My opinion after reading this article is that you cannot force someone to change the way they speak as it is a part of who they are. I think that the teacher could have tried to speak more formal so that others are able to understand her but not sound ‘more southern’ as that is not who she is or where she is from so why should she pretend to be?
“To try and remove it is like trying to remove Beefeaters,” she insisted. “We should be celebrating our different regional ways of speech and promoting and protecting them. I love to hear the Cumbrian accent and dialect, and I just wish more people appreciated it. Often people don’t understand the value of it until somebody tries to ban it.” I agree with this because you just cannot expect someone to instantly lose their accent it will always be there and that cannot be changed. Also, every part of England has their own dialect and they cannot vanish and become one whole accent that everyone understands, its not realistic.
I think that the teacher should make an effort to try to speak in a more formal manner so that people can understand her more but she definitely should not have to sound ‘more southern’.
MOLLYMCALEAVEY 