Spanish teachers’ beliefs on the usefulness of pronunciation knowledge,skills,and activities and their confidence in implementing them

Abstract

Despite substantial advances in the field of instructed second language acquisition (SLA) with regard to our understanding of second language (L2) pronunciation development and pedagogy, many language instructors continue to report a lack of confidence in incorporating pronunciation instruction (PI) into their classes. This survey study examined 100 Spanish instructors’ perceptions of the usefulness of various types of knowledge, skills, and approaches to PI, as well as their confidence in those domains, and the extent to which their previous training in teaching methods was related to their ratings of usefulness and confidence. After running principal components analyses to identify factors in the survey data, we fit mixed-effects models to each factor, then delved more deeply into some descriptive trends to offer recommendations for professional development opportunities. The latter results suggested that Spanish teachers might have greater appreciation for, as well as confidence in, focusing on segmentals over suprasegmentals, practice activities over assessment, perception assessment over production assessment, and implicit over explicit feedback. Consistent with previous research, some of the highest confidence levels were expressed regarding controlled techniques, alongside relatively low confidence in familiarity with research. Concerning metalinguistic tools, respondents seemed to value diagrams and descriptions over terminology and transcription, but they viewed these tools as less useful than perception, production, and communication practice. While greater training was often associated with higher perceptions of usefulness and confidence, there were cases where respondents with the least training showed the highest confidence. These results suggest some key priorities for teacher training.

Keywords

foreign language education pronunciation instruction Spanish teacher cognition teacher training

I Introduction

Conceived of as a skill that students would acquire as a natural outgrowth of communicating in a second language (L2), pronunciation was a relatively low priority in many language classrooms during the early reign of communicative approaches to foreign/second language teaching (Isaacs, 2009). Teacher education programs tended to focus on equipping their graduates with metalinguistic knowledge and pedagogical techniques relevant to the teaching of grammar and vocabulary, while pronunciation fell by the wayside (Baker & Murphy, 2011). Years later, despite the fact that a revitalization of research in this area has demonstrated the effectiveness of pronunciation instruction (PI; Lee et al., 2015; Saito, 2012; Saito & Plonsky, 2019; Thomson & Derwing, 2015), ripple effects of the previous neglect can still be felt. Abundant results from survey and interview studies have shown that instructors feel unprepared to teach pronunciation (Couper, 2017; Foote et al., 2011; Levis, 2005), even if they think pronunciation teaching is worthwhile (Derwing et al., 1998; Levis & Grant, 2003).

This situation led us to wonder how we, as teacher educators, might be able to contribute to the development of curricula that promote expertise in PI, thereby helping to ensure that language instructors feel confident in their ability to facilitate their students’ pronunciation development. In a previous article exploring the intersection between teachers’ beliefs and the state of the art in L2 pronunciation research (Nagle, Sachs, & Zárate-Sández, 2018), we found that Spanish instructors with more methods-related coursework were more likely to believe in the value of PI and to build pronunciation-related goals into their classes. Findings in certain areas, however – such as teachers’ beliefs about the value of native-speaker status – suggested that additional training did not always mean greater alignment with current thinking in the field. Based on our results, we made recommendations regarding potentially productive areas of focus for professional development opportunities.

In this article, we turn to a consideration of teachers’ perspectives on the specific knowledge, skills, and activities that they and other language teachers might use in the classroom. After asking how useful Spanish instructors perceive these tools and techniques to be, and how confident they feel in their ability to implement them in their classes, we examine whether their perceptions are related to the amount or type of training they have received. Then, in consideration of the present findings, we offer further recommendations for language teacher education and professional development. For context, the literature review provides a brief overview of some research findings in the areas covered by our survey, including the value of focusing on different aspects of pronunciation, providing metalinguistic information and feedback, engaging learners in pronunciation-oriented communicative activities, and analysing students’ attitudes and goals.

II Literature review

1 The effectiveness of various approaches to pronunciation instruction

Five research syntheses have provided evidence for the efficacy of PI (Lee et al., 2015; McAndrews, 2019; Saito, 2012; Saito & Plonsky, 2019; Thomson & Derwing, 2015). The studies that were surveyed examined segmentals, suprasegmentals, and global pronunciation constructs (e.g. intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness), though segmental features were favored. In general, interventions seem to be beneficial for all three types of outcome variables (Lee et al., 2015; Saito, 2012). However, Saito and Plonsky’s (2019) meta-analysis comparing different approaches to measurement has indicated that while there is evidence for the effectiveness of PI targeting learners’ production of segmentals and suprasegmentals, the results are less clear for global pronunciation outcomes. The combined results of this body of work have led researchers to recommend that L2 curricula focus on pronunciation at all levels.

Classrooms provide unique opportunities for L2 pronunciation development, as teachers can introduce meaningful PI into their regular lessons and tailor it to the learners’ proficiency, even at an introductory level (Darcy, 2018; Darcy, Ewert & Lidster, 2012; Zielinski & Yates, 2014). Thus, it is important for teachers at all levels to perceive the usefulness of pronunciation-related knowledge, skills, and activities, and to feel confident in their ability to make use of them. Unlike a naturalistic setting, where learners may be left to their own devices as they develop in their ability to pronounce the L2, the classroom affords opportunities to help learners overcome the potential stabilization of non-targetlike features by providing relevant input at the appropriate moment, drawing learners’ attention to the forms in question, and implementing specific strategies to improve intelligibility and comprehensibility (Derwing et al., 1998).

Findings on the benefits of providing learners with metalinguistic information on pronunciation are somewhat mixed. When integrated into a multipronged approach, metalinguistic explanations may help learners become more aware of their pronunciation and notice the gap between their own production and the target (e.g. Lord, 2008). For example, in Saito’s (2013) study on Japanese speakers’ acquisition of the English /l/–/ɹ/ contrast, a group receiving form-focused instruction with explicit phonetic information (FFI + EI) significantly outperformed a group receiving only form-focused instruction (FFI) and demonstrated greater generalization to untrained words. In contrast, Kissling (2013) reported that structured input and practice were effective at promoting segmental accuracy in L2 Spanish irrespective of whether participants received EI. Methodological factors may have contributed to the differences in these results. Whereas Kissling’s (2013) participants completed online EI modules targeting a range of challenging L2 sounds, Saito’s (2013) EI consisted of instructor modeling, articulatory explanations, and production practice activities embedded into meaning-oriented lessons with corrective feedback, all focused on a single challenging contrast.

Accumulated work on PI further suggests that corrective feedback can contribute to its effectiveness. For instance, Saito and Lyster (2012a, 2012b) found that Japanese students who received form-focused instruction with corrective feedback (FFI + CF) on their production of English /ɹ/ and English vowels improved their production significantly more than FFI-only and control group participants. However, in a follow-up study examining novice learners’ perception and production of the /l/–/ɹ/ contrast, Saito (2015) obtained slightly different results. Both FFI and FFI + CF were effective at promoting more accurate /ɹ/ production, but only the FFI group showed a significant improvement on the perception measure from pretest to posttest. Moreover, in a study of Cantonese-speaking learners’ perception of Mandarin tone contrasts, Saito and Wu (2014) found that whereas the FFI group showed significant improvements for trained and untrained items, the FFI + CF group exhibited marginal gains only on trained items. In all of these studies, CF was implemented as partial recasts, a technique that involved repeating just the mispronounced word in a more targetlike way with falling intonation and clear corrective intent. According to Saito (2015), adding CF to the FFI may not have augmented gains in the two more recent studies because the novice learners included in those experiments had not yet established mental representations that were sufficiently robust to allow them to take advantage of the feedback to improve their production.

