Beliefs and Practices of EFL Instructors in Teaching Pronunciation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21580/vjv11i110812Keywords:
EFL, teachers beliefs, pronunciation learning, pronunciation teachingAbstract
Pronunciation teaching and learning have stimulated a renewed interest among second language acquisition (SLA) researchers in the past few years. To pursue this line of inquiry, this study set out to investigate the beliefs and practices of Iranian EFL teachers on pronunciation teaching. Convenience sampling was employed to recruit 74 participants who completed a pronunciation teaching and learning questionnaire. Interviews were also conducted with volunteered participants. The results revealed that 57% of the respondent teachers mostly worked on suffixes such as the -ed and -s endings always or often in their classrooms. The second most frequently taught feature was word stress (54%), followed by syllable structure, which 53% of the teachers often or always taught. Drama and role-play were the most common strategies often or always used by 49% of the teachers in teaching pronunciation. In addition, interviews with participant teachers revealed that the most common classroom activities were imitation and repetition. Finally, although most participants emphasized the need to teach pronunciation, they did not consider themselves highly qualified. They indicated an insatiable desire for more pronunciation training in teacher education programs to use opportunistic teaching and integrated phases to teach pronunciation. Most of the teachers did not teach pronunciation as a separate lesson since the school curriculum, the pre-specified book, and the time limitation did not let them focus on pronunciation as a separate lesson.
Downloads
References
Albini, A., & Kluge, D. (2011). Professores de inglês da rede p.blica paranaense e o ensino da pron.ncia [Public school English teachers from Paran. and the teaching of pronunciation]. Revista de Letras DACEX/UTFPR, 1, 1–12.
Asher, J. (1977). Learning Another Language Through Actions: The Complete Teacher's Guidebook. Los Gatos, Calif: Sky Oaks Productions.
Baker, A. (2011). Discourse prosody and teachers’ stated beliefs and practices. TESOL Journal, 2, 263–292.
Barcelos, A. M. F. (2007). Researching beliefs about SLA: A critical review. In P. Kalaja and A. M. F. Barcelos (Eds.) Beliefs about SLA: New research approaches (pp. 7-33). New York: Springer.
Borg, S. (2006). Teacher cognition and language education: Research and practice. London:
Continuum.
Bradlow, A., D. Pisoni, R. Akahane-Yamada & Y. Tohkura (1997). Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: Some effects of perceptual learning on speech production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101, 2299–2310.
Brawerman-Albini, A., & Kluge, D. (2010). O desafio da pron.ncia na formaç.o de professores deinglês [The challenge of pronunciation in EFL teacher education]. In: IX Encontro do C.rculo de Estudos Lingu.sticos do Sul CELSUL, 2010, Palhoça, Anais do 9o Encontro do CELSUL (pp. 1–9). Palhoça.
Breitkreutz, J., Derwing, T.M., & Rossiter, M.J. (2001). Pronunciation teaching practices in Canada. TESL Canada Journal, 19, 51–61.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Burgess, J., & Spencer, S. (2000). Phonology and pronunciation in integrated language teaching and teacher education. System, 28, 191–215.
Burns, A. (2006). Integrating research and professional development on pronunciation teaching in a national adult ESL program. TESL Reporter, 39, 34–41.
Buss, L. (2016). Beliefs and practices of Brazilian EFL teachers regarding pronunciation. Language Teaching Research, 20(5), 619-637.
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., & Goodwin, J. (1996). Teaching pronunciation: A course book and reference guide. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., & Goodwin, J. (2010). Teaching pronunciation: A course book and reference guide. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Couper, G. (2003). The value of an explicit pronunciation syllabus in ESOL teaching. Prospect,
, 53–70.
Couper, G. (2006). The short- and long-term effects of pronunciation instruction. Prospect 21(1), 46–66.
Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Curran, Charles A (1976). Counseling-Learning in Second Languages. Apple River, Illinois: Apple River Press. Canadian Modern Language Review, 36(2), pp. 318–319
Derwing, T.M., & Munro, M.J. (2005). Second language accent and pronunciation teaching: A research-based approach. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 379–397.
Derwing, T.M., Munro M.J. & Wiebe, G. E. (1997). Pronunciation instruction for "fossilized" learners: can it help? Applied Language Learning, 8(2), 217–235.
Derwing, T.M., Munro M.J. & Wiebe, G. E. (1998). Evidence in favor of a broad framework for pronunciation instruction. Language Learning, 48(3), 393–410.
Dörnyei, Z. (2007) Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Field, J. (2005). Intelligibility and the listener: The role of lexical stress. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 399-423.
Foote, J.A., Holtby, A. & Derwing, T.M. (2011). survey of pronunciation teaching in adult ESL programs in Canada. TESL Canada Journal, 29(1), 1–22.
Freeman, D. (2016). Educating second language teachers: The same things done differently. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2015). Research into practice: Grammar learning and teaching. Language Teaching, 48(2), 263–280.
Gattegno, Caleb (1972). Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way (2nd ed.). New York: Educational Solutions. ISBN 978-0-87825-046-2. Retrieved October 10, 2011
Graus, J., & Coppen, P.-A. (2015). Grammatical difficulty: A student teacher perspective. Language Awareness, 24, 101–122.
Gilbert, J. (2010). Pronunciation as orphan: what can be done? Speak Out: The newsletter of the IATEFL pronunciation special interest group, 43, 3–7.
Graddol, D. (2000). The future of English? London: The British Council.
Hahn, L. (2004). Primary stress and intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching of suprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 201–223.
Harada, T. (2006). The acquisition of single and geminate stops by English speaking children in Japanese immersion program. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28(4), 601-632.
Harmer, J. (2014). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Pearson.
Jenkins J. (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language. New models, new norms, new goals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krashen, S. (1981). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
Larsen-Freeman, D. & Anderson, M. (2011). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
Levis, J. (2005). Changing contexts and shifting paradigms in pronunciation teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 369–377.
MacDonald, S. (2002). Pronunciation: views and practices of reluctant teachers. Prospect, 17(3), 3–18.
Postovsky, V. (1974). Effects of delay in oral practice at the beginning of second language learning. Modern Language Journal, 58, 229-239
Richards, J. (2008). Second language teacher education today. RELC Journal, 39(2), 158–177.
Rokeach M (1968) Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values: A Theory of Organization and Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bas.
Rubin, J. (1975). What the “good language learner” can teach us. TESOL Quarterly, 9(1), 41–51.
Scovel, T. (1989). A time to speak: A psycholinguistic inquiry into the critical period for human speech. Cambridge, UK: Newbury House.
Seidman, I. (1998). Interviewind as qualitative research. A guide for researchers in education and social scciences, 2nd edition. New York Teachers College Press.
Sifakis, N. C., & Sougari, A.-M. (2005). Pronunciation issues and EIL pedagogy in the periphery: A survey of Greek state school teachers' beliefs. TESOL Quarterly, 39(3), 467-488.
Tergujeff, E. (2012). English pronunciation teaching: Four case studies from Finland. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 3, 599–607.
Wang, X. & M. Munro (2004). Computer-based training for learning English vowel contrasts. System, 32(4), 539–552.
Wong, R. (1987). Teaching Pronunciation: Focus on English Rhythm and Intonation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant Vision: Journal for Language and Foreign Language Learning the right of publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and publication in this journal.
- Authors can enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after the publication process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
