Takes Two to Tango: Research into accent, comprehensibility and intelligibility and implications for CLIL. In W. Szubko-Sitarek et al. (eds.), Second Language Learning and Teaching, Springer International Publishing: Lausanne, Switzerland, pp 63-79. (original) (raw)

Varieties of English abound and students need to understand them, but research is still attempting to determine which features make a given accent easier or more difficult to understand. To that end, the constructs of accent, comprehensibility and intelligibility have been the subject of research in relation to, among others: fluency ; assessment of listening and speaking ; and prosodic features' influence on speech segmentation (Cutler in Cognitive models of speech processing: psycholinguistic and computational perspectives. MIT, Cambridge, 1990). Studies with immigrant populations in the North American context of English as a Second Language (e.g. Munro 2001, TESOL 2005) show that researchers are trying to operationalize these three concepts, in order to help instructors better define their learners' needs within such settings. This chapter argues that the body of research into these three concepts, including experimental and descriptive studies, holds crucial insights for Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Similarly to bilingual education, CLIL is becoming more widespread in Europe under the impulse of the Bologna process. The corresponding increase in the number of nonnative speakers of English teaching field-specific content in English highlights the importance of the interplay between the principles and goals of CLIL and three constructs: accent, comprehensibility and intelligibility. This chapter explores the main findings of studies into these three constructs in order to address one of the main challenges of CLIL: communicating field-specific content via effective, comprehensible language.