In addition to recent studies that have set PI into a communicative framework, balancing meaning-oriented learning objectives with form-focused instruction, researchers have begun to incorporate the principles of task-based language teaching into PI (Gurzynski-Weiss et al., 2017). For instance, in a study manipulating the complexity of an information-gap task targeting Spanish vowels, Solon, Long, and Gurzynski-Weiss (2017) found that learners in simple and complex conditions produced a similar number of language-related episodes that were pronunciation-focused, but the production of /e/ became more targetlike only for learners who completed the more complex task. McKinnon’s (2017) study on L2 Spanish learners’ intonation also underscored the benefits of a task-based approach, insofar as students who participated in the task-based intervention altered their production of pitch accents and their pitch range at posttest. Given the relatively small number of studies demonstrating the benefits of task-based approaches, broad and definitive conclusions cannot be drawn; however, the results at least reinforce the notion that targeted communicative PI can draw learners’ attention to phonological form and may help them improve their production.

PI may be maximally successful if it takes into account students’ goals for language study and their attitudes toward their own pronunciation and pronunciation learning. In a recent survey of 270 university foreign language learners enrolled in courses across a four-year curriculum, Huensch and Thompson (2017) found that students wanted to improve their pronunciation, and that upper-level learners reported stronger concern for pronunciation than their lower-division counterparts. In light of the possibility that learners’ beliefs may influence the extent to which PI is effective (Lord & Fionda, 2014), it may be productive for teachers to speak with students about their pronunciation and negotiate mutual aims based on a combination of their professional knowledge and an understanding of their students’ goals.

2 Goals of this study

Despite advances in our understanding of L2 pronunciation learning, many instructors continue to report that they do not know how to teach pronunciation (Couper, 2016, 2017; Foote et al., 2011). Moreover, even those who have taken courses in pronunciation pedagogy may hold beliefs that are not fully compatible with the current consensus drawn from research (Nagle et al., 2018) or may use primarily controlled techniques in their classes, suggesting a need for more training and practice in guided and free pronunciation-oriented communicative activities (Baker, 2014). We therefore decided to explore Spanish instructors’ perceptions of the usefulness of various facets of PI (e.g. controlled and communicative activities, metalinguistic knowledge, feedback, needs analyses), their confidence in those areas, and the extent to which their previous training in teaching methods was related to their usefulness and confidence ratings. We envisioned a few possible patterns of outcomes that might help inform teacher education. As just two examples, we reasoned, if teachers and research were in agreement about the usefulness of a particular technique, but teachers lacked confidence in it, then arguments could be made for including more skill-building in that area in teacher-training programs. If, on the other hand, teachers perceived something to be useful that empirical studies did not, it might suggest that teacher education should focus on raising awareness, or it might point toward the need for research with greater ecological validity to inform researchers’ perspectives and the state of the art. With these and others scenarios in mind, this study was guided by the following research questions:

How useful do Spanish instructors perceive various pronunciation-related knowledge, skills, and classroom activities to be?

How confident are Spanish instructors in their ability to make use of these sorts of knowledge, skills, and activities?

Are Spanish instructors’ perceptions of usefulness and confidence related to the amount and type of training they have received?

Are there any areas where differences in Spanish instructors’ perceptions of usefulness and confidence point toward implications for teacher training or a need for more research?

III Method

1 Survey

To develop an initial pool of items, the first and second authors observed a Teaching Pronunciation course in an MA TESOL program and interviewed course participants about their beliefs regarding pronunciation learning and teaching, including the most and least useful knowledge, skills, and activities for classroom pronunciation instruction. Following Dörnyei’s (2010) recommendations for questionnaire design, we generated sets of items to represent themes that had emerged from the interviews and compiled other items from existing surveys, as described in Nagle et al. (2018). After three experienced language instructors with doctorates in applied linguistics provided feedback on the initial items, we created two questionnaires, one on beliefs regarding pronunciation learning and teaching and another on perceptions of specific tools and techniques. Each questionnaire also collected information on respondents’ language learning histories, training, and teaching experience.

We piloted the draft questionnaires with 68 participants who were learners of L2 English (n = 8) or L2 Spanish (n = 10), pre-service (n = 7) and in-service (n = 32) language teachers, and teacher trainers (n = 11). Preliminary analyses revealed that even though nearly all of the in-service teachers and teacher trainers had taken a teaching methods course, less than half reported that their course had included information on how to teach pronunciation. We therefore pared down the questionnaires to a set of 47 research-driven items that could yield actionable information for enhancing teacher training related to pronunciation, and administered them using Qualtrics. Results from the first set of items dealing with beliefs are reported in Nagle et al. (2018). In the present article, we report on the results for 20 items focused on specific knowledge, skills, and activities (Appendix 1).

Respondents were asked to rate the usefulness of each item and self-assess their level of confidence using two separate 7-point scales (0 = not at all, 3 = somewhat, and 6 = very). More specifically, they were asked to respond ‘based on [their] personal beliefs and experiences’ (1) how useful they considered each type of knowledge, skill, or activity to be with regard to pronunciation teaching and learning, and (2) how confident they felt in their knowledge of that area or in their ability to design and carry out such activities in class. The knowledge-oriented items included familiarity with research on how pronunciation develops in another language, crosslinguistic differences between English and Spanish phonology (e.g. segmentals, stress, intonation), and sources of difficulty in the learning of Spanish pronunciation. Skills items included different types of feedback and assessment, as well as strategies for making Spanish pronunciation more concrete and accessible to learners, such as through transcription, verbal explanations, or diagrams. Activity-related items included specific techniques that have typically been employed to teach pronunciation, ranging from isolated perception and production drills (e.g. word or sentence repetition) to kinesthetic activities and meaningful communicative activities involving pronunciation.

The background portion of the questionnaire contained items related to participants’ language background and their training in linguistics and teaching methods, especially as related to pronunciation learning and teaching. Participants also responded to two open-ended questions asking them to describe the pronunciation-related content that had been included in their linguistics and methods coursework.

2 Participants

Participants were recruited via a combination of convenience and snowball sampling (Creswell, 2008). We sent a link to the questionnaire to university Spanish instructors in our professional networks, asking them to forward it to their colleagues working in Spanish programs around the United States. The survey was active for four months, and of the 121 respondents, 100 responses (82.64%) were complete. Of the 100 participants, most were in-service teachers (n = 89), but a few pre-service teachers (n = 3), teacher trainers (n = 3), and instructors who primarily taught graduate-level courses (n = 2) also participated. Additionally, three individuals indicated that they did not belong to any of those groups. Respondents included native speakers of English (n = 54) and Spanish (n = 41), as well as speakers of other native languages (n = 5). On average, they had taken three language pedagogy courses (M = 3.06, SD = 2.45, range = 0–15).

3 Approach to analysis

Based on the background questions regarding training in linguistics and teaching methods, we divided the respondents into four groups for the purpose of analysis (for details, see Nagle et al., 2018): participants who had taken (1) no methods course (NoMethods, n = 9); (2) a methods course without information on teaching pronunciation (NoPron, n = 58); (3) methods coursework with basic information on pronunciation, such as core concepts in phonology and articulatory phonetics, some reference to theory, and/or basic pedagogical issues (BasicPron, n = 13); and (4) methods coursework with more advanced information on pronunciation, including exposure to empirical research and/or concrete lesson-planning focused on facilitating pronunciation development through specific techniques and activities (AdvancedPron, n = 20).

