Pronunciation Teaching Issues: Answering Teachers’ Questions

Abstract

This article reviews questions that non-native (NNEST) and native speaker (NEST) teachers, working in different contexts, have about pronunciation teaching. It draws on theory, research, and practice to answer those questions as far as possible. The data was collected across two projects that investigated teachers’ cognitions: their knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practices. The first project involved semi-structured interviews with 28 NNESTs in Uruguay while the second was set in New Zealand and involved questionnaires (N=83), semistructured interviews (N=19) and classroom observations (N=6). The 19 New Zealand interviews involved 11 with New Zealand English native (L1) speakers, six with Inner Circle variety of English L1 speakers, one Outer Circle bilingual, and one Expanding Circle bilingual speaker. While a number of results from these studies have already been reported (Couper, 2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2019), this article revisits the data in order to isolate questions and issues, and compare them across the two contexts. The data from Uruguay reveal insights into NNESTs’ perspectives while the data from New Zealand provide perspectives from those teaching Asian L1 students. Questions relate to: 1. the learner; 2. what to teach; 3. how to teach; 4. dealing with curriculum, textbook, and time issues; 5. teacher’s pronunciation ability and knowledge of phonetics and phonology

There are some differences between the groups, such as NNESTs lacking confidence in their own pronunciation and NESTs lacking knowledge of phonetics and phonology. However, there are more similarities, with many questions not being specific to either context. These involve pedagogic knowledge and issues around priorities, setting goals, and space for pronunciation teaching. The questions and issues are addressed in terms of theories and what is known from the increasing body of research into pronunciation teaching. Practical examples of how this knowledge can be applied in the classroom are also suggested.

Keywords

Pronunciation teaching teacher cognition teachers’ questions cognitive linguistics critical listening

Introduction

This article begins with a consideration of theory and research that supports pronunciation teaching and a review of what is already known about teachers’ cognitions of pronunciation teaching, that is, their knowledge, beliefs, and practices. It then introduces the participants from two different studies, one in Uruguay and one in New Zealand, and presents the questions they asked about pronunciation teaching. This leads to the main focus of the article, which is giving answers to teachers’ questions.

It is hardly surprising that teachers have many questions about pronunciation teaching given that, as Derwing and Munro (2015) note in their review, prior to the late 1990s both theories and research challenged the value of pronunciation teaching. However, since then there has been an increasing amount of reliable research-based evidence in favour of pronunciation teaching. This has shown the importance of both segmentals and supra-segmentals (Derwing et al., 1998), that pronunciation should be taught at all levels (Zielinski and Yates, 2014), and that fossilized errors can be overcome (Couper, 2006, 2011; Derwing and Munro, 2014). However, experts such as Levis (2016) have argued that there is a need to devote more attention to precisely how to teach pronunciation and to increase understanding of why some learners improve and others do not. As noted, for example by Thomson and Derwing (2015), this understanding must be supported by better theoretical models to explain the success or failure of pronunciation teaching.

Some practice-oriented theory and research has attempted to define more precisely what it is that makes pronunciation teaching effective. Fraser (2001) drew on Cognitive Linguistics to provide practical guidance for teachers, explaining how to help learners form phonological concepts. She proposed Critical Listening, which involves the learner in listening for the contrast between two productions: one which is acceptable and one which is not (Fraser, 2009). Research has provided evidence to support this approach (Couper, 2006, 2011, 2013; Fraser, 2009). Couper (2011, 2013) added a second key variable, identifying the role of Socially Constructed Metalanguage (SCM) in effective communication. This involves teachers and learners working together to co-create common understandings of phonological concepts and a socially constructed metalanguage, beginning with the learners’ words rather than terms used in phonology. The underlying theory draws on Cognitive Linguistics (see for example, Mompean, 2014) to explain how we create meaning through our experience and with the assistance of our cognitive abilities, and that pronunciation relies on speakers’ concepts of how to relate sound to meaning.

