A student in the UK

Received pronunciation - RP

Received pronunciation, or RP, refers to an accent in English regarded by many people as a ‘standard’ accent.

It has also been called ‘the Queen’s English’ or ‘BBC English’. In the past, RP had high status in the UK, indicating an educated speaker, and this transferred into EFL where it has been used as a model for pronunciation. With the emergence of international English, the recognition of the equality of a variety of accents, and the emphasis on authentic communication, learners now become aware of a wider range of accents.

Example
In RP bath is pronounced with an /a:/ sound. In other UK accents it can be pronounced with an /æ/.

In the classroom
Using authentic listening texts is one way to expose learners to a variety of accents. Sources for this include films, online radio broadcasts and podcasts, and guest speakers.

Further links:
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/global-english-teaching-pronunciation
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-pronunciation-phonemic-symbols

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I'm a pronunciation teacher who speaks RP and I've had hundreds of students who came to me specifically because I speak RP. This is because they say I'm easier to understand and they want to be easily understood. I know this isn't fair for non-RP speakers but it's a fact. Some accents are easier to understand than others. I'm happy to teach a variety of accents to anyone who wants to learn but my students always want RP.

Thanks for your comment Danielbritten. I wonder if the context where you are teaching is a factor as to why students demand a teacher with an RP accent and the perception that RP accents are easier to understand? There are estimates that as little as 0.15% of the global English speaking population have this accent, so in fact the probability of your students encountering this accent in the real world is fairly low. Pronunciation expert Adrian Underhill writes about ‘comfortable intelligibility’ and states that 'The days of RP are over. There is no correct pron model.' Many practitioners believe that we should be exposing learners to as wide a variety of accents as possible to best equip them for using English in their daily lives. It would be interesting to hear what other teachers’ experiences are - Please let us know in the comments!

Cath

TeachingEnglish team

This show me more knowledge about pronunciation. Before I know about varieties of English, I thought that we have at least one of the three accents, British, American or Australia. But now, I know that the pronunciation it is always influenced by first language accent