Before examining group differences in beliefs about pronunciation knowledge, skills, and activities, we ran principal components analyses (PCA) to group individual questionnaire items into conceptually related factors (Loewen & Gonulal, 2015). In other words, rather than analysing responses for each item, we used PCA to reduce the data into a small number of factors suitable for use in subsequent statistical analyses. As a preliminary step, we ran Bartlett’s test of sphericity to check that items were sufficiently correlated with one another: for the usefulness ratings, χ² (231) = 981.96, p < .001; for the confidence ratings, χ² (231) = 1318.16, p < .001. KMO is a measure of sampling adequacy that takes into account the number of items and number of respondents. KMO values above .70 are considered ‘good’ and values above .80 are considered ‘great’ (Field et al., 2012). For the usefulness ratings, the overall KMO was .84, and for the confidence ratings, the overall KMO was .88.

We ran separate PCAs on the usefulness and confidence data. First, we created a model with 20 factors, one for each item on the questionnaire, to inspect eigenvalues and determine the appropriate number of underlying factors for each data set. Typically, eigenvalues greater than 1 indicate that the factor explains a reasonable amount of variance and should be extracted. For the usefulness and confidence data, six and four components had eigenvalues greater than 1, respectively. The factor loadings were largely similar, so we opted to use the four-factor solution produced by the confidence data since it resulted in the clearest conceptual groupings and we wanted to be able to compare the usefulness and confidence ratings directly. We then reran the PCA using orthogonal (oblimin) rotation since we expected that the four factors would be correlated with one another. The final four-factor solution explained 64% of the variance in the ratings. In naming each factor, we prioritized items with the highest factor loadings, leading to the following characterizations: (1) differences and difficulties (9 items accounting for 24% of variance); (2) metalinguistic tools and expertise (5 items accounting for 17% of variance); (3) repetition and feedback (4 items accounting for 12% of variance); (4) student goals and attitudes (2 items accounting for 11% of variance). Appendix 1 provides a complete summary of the 20 items and their factor loadings.

We fit mixed-effects models to each factor, including the following fixed effects: participant group (four levels: NoMethods, NoPron, BasicPron, and AdvancedPron), rating type (two levels: usefulness and confidence), and the participant group × rating type interaction. This analysis allowed us to examine whether groups with different levels of pronunciation-related training provided different usefulness and confidence ratings for each factor (e.g. perhaps those with more training tend to perceive a factor as more useful and report higher confidence), and to examine whether within each level of pronunciation-related expertise there were significant differences in usefulness and confidence (e.g. perhaps within a given group, participants might rate a factor as very useful, but report significantly lower confidence in that area). By-participant and by-item random effects were included as appropriate. For each factor, after summarizing the results of the mixed-effects model, we present descriptive statistics and spark plots, organized by group and item, to provide insight into additional trends. Spark plots are small bar graphs that display response frequencies and provide complementary information to group means and standard deviations through a more concrete visual illustration of response distributions. The bars in the spark plots presented in Tables 1 –4 reflect the percentage of participants in each group who gave ratings at each level of the Likert scale (0–6). The y-axis of all plots runs from 0–80% to allow for visual comparisons on a standardized scale.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of the groups’ perceived usefulness and confidence ratings on differences and difficulties items.

Category	Usefulness			Confidence
Category	Mean	SD	Spark	Mean	SD	Spark
Overall for this factor (differences and difficulties)	4.31	(1.60)		4.36	(1.80)
NoMethods (9)	3.78	(1.82)		4.48	(1.90)
NoPron (58)	4.25	(1.64)		4.15	(1.88)
BasicPron (13)	4.23	(1.59)		4.47	(1.93)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.78	(1.23)		4.82	(1.28)
Knowledge of differences between sounds in Spanish vs. learners’ native language	4.68	(1.56)		4.62	(1.67)
NoMethods (9)	4.78	(0.97)		5.00	(1.66)
NoPron (58)	4.55	(1.69)		4.47	(1.73)
BasicPron (13)	4.31	(1.93)		4.69	(2.06)
AdvancedPron (20)	5.25	(0.91)		4.85	(1.23)
Knowledge of differences in how stress works in Spanish vs. in learners’ native language	4.40	(1.45)		4.39	(1.81)
NoMethods (9)	3.44	(1.59)		4.33	(1.87)
NoPron (58)	4.45	(1.52)		4.29	(1.84)
BasicPron (13)	4	(1.29)		3.85	(2.27)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.95	(1.00)		5.05	(1.23)
Knowledge of differences in how intonation works in Spanish vs. in learners’ native language	3.64	(1.70)		3.62	(1.90)
NoMethods (9)	3.22	(1.72)		3.78	(1.99)
NoPron (58)	3.6	(1.84)		3.29	(1.99)
BasicPron (13)	3.46	(1.85)		4.08	(2.02)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.05	(1.10)		4.20	(1.36)
Practice hearing differences between Spanish words with similar sounds	4.65	(1.34)		4.83	(1.46)
NoMethods (9)	4.56	(1.13)		5.00	(1.12)
NoPron (58)	4.47	(1.44)		4.62	(1.60)
BasicPron (13)	4.77	(1.36)		5.00	(1.73)
AdvancedPron (20)	5.15	(0.99)		5.25	(0.85)
Practice producing Spanish words that include similar sounds	4.69	(1.31)		4.99	(1.44)
NoMethods (9)	3.78	(1.48)		4.56	(1.74)
NoPron (58)	4.66	(1.33)		4.86	(1.50)
BasicPron (13)	4.38	(1.33)		5.08	(1.71)
AdvancedPron (20)	5.40	(0.75)		5.50	(0.69)
Tests evaluating students’ ability to hear differences between words	4.03	(1.69)		4.48	(1.88)
NoMethods (9)	3.00	(2.18)		4.56	(2.19)
NoPron (58)	3.93	(1.64)		4.19	(2.02)
BasicPron (13)	4.15	(1.68)		4.54	(1.85)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.70	(1.42)		5.25	(1.02)
Tests evaluating students’ ability to produce differences between words	3.59	(1.71)		4.01	(2.00)
NoMethods (9)	2.78	(2.33)		4.22	(2.49)
NoPron (58)	3.57	(1.67)		3.83	(2.04)
BasicPron (13)	3.92	(1.89)		4.31	(2.06)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.80	(1.36)		4.25	(1.65)
Analyses of which aspects of learners’ pronunciation contribute most to communication difficulties	4.33	(1.58)		3.81	(1.84)
NoMethods (9)	3.22	(1.56)		3.67	(2.06)
NoPron (58)	4.31	(1.70)		3.57	(1.92)
BasicPron (13)	4.38	(1.50)		4.00	(2.00)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.85	(1.04)		4.45	(1.23)
Communicative activities with an intentional focus on pronunciation	4.79	(1.50)		4.45	(1.73)
NoMethods (9)	5.22	(1.99)		5.22	(1.99)
NoPron (58)	4.71	(1.45)		4.24	(1.73)
BasicPron (13)	4.69	(1.38)		4.69	(1.84)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.90	(1.55)		4.55	(1.50)

Table 2.

Descriptive statistics of the groups’ perceived usefulness and confidence ratings on metalinguistic tools and expertise items.