One of the key insights from Cognitive Linguistics is that perception and production are inextricably intertwined. Here, second language (L2) speech research makes a significant theoretical contribution through its understandings of speech perception. Flege’s (1995) Speech Learning Model is of particular interest to language teachers as it theorizes that adults are able to learn and adjust speech categories in L2 learning. The complex nature of phonological categories is now better understood. The physical sounds produced vary according to phonetic context, speaker, and situation, they overlap, and are co-articulated. This makes it clear that teaching pronunciation is not simply a matter of relating sounds to phonemes and words (Pisoni and Levi, 2007). Rather, to learn the concept behind a phonological category one needs a large amount of exposure to a wide variety of speakers using language in a wide variety of contexts. High variability phonetic training (HVPT), based on this understanding, has been found to be effective in improving perception and production (Thomson, 2018).

A considerable amount of research about teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices suggests that they are not benefitting from theoretical insights and research findings in their teaching of pronunciation. While many studies have reported that teachers believe pronunciation is important, they have also revealed deficits in training and professional development, and a consequent lack of knowledge of phonetics and phonology, as well as a lack of pedagogical knowledge (Couper, 2016a; Foote et al., 2016; Fraser, 2001; Henderson et al., 2012). Consequently, levels of confidence in teaching pronunciation are often low (Baker, 2011; Couper, 2016a). This is also seen amongst those who have English as an L2 and have real or perceived pronunciation weaknesses (Couper, 2016a). Lack of support, whether it be at the institutional, curriculum, or textbook level, also leads to neglect (Baker, 2014), and the need for a greater focus on pronunciation in curricula and textbooks has also been reported (Couper, 2016a). In relation to all these factors, teaching tends to be ad hoc and in response to errors, reliant on a limited range of techniques, typically listen-and-repeat, and focussed largely on the phoneme and word levels (Buss, 2013; Couper, 2016a, 2016b; Foote et al., 2016). However, highly experienced practitioners have been reported to use a broad range of techniques (Baker, 2014; Couper, 2016a). There is a tendency to ignore suprasegmentals such as intonation as they are often considered too difficult to teach (Baker, 2011; Couper, 2016a, 2017). Moreover, surveys in Europe (Henderson et al., 2012) suggest that teachers still tend to favour native speaker norms as their goal. Yet there seems to be growing recognition, at least in principle, that a goal of comprehensibility, or intelligibility, is more appropriate given the reality of what learners can achieve and learners’ needs for English as a lingua franca (Couper, 2016a; Grant 2014a; Levis, 2018).

The picture of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices that this research paints suggests that teachers have many questions about pronunciation teaching. This report aims to identify those questions and to put forward possible answers that can be provided from practitioners themselves and from research and theory, while still acknowledging the many gaps that remain. To this end it poses the questions:

What questions do Non-Native English Speaker Teachers (NNESTs) and Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) have about pronunciation teaching?

What answers can be given to those questions?

Method

The questions for this report have been drawn from two previously published studies in two different contexts. The data from those two studies have been re-analysed in order to focus specifically on the questions that were posed. The first study took place in Uruguay and involved 28 semi-structured interviews (Couper, 2016a). I recruited the participants through my networks from when I had earlier taught in Uruguay. They were all experienced teachers who had taught in a range of age groups and were well qualified (see Table 1). Eight of them were also undertaking further study towards a Diploma, and in one case a Master’s degree. While most of them had at least some training in phonetics and phonology, very few had training in pronunciation pedagogy. Although all but one (a balanced bilingual who grew up in an English-speaking country) were NNESTs, they were all very articulate and had little difficulty in expressing themselves clearly in English.

Table 1.

Overview of participants in Uruguay.

Experience	5-9 years: N=9	10-19 years: N=6	20+ years: N=13
Teaching contexts	children: N=19	teens: N=21	adults: N=21
Training in phonology	None or little: N=6	Some: N=14	Lots: N=8
Training in pron pedagogy	None: N=17	Little: N=4	Some: N=7
Highest qualification*	Basic: N= 3, Cert: N=16, BEd: N=5, Dip: N=3, Masters: N=1

Notes: * The Cert(ificate) course in Uruguay is a one to two-year course and is often the only viable alternative for teachers who are unable to afford the four to five years it takes to complete a BEd. The Dip(loma) refers to a Trinity College or UCLES (University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate) advanced teaching qualification. Basic refers to those who have just had in-service training and passed an English language exam.

