrimination based
on Accentism?
- Discuss these as a class
- Think about how technology / internet can be useful to address the issue
e.g using social networks or blogs or information campaigns for updating
users daily on the consequences that linguistic discrimination can entail

Main Activity (40 minutes): real actions

- What can be done on a practical level to unlearn Accentism?
According to many studies, organizations that dealt with discrimination
worldwide have implemented two types of actions to eliminate linguistic
prejudices:
- Counteract → this word refers to those activities that must be carried out
in full compliance with the powers of the judicial authority such as:
- Providing free legal assistance to victims of discrimination in
judicial and administrative proceedings
- Carrying out investigations to verify the existence of
discriminatory phenomena
- Affirmative actions → this word refers to the promotion of positive
actions for the development of guidelines on the fight against
discrimination and codes of behavior such as:
- Exposing children from an early age to different accents
without any negative connotations
- Promoting a multicultural environment at work → the presence of
people from all over the country.
- Actively picking out accentism in these videos:
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9564mFbXM2Q
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af7UD-IxzZI
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQzncuPY40s
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trbIoCmWcp8
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO5SbsvIjHE
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57zSSRbfsbs

Plenary Activity (10 minutes): monitoring

- Given that many actions aimed at ensuring greater equity have also been
proposed at global level (through the approval of specific laws, for
example), could you find a way to check whether these laws are respected
at work level?
Some ideas:
- Recruiters are asked to commit to ignoring irrelevant
information when making their decisions.
- Recruiters are asked to commit to an agreed set of objective
criteria before making judgements
- Recruiters are told that they will have to justify their
decisions