Category	Usefulness			Confidence
Category	Mean	SD	Spark	Mean	SD	Spark
Overall for this factor (metalinguistic tools and expertise)	3.08	(1.88)		3.83	(2.09)
NoMethods (9)	2.62	(2.06)		3.89	(2.28)
NoPron (58)	3.04	(1.87)		3.60	(2.12)
BasicPron (13)	3.49	(2.02)		4.34	(1.97)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.15	(1.66)		4.12	(1.93)
Familiarity with research on how pronunciation develops in a foreign language (Spanish)	3.20	(1.75)		3.07	(1.98)
NoMethods (9)	2.11	(1.45)		2.67	(1.94)
NoPron (58)	3.14	(1.82)		2.86	(2.08)
BasicPron (13)	4.00	(1.87)		3.38	(1.66)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.35	(1.35)		3.65	(1.87)
Transcription using the IPA or another system of symbols for representing different sounds	2.48	(1.84)		3.80	(2.23)
NoMethods (9)	1.89	(1.83)		3.78	(2.54)
NoPron (58)	2.57	(1.83)		3.64	(2.25)
BasicPron (13)	2.69	(2.18)		4.23	(2.28)
AdvancedPron (20)	2.35	(1.73)		4.00	(2.13)
Special terminology for describing pronunciation (e.g. schwa, diphthong, etc.)	2.66	(1.80)		4.28	(1.94)
NoMethods (9)	2.22	(2.22)		3.78	(2.68)
NoPron (58)	2.72	(1.77)		4.12	(1.86)
BasicPron (13)	2.77	(1.88)		4.85	(1.72)
AdvancedPron (20)	2.60	(1.79)		4.60	(1.96)
Verbal explanations of how different parts of the mouth are used to make Spanish sounds	3.72	(1.76)		4.07	(2.03)
NoMethods (9)	3.67	(2.35)		4.67	(1.94)
NoPron (58)	3.52	(1.80)		3.79	(2.06)
BasicPron (13)	4.31	(1.75)		4.69	(2.10)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.95	(1.36)		4.20	(1.91)
Diagrams or other pictures to illustrate how the mouth is used to make Spanish sounds	3.35	(1.97)		3.91	(2.10)
NoMethods (9)	3.22	(2.17)		4.56	(2.13)
NoPron (58)	3.24	(2.04)		3.59	(2.18)
BasicPron (13)	3.69	(2.18)		4.54	(1.98)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.50	(1.64)		4.15	(1.87)

Table 3.

Descriptive statistics of the groups’ perceived usefulness and confidence ratings on repetition and feedback items.

Category	Usefulness			Confidence
Category	Mean	SD	Spark	Mean	SD	Spark
Overall for this factor (repetition and feedback)	3.38	(1.84)		4.68	(1.67)
NoMethods (9)	3.42	(1.86)		4.86	(1.68)
NoPron (58)	3.39	(1.89)		4.59	(1.76)
BasicPron (13)	3.04	(1.79)		5.04	(1.51)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.56	(1.69)		4.61	(1.46)
Word repetition drills (repeating after a model)	3.67	(1.69)		4.88	(1.44)
NoMethods (9)	3.78	(2.28)		5.11	(2.03)
NoPron (58)	3.74	(1.71)		4.79	(1.47)
BasicPron (13)	3.15	(1.21)		5.38	(0.96)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.75	(1.65)		4.70	(1.30)
Sentence repetition drills (repeating after a model)	3.01	(1.82)		4.59	(1.60)
NoMethods (9)	2.78	(1.92)		4.56	(1.88)
NoPron (58)	3.16	(1.85)		4.59	(1.61)
BasicPron (13)	2.62	(1.80)		5.31	(1.18)
AdvancedPron (20)	2.95	(1.79)		4.15	(1.63)
Explicit correction of students’ Spanish pronunciation	2.66	(1.79)		4.09	(2.05)
NoMethods (9)	2.78	(1.30)		4.56	(1.74)
NoPron (58)	2.48	(1.96)		3.86	(2.28)
BasicPron (13)	2.69	(1.70)		4.46	(1.76)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.10	(1.55)		4.30	(1.63)
Implicit feedback on students’ Spanish pronunciation	4.19	(1.67)		5.16	(1.32)
NoMethods (9)	4.33	(1.58)		5.22	(1.09)
NoPron (58)	4.19	(1.62)		5.14	(1.30)
BasicPron (13)	3.69	(2.29)		5.00	(1.91)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.45	(1.43)		5.30	(1.03)

Table 4.

Descriptive statistics of the groups’ perceived usefulness and confidence ratings on goals and attitudes items.

Category	Usefulness			Confidence
Category	Mean	SD	Spark	Mean	SD	Spark
Overall for this factor (goals and attitudes)	3.84	(1.70)		4.06	(1.84)
NoMethods (9)	2.94	(2.01)		4.06	(2.13)
NoPron (58)	3.78	(1.69)		3.67	(1.88)
BasicPron (13)	4.31	(1.62)		4.82	(1.74)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.23	(1.49)		4.60	(1.43)
Analyses of students’ goals for improving their Spanish pronunciation	4.05	(1.57)		3.94	(1.75)
NoMethods (9)	3.44	(1.88)		3.89	(1.96)
NoPron (58)	3.98	(1.56)		3.64	(1.78)
BasicPron (13)	4.00	(1.58)		4.15	(1.99)
AdvancedPron (20)	4.55	(1.43)		4.60	(1.27)
Discussions with students regarding their attitudes toward their Spanish pronunciation	3.63	(1.81)		4.18	(1.92)
NoMethods (9)	2.44	(2.13)		4.22	(2.39)
NoPron (58)	3.57	(1.82)		3.81	(1.99)
BasicPron (13)	4.31	(1.70)		5.15	(1.34)
AdvancedPron (20)	3.90	(1.52)		4.60	(1.60)

IV Results

Our first three research questions asked (1) how useful Spanish instructors perceive various types of pronunciation-related knowledge, skills, and classroom activities to be; (2) how confident they feel in their ability to make use of them; and (3) whether their perceptions of usefulness and confidence are related to the amount and tpye of training they have received. After presenting the results related to these three questions for each set of questionnaire items, we will address our fourth question regarding implications for teacher training.

1 Differences and difficulties

The first factor included items covering knowledge of differences between learners’ L1(s) and Spanish, practice hearing and producing differences between Spanish words containing similar sounds, tests evaluating learners’ ability to hear and produce differences, analyses of which aspects of pronunciation contribute most to communication difficulties, and communicative activities with an intentional focus on pronunciation. As shown in Table 1, participants considered the knowledge, skills, and activities falling within the Differences and Difficulties factor to be fairly useful (4.31), and they were fairly confident (4.36) in their knowledge and ability to implement the activities. Comparing usefulness across groups, a significant difference emerged between the NoMethods (3.78) and AdvancedPron (4.78) groups (estimate = 1.01, SE = .45, p = .03), and the difference between NoPron (4.25) and AdvancedPron (4.78) approached significance (estimate = .53, SE = .29, p = .07). In both cases, the AdvancedPron group rated knowledge and activities related to the Differences and Difficulties factor as more useful than the other group. Between-group confidence comparisons showed that the AdvancedPron (4.82) group reported significantly more confidence than the NoPron (4.15) group (estimate = .67, SE = .29, p = .02). In the within-groups analysis comparing usefulness and confidence, modeling demonstrated that the NoMethods group reported a significantly higher level of confidence (4.48) than perceived usefulness (3.78) in this area (estimate = .70, SE = .20, p < .001).