The second study was set in New Zealand (Couper, 2016b, 2017, 2019) and involved questionnaires (N=83), semi-structured interviews (N=19), and classroom observations (N=6). The interviews involved 11 participants with New Zealand English as L1, six with an inner circle variety of English L1, one outer circle bilingual, and one expanding circle bilingual speaker. They also represented a range of experience and qualifications. They were all teaching adults at the time of the interviews, although ten of them had experience teaching in primary and/or secondary school (see Table 2). In terms of experience and qualifications, the two groups are quite similar except that those in Uruguay tended to have more training in phonetics and phonology. All the participants in this group were currently teaching learners with an Asian L1, and six of them had experience teaching in Asian countries (Japan, China, and Thailand).

Table 2.

Overview of participants in New Zealand.

Experience	<5 years: N=5	10-19 years: N=8	20+ years: N=4
Teaching contexts	Children: N=7	Teens: N=5	Adults: N=19
Training in phonology	None or little: N=12	Some: N=4	Lots: N=3
Training in pron pedagogy	None or little: N=12	Some: N=7
Highest qualification*	Basic Certificate: N=10	Diploma: N=3	Master’s degree: N=6

Notes: * The Basic Certificate refers to any introductory course into language teaching that may typically run for four weeks intensively or over 12 weeks part-time.

The semi-structured interviews in both studies followed the same format, with participants given a few general questions relating to pronunciation teaching for consideration in advance of the meeting. In practice, these interviews became conversations between professionals that allowed for fruitful and open exploration of a number of topics. In many cases, they were useful reflective practice exercises for the participants. The data were then analysed for emerging themes through an inductive process involving multiple readings and categorizations of the data (Polkinghorne, 1995). For this report, the data were re-analysed through a search for specific questions and their related discussions. From this analysis a number of questions emerged that could be organized into thematic areas around: the learner; what to teach; how to teach; external factors such as textbooks, curriculum, and time; and teacher factors such as knowledge of phonetics and phonology, pedagogy, and pronunciation ability.

Findings: Teachers’ Questions about Teaching Pronunciation

The findings are presented according to the above-described thematic areas. Interestingly, many more of these questions came from the Uruguay project than from the New Zealand one, even though the New Zealand participants did often discuss related issues. Therefore, presenting the findings and discussion in each of the thematic areas begins with the questions from Uruguay and is followed with questions from New Zealand. The data from Uruguay reveal insights into the perspectives of NNESTs and those from New Zealand provide insights into those teaching students with Asian L1s. However, the issues raised by questions in these two contexts, tend to be universal rather than local. Before focusing on what the teacher has to do, a fundamental understanding of pronunciation learning requires a focus on the learner, so that is where I will begin.

The Learner

This section brings together questions related to the learner and learner differences: how to motivate, increase awareness and understanding of pronunciation and feedback, and how to set and measure goals (see Table 3). The teachers in Uruguay talked about motivation, asking how to make pronunciation interesting and fun. They were concerned about how to make it clear to students that pronunciation is not just about individual sounds but that it is much broader, and is important because it creates meaning. Julia said, ‘if they don’t see pronunciation as important how do you get them to pay attention to corrections?’ Other questions were around avoiding loss of face for all age groups when correcting. The question of why students keep making mistakes and how one can help, especially when students are almost unintelligible, also arose; for example, Ines asked how ‘to make them understand the mistake, because they have it like so deep that it’s way more difficult to help them in the process of making the right . . . sometimes it’s very difficult for them to hear the difference’.

Table 3.

Summary of questions related to learners.

Teachers from Uruguay	Teachers from New Zealand
• How do I get students to realize it is about more than just individual sounds? – Cristina • How do I make the importance of pronunciation clear? – Natalia, Julia • How do I get adults interested? – Marina • How do I deal with loss of face? – Marina • How do I make them understand their mistakes? – Ines • Why do they keep making the same mistakes? – Beatriz, Marina • What about those who think their pronunciation is good when it isn’t? – Ines • How do you measure success? – Maria • How do I test pronunciation? – Marina	• How do you help students who just don’t get it? – Joe • How do I help students combat NS ignorance and prejudice? – Ben The other questions raised in Uruguay were not raised as questions in New Zealand, but teachers discussed a number of issues around diagnostic tests and error correction.