Focusing on the items regarding crosslinguistic knowledge, on average respondents rated the usefulness of knowledge of sound differences (4.68) somewhat higher than knowledge of stress differences (4.40) and intonation differences (3.64). Considered separately, all four groups followed this trend (NoMethods: 4.78, 3.44, 3.22; NoPron: 4.55, 4.45, 3.60; BasicPron: 4.31, 4.00, 3.46; AdvancedPron: 5.25, 4.95, 4.05). As far as confidence in knowledge of sound, stress, and intonation differences was concerned, on average, NoMethods (5.00, 4.33, 3.78) and NoPron (4.47, 4.29, 3.29) participants reported decreasing levels of confidence across those knowledge types. BasicPron (4.69, 3.85, 4.08) showed somewhat greater confidence in knowledge of sound differences than stress or intonation differences, and AdvancedPron (4.85, 5.05, 4.20) showed somewhat greater confidence in knowledge of sound and stress differences than intonation differences. On the one hand, it seems that higher-level PI training is appropriately associated with greater recognition of the value of knowledge of suprasegmental features. On the other hand, across the board respondents rated knowledge of segmental differences as more useful than the other two categories and expressed more confidence in that area. This trend is perhaps not surprising in light of the fact that pronunciation research tends to focus on segmental features (Thomson & Derwing, 2015) and the possibility that insufficient training in how to teach stress and intonation might lead teachers to neglect them (Couper, 2017; Foote et al., 2011). Thus, both research and teacher training must incorporate a greater focus on Spanish suprasegmentals.

With regard to practice activities and tests of learners’ ability to perceive and produce sound differences at the word level, in all four groups, participants’ confidence was at least somewhat higher than their ratings of perceived usefulness. Overall, participants rated practice in perception (4.65) and production (4.69) as similar to each other in usefulness and as somewhat more useful than tests of perception (4.03) and production (3.59). Comparing the two types of assessment, all groups considered perception assessment to be more useful than production assessment, with the AdvancedPron group making the most extreme distinction (4.70 vs. 3.80). Respondents similarly expressed greater confidence in their ability to implement practice activities in perception (4.83) and production (4.99) than in their ability to test perception (4.48) and production (4.01). Furthermore, all groups reported greater confidence in assessing perception (4.19–5.25) than production (3.83–4.25), especially participants in the AdvancedPron group, who were quite confident in their ability to evaluate perception (5.25), but somewhat less so for production (4.25).

In interpreting these patterns, it is important to acknowledge that research into the perception-production link has yielded diverse results. While Sakai and Moorman’s (2018) meta-analysis indicated that perception training leads to small but reliable gains in production, there is also evidence to suggest that accurate perception may be necessary but insufficient to promote accurate production (Kartushina et al., 2015), and that perception may play a stronger facilitative role during the early stages of learning (Saito & van Poeteren, 2018). Nonetheless, intuitively, the findings of the present study make sense. The greater value accorded to perception tests is at least partially compatible with theoretical models such as the Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1995), which claims that learners will have difficulty producing contrasts that they do not perceive accurately. Concerning the confidence ratings, instructors may simply find it more difficult to design valid assessments than to set up practice opportunities, and find it more difficult to quantify the accuracy of learners’ pronunciation than to assess their ability to perceive predetermined L2 phonemic contrasts. Overall, providing more information on how perception and production feed into one another will prove beneficial, especially if this information focuses on how teachers can help learners improve both skills simultaneously (Nagle, 2018). Additionally, teachers need more training in ecologically valid and user-friendly approaches to pronunciation assessment (e.g. Isaacs & Trofimovich, 2017; Isaacs et al., 2018).

An examination of the items on analyses of communication difficulties and communicative activities reveals some encouraging results. For instance, participants with methods training rated analyses of communication difficulties as more useful (4.31–4.85) than those in the NoMethods group did (3.22). For the groups with methods training (NoPron, BasicPron, AdvancedPron), the perceived usefulness of such analyses (4.31, 4.38, 4.85) was somewhat higher than their confidence in carrying them out (3.57, 4.00, 4.45). Meanwhile, although all groups rated communicative activities with an intentional focus on pronunciation as useful – very useful (6) was the modal response in all groups – it seems the NoMethods group (5.22) not only considered communicative activities to be slightly more useful than the methods groups did (4.69–4.90), but also indicated greater confidence in conducting such activities (5.22) compared to the other groups (4.24–4.69). Overall, respondents’ generally positive views of communicative activities are consistent with state-of-the-art pedagogical recommendations and research (e.g. Gurzynski-Weiss et al., 2017; Saito, 2015).

2 Metalinguistic tools and expertise

As shown in Table 2, overall, respondents gave lower ratings to the Metalinguistic Tools and Expertise items (usefulness: 3.08, confidence: 3.83) than they gave to the Differences and Difficulties items (usefulness: 4.31, confidence: 4.36). Mixed-effects models revealed a marginal effect of greater confidence for the BasicPron (4.34) group compared to the NoPron (3.60) group (estimate = .85, SE = .45, p = .06). However, there were no statistically significant between-group differences in perceived usefulness. Moreover, in contrast to the similar levels of usefulness and confidence expressed overall in the previous section, participants in all four groups reported significantly higher levels of confidence (3.83) than perceived usefulness (3.08) with regard to metalinguistic tools and expertise: for NoMethods, estimate = 1.27, SE = .32, p < .001; for NoPron, estimate = .56, SE = .12, p < .001; for BasicPron, estimate = .85, SE = .26, p = .001; for AdvancedPron, estimate = .97, SE = .21, p < .001.

Turning first to the transcription and terminology items, which all groups rated as less than somewhat useful (average ratings < 3), descriptively, the NoMethods group expressed the lowest levels of perceived usefulness, rating transcription 1.89 and terminology 2.22. In comparison, the groups with at least some methods training rated transcription between 2.35–2.69 and terminology between 2.60–2.77. The confidence ratings paint a different picture. For both transcription (3.80) and terminology (4.28), the modal response was 6 (very confident). While each group had at least some respondents who expressed low confidence, overall, 69% were at least somewhat confident (with ratings of 3 or above) regarding transcription, and 82% were at least somewhat confident regarding terminology. In sum, it seems that instructors find it easy to describe and transcribe Spanish pronunciation, but not particularly worthwhile.

Compared to transcription and terminology, respondents considered verbal explanations (3.72) and diagrams (3.35) to be somewhat more useful, although these items did not reach the levels of perceived usefulness expressed for most of the Differences and Difficulties items. Regarding the value of explanations, average group ratings ranged from 3.52–4.31, while for diagrams they ranged from 3.22–3.69. The confidence results for explanations (4.07) and diagrams (3.91) were similar to those for transcription and terminology. While each group had at least some respondents who expressed low confidence, overall, 75% were at least somewhat confident (rating ⩾ 3) regarding explanations and 72% were at least somewhat confident regarding diagrams. Remarkably, on average, the NoMethods group reported the highest or near highest levels of confidence, rating themselves 4.67 for verbal explanations (vs. 3.79–4.69 for the other groups) and 4.56 for diagrams (vs. 3.59–4.54 for the other groups). The fairly low levels of perceived usefulness of articulatory explanations and illustrations are consistent with Kissling’s (2013) finding that explicit instruction in Spanish phonetics did not lead to greater gains in segmental accuracy beyond those associated with structured input and practice. They are less consistent with Saito’s (2013) finding that explicit instruction can enhance pronunciation gains; however, Saito’s research focused on a phonemic contrast known to be quite difficult for Japanese learners of English in both perception and production, whereas our survey asked about the usefulness of metalinguistic tools for improving the pronunciation of Spanish sounds in general.

The average perceived usefulness of familiarity with research on how pronunciation develops (3.20) was in between participants’ relatively low ratings for transcription and terminology (2.48–2.66) and their somewhat higher ratings for diagrams and verbal explanations (3.35–3.72). While the NoPron and AdvancedPron groups rated familiarity with research as somewhat useful (3.14–3.35) and the BasicPron group rated it a bit higher (4.00), the NoMethods group inclined toward the lower end of the scale, with an average rating of 2.11. With regard to confidence (3.07), the most frequent response was somewhat confident (3), but each group showed a wide range of responses. Although it appears that more advanced training may be associated with greater confidence in research knowledge (NoMethods 2.67, NoPron 2.86, BasicPron 3.38, AdvancedPron 3.65), even the most advanced group did not report being much more than somewhat confident. These findings resonate with Marsden and Kasprowicz’s (2017) survey results indicating that L2 educators in the UK have limited direct exposure to peer-reviewed publications, in part due to accessibility problems, both practical (e.g. time, funding) and conceptual (e.g. awareness, understanding).

3 Repetition and feedback

Mixed-effects models revealed no significant between-group differences in participants’ usefulness and confidence ratings for Repetition and Feedback items. As was true of Metalinguistic Tools and Expertise, all groups reported significantly greater confidence (4.68) in Repetition and Feedback items relative to their perceived usefulness (3.38): for NoMethods, estimate = 1.44, SE = .33, p < .001; for BasicPron, estimate = 1.20, SE = .13, p < .001; for BasicPron, estimate = 2.00, SE = .28, p < .001; for AdvancedPron, estimate = 1.05, SE = .22, p < .001. This effect was most pronounced for the BasicPron group, whose confidence rating exceeded perceived usefulness by nearly two points. Ranking the activities in Table 3 with regard to perceived usefulness, all groups generally considered implicit feedback (4.19) and word repetition (3.67) to be more useful than sentence repetition (3.01) and explicit correction (2.66). The two groups without pronunciation training followed this order exactly, whereas the groups with pronunciation training considered explicit correction to be slightly more useful than sentence repetition. Ranking with regard to confidence, the overall order was also implicit feedback (5.16), word repetition (4.88), sentence repetition (4.59), and explicit correction (4.09). However, the BasicPron group was slightly more confident about implementing repetition activities than providing feedback, and the AdvancedPron group rated sentence repetition the lowest.

Looking in greater depth at the perceived usefulness of repetition, the average ratings across groups were fairly similar, but there was less consensus within groups. Apart from the BasicPron group, where 77% of participants agreed that word repetition is either somewhat or a bit less than somewhat useful (ratings of 2 and 3), most groups showed greater variation. As far as confidence was concerned, the most frequent level reported was 6, with 50% and 42% of respondents indicating that they were very confident about word and sentence repetition, respectively. Very small proportions of participants (6–10% overall) reported being less than somewhat confident about repetition drills. This recalls Baker’s (2014) interpretation – based on a combination of observation, semi-structured interview, and stimulated-recall data – that the teachers in her study had a strong knowledge base of controlled techniques, which were ‘clearly dominant’ in all of the classes she observed (p. 148).

Turning to the items on feedback, the most striking pattern is the higher perceived usefulness of implicit feedback (4.19) than explicit correction (2.66). In all groups, there was a difference of at least one point. The respondents’ confidence in providing implicit feedback was especially high at 5.16, with all groups’ averages between 5.00–5.22, and 60% of participants reportedly very confident (6). Regarding explicit correction, the average level of confidence was somewhat lower at 4.09; nonetheless, 41% reported being very confident. In consideration of the wide variety of definitions in the research literature, it is important to note that our questionnaire described implicit feedback as repeating a word or phrase with more appropriate pronunciation, while explicit feedback was exemplified with the statement ‘like this, not like that’ without any reference to metalinguistic explanation. Although our respondents’ recognition of the value of implicit feedback seems consistent with Saito and Lyster’s (2012a, 2012b) finding that recasts on pronunciation provide additional benefits beyond the effects of FFI, the labels used across studies need to be examined closely given that didactic partial recasts of the sort employed in Saito and his colleagues’ research can be quite salient and explicit, with recognizable corrective intent. Saito and Wu (2014) and Saito’s (2015) results also point to possible mediating factors in the effectiveness of corrective feedback, which may not always provide benefits beyond the effects of FFI for lower-proficiency learners. Exposure to further research in this area will help raise teachers’ awareness of the circumstances under which different types of feedback might be most advantageous, thereby helping them make contextualized choices that recognize the value of different approaches for addressing different kinds of pronunciation problems with learners at different levels.

4 Student goals and attitudes

For the Student Goals and Attitudes items, modeling demonstrated significant differences in perceived usefulness between the NoMethods (2.94) and BasicPron (4.31) groups (estimate = 1.39, SE = .64, p = .03) and between the NoMethods and AdvancedPron (4.23) groups (estimate = 1.28, SE = .58, p = .03). The groups with more pronunciation-related training rated analyses and discussions of student goals and attitudes as more useful. The BasicPron and AdvancedPron groups also expressed significantly greater confidence than the NoPron group (NoPron vs. BasicPron, estimate = 1.15, SE = .46, p = .01; NoPron vs. AdvancedPron, estimate = .92, SE = .38, p = .02). Comparing perceived usefulness and confidence within groups, there was a significant difference only for the NoMethods group (estimate = 1.11, SE = .43, p = .01). As in analyses of previous factors, their reported confidence (4.06) surpassed their perceptions of usefulness (2.94).

Comparing the goals and attitudes items against one another, descriptively, respondents tended to perceive analyses of students’ goals (4.05) as slightly more useful than discussions of attitudes (3.63), with all groups except BasicPron following this trend; however, they tended to be slightly more confident about their ability to discuss attitudes (4.18) than their ability to analyse students’ goals (3.94), with this being especially the case for the BasicPron group (5.15 vs. 4.15). Another interesting contrast involves the magnitude of the differences in perceived usefulness versus confidence ratings. Whereas the respondents expressed fairly similar levels of perceived usefulness (4.05) and confidence (3.94) regarding analyses of students’ goals (differing by no more than .45 in any group), all four groups reported a lower level of perceived usefulness (3.63) compared to their confidence (4.18) in discussing students’ attitudes. This was especially pronounced in the NoMethods group (2.44 vs. 4.22). Based on these findings, teacher training must focus on helping instructors discuss relevant research concepts with students, such as intelligibility and comprehensibility on the one hand and accentedness on the other, and how pronunciation shapes social interactions (e.g. Fuertes et al., 2012). Such discussions could help students view pronunciation as an important facet of communicative competence, empowering them to take more agency in their pronunciation learning.

V Discussion

With the goal of revealing implications for teacher education and professional development, this article examined Spanish teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness of various types of pronunciation-related knowledge, skills, and activities; their levels of confidence in using them in the classroom; and whether their perceptions of usefulness and confidence were related to the amount and type of training they had previously received in methods of teaching pronunciation. Concerning perceived usefulness (RQ1), we found that these Spanish teachers tended to value (1) crosslinguistic knowledge of sounds over stress and intonation, (2) practice over assessment, (3) perception assessment over production assessment, (4) diagrams and descriptions over transcription and terminology, and (5) implicit over explicit feedback. While respondents rated communicative activities with an intentional focus on pronunciation as useful, they were less convinced about the value of metalinguistic tools such as phonetic transcription, terminology, and diagrams, and the value of familiarity with research on L2 pronunciation development.