Teachers from Uruguay

Teachers from New Zealand

• How do I get students to realize it is about more than just individual sounds? – Cristina
• How do I make the importance of pronunciation clear? – Natalia, Julia
• How do I get adults interested? – Marina
• How do I deal with loss of face? – Marina
• How do I make them understand their mistakes? – Ines
• Why do they keep making the same mistakes? – Beatriz, Marina
• What about those who think their pronunciation is good when it isn’t? – Ines
• How do you measure success? – Maria
• How do I test pronunciation? – Marina

• How do you help students who just don’t get it? – Joe
• How do I help students combat NS ignorance and prejudice? – Ben
The other questions raised in Uruguay were not raised as questions in New Zealand, but teachers discussed a number of issues around diagnostic tests and error correction.

There were also questions about how to know whether your teaching is effective (Maria) and how you can test pronunciation (Marina). These questions are tied in with diagnostic tests and with setting and meeting goals.

In the New Zealand context, Joe also asked, ‘How do you help students who just don’t get it?’ There were also extensive discussions on error correction and the use of diagnostic tests, but these were not raised as questions. However, Ben, whose students had often reported on communication difficulties in the community, did pose the very thoughtful question ‘How do I help students combat NS ignorance and prejudice?’ The underlying concerns related to goal setting, correction, and achievement are common to both groups.

What to Teach

There were also a number of questions regarding what to teach (see Table 4). Amongst the Uruguayan teachers, there were questions about the value of comparing L1 with L2 in helping students to become more aware of the different phonological concepts and more focussed on pronunciation. In the New Zealand context, where teachers generally have mixed L1 classes, this question did not arise. Eva asked how one could overcome the influence of spelling on learners’ pronunciation, while Ana wanted to know what to do about L1 changes that she felt were influencing her learners’ pronunciation of certain English sounds. Gloria was concerned about how to include culture in her teaching, ‘ I find that what makes it difficult for us to learn a foreign language is not knowing enough about the culture of the place, and we are so far, and it’s so difficult to get there’.

Table 4.

Summary of questions related to what to teach.

Teachers from Uruguay	Teachers from New Zealand
• Should I compare L2 sounds with L1? – Sara • Are there L1/L2 differences I should teach? –Eva • Overcome influence of spelling on sound? –Eva • How do we deal with language changes? Ana • How do we include culture when we are so far away from English speaking countries? –Gloria	• What aspects are most important? – Joe

New Zealand-based teachers asked, ‘What aspects of pronunciation are most important?’ (Joe). The question of which accent to teach was also widely discussed amongst both groups of teachers, but it did not generally surface as a question because most had quite clear ideas on what sorts of accents they might teach in different contexts.

How to Teach

The questions most commonly asked by teachers in both the New Zealand and the Uruguay study related to how to teach pronunciation (see Table 5). This is not surprising as pronunciation pedagogy was generally absent from teacher education, leading respondents to ask for practical information about how to teach it. Amongst the Uruguayan teachers, this was often in very broad terms, such as Eva, who felt she knew enough about pronunciation but just did not know how to teach it.

Table 5.

Summary of questions on how to teach.

Teachers from Uruguay	Teachers from New Zealand
• How to teach? – Eva, Beatriz • How to teach particular features? – Isabel • Are my strategies any good? – Alicia • More techniques and strategies? Twenty-two* • Can you give me more ideas? – Marta • How do you teach intonation? – Ana • How can I be more systematic? – Sara • What is wrong with being ad hoc? – Miriam • Activities (and books) for particular sounds? – Sara • Should I use L1? – Sara, Clara • How do you put pronunciation exercises in context? – Maria • How do you integrate pronunciation? – Julia	• Practical ways to get students to change? – Joe • More ways of teaching? – Helen • How to use recordings? – Julie • How to get students to practice? – Linda • Anything to help students improve? – Linda • How to scaffold? – Linda

Teachers from Uruguay

Teachers from New Zealand

• How to teach? – Eva, Beatriz
• How to teach particular features? – Isabel
• Are my strategies any good? – Alicia
• More techniques and strategies? Twenty-two*
• Can you give me more ideas? – Marta
• How do you teach intonation? – Ana
• How can I be more systematic? – Sara
• What is wrong with being ad hoc? – Miriam
• Activities (and books) for particular sounds? – Sara
• Should I use L1? – Sara, Clara
• How do you put pronunciation exercises in context? – Maria
• How do you integrate pronunciation? – Julia

• Practical ways to get students to change? – Joe
• More ways of teaching? – Helen
• How to use recordings? – Julie
• How to get students to practice? – Linda
• Anything to help students improve? – Linda
• How to scaffold? – Linda

Notes: *Chosen pseudonym.

Beatriz, who grew up bilingually in Australia and observed that while she learned pronunciation naturally and her colleagues learned formally, ‘we learned differently, but neither of us know how to teach it properly, so something’s wrong there’. There were calls for more ideas, techniques, and strategies as well as wanting to know how to teach particular aspects of pronunciation. Other questions related to ad hoc versus planned teaching, contextualizing and integrating pronunciation teaching, and the use of L1 in teaching.

New Zealand-based teachers raised similar questions, with Joe asking for ‘practical ways to get students to actually change the sounds they make’ and others asking for ideas about how to teach pronunciation. Julie asked a more specific question about how to use student recordings, which resulted from our discussion of the value of this.

Dealing with Curriculum, Textbook, and Time Issues

Some teachers asked what they could do when the curriculum and the textbook did not allow much space for pronunciation teaching activities. There was a general feeling that textbooks did not give them enough support and that it took too much time to find extra materials to fill in gaps in aspects of pronunciation that were not covered. It was also felt by respondents that textbooks did not help to integrate pronunciation in their teaching. This was often a problem if the textbook formed the course curriculum. The respondents often felt they just did not have time to attend to pronunciation. The participants based in New Zealand made similar comments about the difficulty of fitting pronunciation into their teaching and how they were often constrained by time, textbooks, and curricula (see Table 6).

Table 6.

Summary of questions related to curriculum, textbook, and time issues.

Teachers from Uruguay	Teachers from New Zealand
• What do I do when I don’t have time to teach pronunciation? – David, Miriam, Sofia • What can we do when curricula/textbooks leave out pronunciation and allow no time for it? – Ana, Sara	No questions, but there was an acceptance that textbooks and curricula played an important role in determining the teaching of pronunciation.

Teacher’s Pronunciation Ability and Knowledge of Phonetics and Phonology

The NNESTs had questions about how they could improve their own pronunciation (e.g. Sofia) or asked how they could teach it if they were not confident in their own pronunciation, especially their intonation (Raquel, Ana). Angela was not sure if her own pronunciation was good and raised the difficult question of how she could know. Maria also worried that she might have pronunciation problems she was not aware of and Sara said, ‘I don’t like my pronunciation, I still feel that there’s lots of things I should work on, in my own pronunciation’. While the NESTs were not concerned about their own pronunciation ability, they also lacked confidence, not only because of a lack of pedagogical knowledge as seen in earlier questions, but also because they did not know enough about phonetics and phonology. Questions were also raised about language differences by both NESTs and NNESTs. This was another area where teachers felt a need for more knowledge. Angela asked, ‘Is there a difference between Spanish and English intonation that we should teach?’ Claudia was unsure about the differences in stress between English and Spanish, while Pablo believed such comparisons were important for teachers to know (see Table 7).

Table 7.

Questions related to pronunciation ability, knowledge of phonetics and phonology.

Teachers from Uruguay	Teachers from New Zealand
• How can I improve my own pronunciation? – Sofia • I am not confident in my own intonation, so how can I teach it? – Raquel, Ana • Is my own pronunciation good? How can I know? – Angela • What are the importance differences between L1 and L2? ○ stress. – Claudia ○ especially intonation. – Angela	• Teachers identified gaps in knowledge: ○ technical academic knowledge. – Joe ○ blends and consonants. – Linda • Language differences (L1/L2). – Linda

Discussion: Answering Teachers’ Questions about Pronunciation

Teachers have a range of questions, but in many ways, the most fundamental ones relate to learners who have difficulty understanding concepts of the target language phonology. Before thinking about how to teach or what to teach, one needs to consider what learners need if they are to learn, so I will begin by addressing questions that seek to understand what learners are going through.