Regarding confidence levels (RQ2), several patterns mirrored those for perceived usefulness, with participants expressing greater confidence in their (1) crosslinguistic knowledge of sound differences than intonation differences, (2) ability to implement practice activities than assessments, (3) ability to assess perception than production, and (5) ability to provide implicit feedback than explicit feedback. Some of the highest levels of confidence were expressed with regard to controlled techniques such as repetition drills, as well as implicit feedback, while lower levels were reported for familiarity with research. These Spanish teachers also reported higher levels of confidence than perceived usefulness in several areas, including in relation to metalinguistic tools, repetition drills, and discussions of students’ attitudes.

With regard to the role of methods training (RQ3), though most contrasts tested in the mixed-effects models did not reach statistical significance, the ones that did demonstrated that participants with more coursework in language teaching and phonology were more likely to perceive items as useful and feel confident about their application. Every statistically significant difference followed this trend, which points to the value of teacher training – ideally including information and practice related to L2 phonological development and pronunciation instruction – in fostering instructors’ readiness to teach pronunciation. Significant within-group differences also demonstrated that participants’ confidence was consistently higher than the perceived usefulness of the knowledge, skills, and activities in question, especially within the Metalinguistic Tools and Expertise and the Repetition and Feedback factors. The fact that participants with no background in teaching methodology sometimes expressed high confidence combined with perceptions of low usefulness raises concerns, however, as this pattern suggests that some teachers feel overly confident in areas in which they have insufficient training.

The answers to the first research questions provide novel insights into how Spanish teachers may perceive pronunciation instruction, allow for preliminary comparisons with the more extensively explored area of English pronunciation instruction, and suggest the value of investigating other L2s. For instance, whereas Spanish instructors from all groups in this study assigned rather low usefulness to phonetic transcription, English teachers may assign more value to this pedagogical tool, in particular to address spelling-pronunciation mismatches or to describe sounds that are not present in learners’ L1s (Henderson et al., 2015). This is not surprising in light of the fairly transparent orthography of Spanish, as compared to the less regular correspondence between sounds and symbols in English (e.g. ‘a’ pronounced as /a/, /eɪ/, /æ/, /ə/), which moreover contains multiple distinctions that are difficult for learners to perceive and produce (e.g. /æ/ vs. /ɛ/, /i/ vs. /ɪ/). This is especially so given the relatively large vowel inventory in English, which differs substantially across the various dialects that learners may be exposed to (Ladefoged, 2005).

In other respects, the results from this study of Spanish teachers are largely in line with previous observations from research with English teachers. For example, just as we found here, English teachers also appear to assign more importance to segmentals than suprasegementals (e.g. Buss, 2017; Couper, 2017; Foote et al., 2016), feel confident using repetition drills (e.g. Baker, 2014), do not always assess pronunciation development in a systematic fashion (e.g. Henderson et al., 2015), and agree that pronunciation should be embedded in communicative activities, though they do not necessarily follow that idea in practice (e.g. Buss, 2017; Darcy et al., 2012). In sum, this study suggests many commonalities between English and Spanish teachers in their confidence and perceptions about pronunciation instruction. This points to a core set of issues across L2s which ought to be prioritized to a greater extent in teacher training and professional development (for other L2s, see Huensch, 2019).

VI Implications for teacher training

Before making recommendations for teacher training on the basis of this study, we would like to advocate for an intelligibility- and comprehensibility-oriented approach to foreign language (FL) pronunciation pedagogy that mirrors the approach taken in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). There, PI is grounded in the view that the goal is to help learners develop intelligible speech as opposed to a nativelike accent (e.g. Levis, 2005). Although pronunciation development in Spanish (and other FLs) has its own trajectory, a conceptual shift is needed to move away from a focus on the nativelike production of individual features without establishing whether those features are important for intelligibility and comprehensibility. In the absence of such a shift, we believe it will be difficult, if not impossible, to develop a coherent approach to Spanish pronunciation pedagogy. How can we know which pronunciation features to prioritize, when and how to correct learners’ pronunciation, and how to evaluate pronunciation accuracy if we have not agreed upon common pronunciation benchmarks that evolve as students progress through the FL curriculum?

We want to be clear that we are not advocating for abandoning the goal of achieving a nativelike accent altogether, but rather for situating that goal within a broader framework that gives precedence to intelligibility and comprehensibility while also offering flexibility for students to set their own goals where nativelikeness is concerned. Under this mentality, we use the results of our questionnaire to offer four key priorities for teacher training. These priorities reflect areas where we found that more methods coursework was associated with higher ratings of perceived usefulness and confidence, but where even teachers with the most training would benefit from higher levels of confidence.

First, teacher educators should provide more information on suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation, the role they play in intelligibility and comprehensibility, and methods of incorporating them into classroom instruction. Even though suprasegmental features are salient to native Spanish listeners (McBride, 2015), instructors may shy away from addressing them, prioritizing only segmentals, if they do not feel secure in their knowledge base. Fortunately, there are many profitable and relatively simple techniques that instructors can introduce to help learners gain awareness of suprasegmental features and improve their pronunciation. For instance, kinesthetic behavior and gestures such as clapping and head nodding can help learners increase their awareness of the rhythmic properties of Spanish (de-la-Mota, 2019; McCafferty, 2006), and shadowing can help them improve global aspects of pronunciation such as fluency and comprehensibility (Foote & McDonough, 2017; Hsieh et al., 2013). Teacher educators should model how to present and sequence these activities in class and coordinate them with other strategies that learners can use on their own, such as technology-based approaches that students can use to visualize and analyse their own intonation (Campillo Llanos, 2010; Escudero & Carranza, 2015; Hidalgo & Cabedo, 2012). Overall, then, with respect to suprasegmental features, teacher education should focus on both why they are important and how to teach them.

Second, teacher trainers should provide more information on methods of assessing pronunciation along with opportunities for instructors to create and administer assessments that focus on the perception and (especially) production of problematic target features. These assessments must be anchored in an understanding of functional load (e.g. Munro & Derwing, 2006), or the variable impact that pronunciation features have on intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness (for an overview, Isaacs, 2018). For example, at least one study suggests that the misproduction of certain Spanish segmental features, such as the tap and trill and vowels, affects comprehensibility and may distract native listeners (McBride, 2015). Thus, it would be fruitful to prioritize assessing those features systematically, at all levels of instruction. Pronunciation features that are primarily associated with accentedness, such as voice onset time of /p, t, k/ (Schoonmaker-Gates, 2015), can still be assessed, particularly in upper-level courses, but their assessment should be embedded into a discussion of the intelligibility framework.

A comprehensive discussion of assessment techniques is beyond the scope of this article (see Isaacs & Trofimovich, 2017), but it is critical that teacher trainers help instructors hone strategies that are suitable for assessing spontaneous production. To our knowledge, there are no studies that have developed and validated pronunciation assessment scales for Spanish. However, there are a number of scales developed for English that could be adapted for the FL Spanish context, including broad measures focusing on intelligibility and comprehensibility rather than the production of individual features. Ultimately, we feel that teacher training should emphasize ‘organic’ assessment techniques that focus on evaluating the language students actually produce. Without meaningful pronunciation assessment, instructors will not be able to gauge students’ achievement of pronunciation-related learning objectives or use diagnostic evidence to inform future instructional priorities and objective-setting (Derwing & Munro, 2015). A focus on assessment and intelligibility will also increase teachers’ confidence in their ability to analyse pronunciation-related sources of communication difficulties, which this survey identified as a potential area of need.