Understanding the Learner

These questions all focus on helping learners to understand pronunciation. Learners might ask questions like: What is it? Why is it important? How is it different from what I already know? How do I know if I am doing it right? How do I know if I am improving? Answering these questions leads to answers to the teachers’ questions.

The best place to start is at the beginning of a course. This is where teachers need to help learners establish goals, preferably based on the use of a diagnostic test. As Derwing and Munro (2015) note, diagnostic testing is critical in developing awareness, and the importance of awareness raising is well-established (e.g. Kennedy et al., 2014). Unfortunately, almost none of the teachers in these studies used diagnostic tests, and when they did, they used them for their own reference rather than to help learners set their own goals. This was because there was no space for diagnostic testing in the curriculum, but also because teachers did not know how to run such tests. It is true that very little has been published on the use of pronunciation diagnostics, although see Gilbert (2012: 70-74) for an example of a diagnostic test, and https://pronunciationteaching.wordpress.com/diagnostics/diagnostic-test/ for an example of a test that I use. I get students to do this in the computer lab and it involves sentence and paragraph reading as well as extemporaneous speech. I then provide feedback on pronunciation and work with learners to help them set goals. Some of these goals are likely to be shared by many of the students, such as reduction of unstressed syllables, connected speech, and stress at both the word and utterance level. Working with mainly East Asian students, I found one of the most common areas of difficulty was the pronunciation of the syllable coda, especially when consonant clusters were involved (Couper, 2006). Of course, diagnostic tests need to be repeated to help learners hear their improvement and help the teacher measure their success.

Once goals are established, learners are able to see how pronunciation is about much more than just individual sounds. Many learners believe that they have to pronounce every sound slowly and clearly, and there is also a natural tendency to focus on the spelling and try to convey every letter into some sort of sound. To help students overcome this tendency, teachers are often encouraged to get learners to use their ears (Fraser, 2001). Clear feedback from the teacher and discussion in class can help learners to understand how sounds change in context and the importance of these changes in creating meaning. This should lead learners to recognize that they need to speak accurately enough for the listener to be able to pick up on the salient cues for understanding the message. This focus on both form and meaning can naturally also lead to greater interest in pronunciation. Of course, the teaching itself has to create interest, a matter that will be considered in the ‘How to teach’ section below.

As well as helping learners to understand more about the nature of pronunciation, teachers need to understand the reasons behind the difficulties that learners have, which is the key to thinking about how to teach them. While some mistakes occur because learners simply do not know the word they are trying to say, or they are simply slips of the tongue, others are the result of not understanding the relevant phonological concept. For example, there is no point in telling learners not to add an extra syllable if they do not understand the English concept of the syllable. This involves both perception and production as well as cooperation from both the speaker and the listener. As Ben asked, ‘How do I help students combat NS ignorance and prejudice?’ The answer to this question is not straightforward, and the importance of both parties in successful communication has often been stressed (Levis, 2018); but one can explore the role of contextual and cultural cues and knowledge in getting the message across. It is when students ‘just don’t get it’ and keep making the same mistakes, or don’t understand their mistakes, or do not even hear them because they think their pronunciation is much better than it is, that teachers need to employ some carefully planned teaching that will help in the formation of new concepts. Before considering how to do this, I will first discuss the question of what teachers should teach.

What to Teach

Some respondents wondered exactly what aspects of pronunciation they should teach. With the help of a diagnostic test, teachers can help learners set goals that focus on areas which they have the greatest difficulty with, and which are most likely to interfere with intelligibility. These learner priorities can then be reflected in specific teaching practices. Although there is still some disagreement as to what is most important in achieving intelligibility, there are a number of factors that can be considered. In deciding which phonemes might be most important, Catford’s (1987 as cited in Derwing and Munro, 2014) list of the relative functional load of individual phonemes is a useful starting point. For example, commonly reported substitutions for /θ/ in thick (especially [t]) and /ð/ in this (especially [d]) are relatively unimportant for intelligibility (Munro and Derwing, 2006). On the other hand, distinctions between /p/ and /b/ in initial position are very important for distinguishing English words and thus for intelligibility.

Traditionally, a distinction has been made between segmental (phoneme) level and suprasegmental level (anything bigger than a phoneme such as syllable, word, rhythm, stress, and intonation). Levis (2018) suggests that it is more meaningful to distinguish between word-level pronunciation and discourse-level pronunciation. This distinction would be supported by Cognitive Linguistics, and my own research suggesting that most teaching focusses on the phoneme or the word level, and that the discourse level tends to be ignored (Couper, 2016a, 2016b). As Levis (2018) notes, there are many differing claims as to what aspects of pronunciation are most important, often depending on whether the focus is on NS or NNS communication. A further important factor to consider is how easy it will be to learn a particular aspect of pronunciation. There is evidence to suggest that stress at the word level (Field, 2005) and at the discourse level (Hahn, 2004) is critical, and related to this is the importance of de-stressed syllables and the schwa vowel in creating rhythm and stress in English. Meaningful use of chunking and phrasing is clearly a key aspect of successful discourse-level speech. In terms of what teachers should do, they must first determine their students’ common pronunciation difficulties. Then they should focus on those difficulties which they can also identify as being important for their students’ intelligibility in their own communicative contexts (see Levis, 2018, and Derwing and Munro, 2014, for more detail on establishing such priorities).

Regarding the question of comparing L2 sounds with L1 sounds, it can certainly be helpful as a starting point because it is always a good idea to begin with the concepts that learners already have. There may also be key differences that make forming L2 phonological concepts difficult, this can be at a segmental or suprasegmental level. The question as to whether or not to teach sound-spelling correspondences depends on the goal. While there are doubtless patterns of sound-spelling correspondence that can help learners understand this relationship, Zielinski and Yates (2014) point out that teachers need to be clear in their own minds whether they are focussing on reading and writing or pronunciation as a spoken skill. The question of how to deal with changes in language and culture is a reminder that language and cultures are continuously changing and underscore the importance of a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach based on the widest and most recent range of sources possible.

How to Teach

Teacher respondents from both countries asked how to teach pronunciation and how to teach particular features, practical ways to get students to change their pronunciation behaviour, and more vaguely they asked for anything to help students improve in their pronunciation. They wanted to know more ways of teaching, if their current teaching strategies were any good, and how to be systematic in their approach to teaching pronunciation.

A measure of a good pronunciation teaching activity is if it helps in concept formation. Here, I have found evidence in favour of the use of Socially Constructed Metalanguage and Critical Listening (Couper, 2011, 2013) as described in the literature review. Many approaches and activities will lead to the goal of concept formation as long as they are employed in a way that allows learners to discover concepts or negotiate their meaning, as opposed to the teacher explaining a rule using terms related to English phonology. If the teacher is building on goals that learners have developed for themselves, it is easier to be systematic. Because much teaching is ad hoc, the effect tends to be temporary as such teaching often does not allow the time for learners to work out the phonological concepts of the L2. In developing their own practice activities, teachers can follow the same principles involved in communicative language teaching, encouraging students to interact in the achievement of authentic communication goals. A concept-formation approach involves discussion about language as it moves through various stages. These include controlled practice and feedback, critical listening exercises, role play situations (possibly recorded and analysed for further discussion), and information-gap type activities that require learners to accurately create meaning to successfully complete a task. An example of an information-gap activity that I developed for teaching Asian students in the New Zealand context is the ‘Drunk snail game’ (Couper, 2014) available on my blog: pronunciationteaching.wordpress.com.

Some teachers asked about the use of L1. Clearly, if it helps in talking about language and in understanding and comparing the concepts of the two languages, then teachers should use it, assuming that they speak the learners’ L1. The original argument for not using L1 was that it was taking away precious L2 practice time, and no doubt there is some truth to this, as it provides input and helps learners to immerse themselves in the language, so one should be judicious about L1 use. In addition, its use can engender an L1 mindset that will initiate L1 transfer, and this is another reason for limiting its use in the pronunciation class or lesson.

A further question was how to integrate pronunciation into the lesson. The most obvious way is to allow pronunciation to arise out of a listening-focussed lesson, which could lead into a focus on perception, then production, and then be integrated into a speaking activity. Pronunciation can of course also be integrated with the teaching of any aspect of language (for detailed suggestions, see Levis and Grant, 2003). There are now many sources of guidance on teaching pronunciation (e.g. Celce-Murcia et al., 2010; Couper, 2015; Derwing and Munro, 2015; Fraser, 2001; Gilbert, 2012; Grant, 2014b; Pennington and Rogerson-Revell, 2019).

Dealing with Curriculum, Textbook, and Time Issues

Some questions resulted from teachers’ feelings of being enslaved to the textbook or by institutional policy that required them to teach a certain syllabus. Another issue is the quality of materials. One can hope that textbooks get better but, ideally, teachers should learn how to mediate the textbook if they are given the freedom to do so (for insightful discussion on textbooks, see Thornbury, 2013). As Levis (2018) points out, time is a question of priority, something that teachers always have to deal with. The solution is for teachers to establish how to use their time most efficiently by covering aspects of pronunciation that are most relevant for their students and that the students can learn relatively easily. (For further guidance on materials and online resources, go to John Levis’ website: pronunciationforteachers.com.)

Teachers’ Pronunciation Ability and Knowledge of Phonetics and Phonology

In addition to needing to know how to teach pronunciation, there is also the question as to how NNESTs can get affirmation of their own pronunciation ability or improve it. Unfortunately, after years of being told that the native speaker model is the best, many teachers have come to believe it and naturally doubt their own ability (Couper, 2016a). Recent research has however demonstrated that NNESTs are just as effective as NESTs (Levis et al., 2016). With the acceptance of global Englishes and of intelligibility as the goal of pronunciation teaching (Levis, 2018), there should be less pressure to sound like a native speaker. Nevertheless, NNESTs still need to have intelligible pronunciation. The problem is how can they know if it is intelligible enough, and if it is not, how can they improve it? There is no easy answer to this question. There is a need for more research-based tools to help NNESTs in this aspect of performance, and those offering services to help teachers need to present empirical evidence that those services are effective. There may be others, but the only website I am aware of that does this – and then only in relation to phonemes – is englishaccentcoach.com (based on North American accents).

Knowledge of phonetics and phonology is also an area that needs attention, especially amongst NESTs, who may have limited knowledge about their students’ L1s and cultures. Both NESTs and NNESTs often lack L1 awareness, making it difficult for them to compare learners’ L1s and the L2. On all fronts, better pre- and in-service education is needed. There is also no doubt that it is advantageous for teachers to be aware of learners’ L1 phonological concepts and how they differ from the target language (Brinton, 2014).

Conclusion

This article reviewed teachers’ questions and issues about pronunciation teaching in two different contexts. The defining differences between these two contexts are that Uruguay is an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context where most teachers are NNESTs sharing the same L1 with their students, while New Zealand is an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) context where most teachers are NESTs teaching classes of mixed L1 students, many with Asian L1 backgrounds. The participants in the New Zealand and the Uruguayan contexts had a great deal in common, suggesting relevance to other contexts. Both groups identified gaps in knowledge of phonetics and phonology, but this deficit appeared to be greater amongst the NESTs. Although learners’ L1s might play a role in deciding what to teach, both groups reported similar issues around determining priorities and setting goals. In the same way, the question of how to teach was not related to any specific context but a more fundamental issue of lacking pedagogic knowledge and resulting low levels of confidence. These issues limited the amount of pronunciation teaching as did a lack of time and having curricula and textbooks that did not allow much space for pronunciation teaching activities. Those in Uruguay, NNESTs teaching EFL, similar to most English language teachers in Asian countries, sometimes avoided teaching pronunciation because they were not confident in their own pronunciation.

Possible answers to these teachers’ questions were discussed and it was concluded that the best place to start is to move away from ad hoc pronunciation teaching and to make careful use of diagnostic tests to help learners establish their own goals. I considered how teachers can assist learners in the formation of L2 phonological concepts which lead to improved speech production and perception. Teaching pronunciation will then require knowledge and confidence in areas of pedagogy, phonetics and phonology, as well as teachers’ own pronunciation. To help teachers; teacher educators should do more to provide teachers with the knowledge and abilities they need; institutions and textbook writers should do more to ensure that pronunciation is integrated appropriately into courses; and researchers should do more to provide a stronger theoretical and empirical base to inform teachers.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Graeme Couper

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