Third, even though respondents were generally positive about the usefulness of verbal explanations (i.e. explicit phonetic information) and implicit feedback, it might be beneficial to include more information on when and how to deliver both, as well as how to integrate a focus on form with communicative activities and assessment, to bring teachers’ confidence in these areas on a par with their confidence regarding controlled practice. Recent developments in Spanish pronunciation pedagogy have proposed specific models to incorporate attention to phonetic form in the context of communicative activates. For instance, González-Bueno (2005, 2019) and González-Bueno and Quintana-Lara (2011) have demonstrated the effectiveness of the Structured Presentation, Attention, Co-construction, and Extension (S-PACE) model for Spanish pronunciation, whereby learners move from discourse comprehension to task-based language production, with intermediate opportunities (in the Attention and Co-construction phases) for learners to focus explicitly on problematic phonological forms they need to complete the task (for a sample lesson plan using S-PACE for Spanish approximants, see González-Bueno, 2019). Technology can also be a potent tool for FFI on pronunciation when interventions are brief and technical terminology is kept to a minimum. For example, Olson (2014a, 2014b) showed the benefits of teaching intermediate Spanish learners to interpret Praat spectrograms of their production of Spanish /b, d, g/, which allowed them to obtain immediate visual feedback on their pronunciation accuracy.

Finally, although more coursework appeared to be associated with greater research familiarity, even the respondents with the most formal training expressed a fairly low level of confidence in that area. The endeavor of designing a pronunciation curriculum and integrating it into the broader language curriculum can be daunting, so teacher-training programs must empower instructors with actionable information on empirically validated techniques and build their confidence in their ability to put that information into practice. Teacher trainers should take a two-pronged approach. First, they must help instructors locate and interpret accessible summaries that aim to bridge pronunciation research and practice, such as those that can be found at www.pronunciationforteachers.com (Levis, n.d.). There are also a number of books that focus on applying pronunciation research findings in the classroom, such as Derwing and Munro’s (2015) Pronunciation fundamentals. Second, successful teacher education requires buy-in from participants. In our experience, a teacher-fronted, lecture-style approach is not as effective as other learner-driven techniques, such as project-based learning, action research, and study circles that promote instructor agency, autonomy, and critical reflection (Echelberger et al., 2018). Thus, we encourage teacher trainers to curate resources for pre- and in-service teachers, and to invite teachers into a more dynamic learning process that emphasizes the application of PI concepts. Researchers, and the field as a whole, must also contribute to bridging the research-pedagogy divide through initiatives such as the Open Accessible Summaries in Language Studies database (OASIS, n.d.).

VII Limitations and future research

Although reflecting on the results of our study pointed us toward several potentially fruitful directions for FL teacher education, the results should be interpreted in consideration of several limitations. First, the Likert-type design of our questionnaire did not allow respondents to express nuanced perspectives taking into account the role of variables such as learner proficiency (e.g. in the perception-production link and effectiveness of feedback) or linguistic targets (e.g. in the value of explicit instruction). Thus, it could be that participants’ responses of somewhat useful represent compromise positions that underestimate their expertise because they obscure the multifaceted reality that research articles have more room to explain, i.e. a technique may be very useful under certain circumstances, for example with more advanced learners (Saito & Lyster, 2012), focusing intensively on a particularly difficult contrast (Saito, 2013), but may be less useful under others, e.g. with novice learners (Saito, 2015), focusing broadly on multiple targets (Kissling, 2013). In future research, it could be helpful to include open-ended questions or space for respondents to leave comments clarifying their interpretations and responses.

It is also crucial to acknowledge the limitations of convenience and snowball sampling. Since our respondents were volunteers who may have opted to participate in part because of their interest in pronunciation instruction, the results should not be taken as representative of Spanish teachers in general. Replications must be conducted with teachers of other L2s as well. Additionally, our findings of associations between previous PI training and respondents’ usefulness and confidence ratings must be interpreted with caution. We cannot make definitive claims about the effects of teacher training since we did not administer training with random assignment in a pretest-posttest design. Moreover, although our survey covered several types of pronunciation-related knowledge, skills, and activities, a notable omission was the use of technology to facilitate language learners’ pronunciation development. From visualization software to adaptive feedback, technology is rapidly becoming an integral component of a comprehensive approach to PI (Levis, 2018). One of the advantages of many technology-mediated techniques is that, after learners have received some basic training, they can use them on their own outside of class in individualized ways, especially if the activities avoid technical terminology that learners may not understand (see, for example, Foote & McDonough, 2017; Offerman & Olson, 2016; Olson, 2014a, 2014b). It would be informative for future research to investigate instructors’ perceptions of technology-enhanced PI.

VIII Conclusions

This study was born out of our desire to bridge pronunciation research and teaching in L2 Spanish, with the goal of helping researchers and teacher educators gain insight into teachers’ needs and perspectives and helping teachers take stock of research findings and leverage those findings to enhance their practice. Drawing upon preparatory interviews and a growing body of work on the teaching and learning of pronunciation in L2 English, we designed two questionnaires to explore Spanish teachers’ beliefs, perceptions, and confidence regarding ideas and practices that are prominent in the pronunciation literature. With a focus on knowledge and skills relevant to classroom activities, the survey study reported here revealed four priorities for professional development that may help teachers to expand their repertoires and take a more proactive approach to pronunciation instruction: (1) more information on how suprasegmental features contribute to intelligibility and comprehensibility and how they can be addressed in the classroom; (2) more training in pronunciation assessment techniques, including opportunities for meaningful application; (3) more nuanced discussion of when and how to integrate form-focused pronunciation instruction and feedback into communicative language teaching; and (4) increased familiarity with research, including guidance on where to find accessible, up-to-date, vetted, high-quality information that can inspire and enrich practice over the course of a career in language education.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix 1.

Factor loadings of survey items (four-factor solution).

		Factor
		1	2	3	4
Factor 1: Differences and difficulties:
12	Practice hearing differences between Spanish words with similar sounds	.80
13	Practice producing Spanish words that include similar sounds	.76
6	Knowledge of differences in how intonation works in Spanish vs. in learners’ native language	.75
21	Tests evaluating students’ ability to hear differences between words	.68
5	Knowledge of differences in how stress works in Spanish vs. in learners’ native language	.64
2	Analyses of which aspects of learners’ pronunciation contribute most to communication difficulties	.61
18	Communicative activities with an intentional focus on pronunciation	.59
22	Tests evaluating students’ ability to produce differences between words	.55
4	Knowledge of differences between sounds in Spanish vs. learners’ native language	.54	.51
Factor 2: Metalinguistic tools and expertise:
8	Transcription using the IPA or another system of symbols for representing different sounds		.89
11	Familiarity with research on how pronunciation develops in a foreign language (Spanish)		.65
7	Special terminology for describing pronunciation (e.g. schwa, diphthong, etc.)	.33	.63
9	Verbal explanations of how different parts of the mouth are used to make Spanish sounds		.58		.36
10	Diagrams or other pictures to illustrate how the mouth is used to make Spanish sounds		.56		.43
Factor 3: Repetition and feedback:
14	Word repetition drills (repeating after a model)			.85
15	Sentence repetition drills (repeating after a model)			.80
19	Explicit correction of students’ Spanish pronunciation		.37	.66
20	Implicit feedback on students’ Spanish pronunciation			.60
Factor 4: Student goals and attitudes:
1	Analyses of students’ goals for improving their Spanish pronunciation	.35			.47
3	Discussions with students regarding their attitudes toward their Spanish pronunciation		.37		.40
Summary statistics:
	Eigenvalues	9.82	1.96	1.23	1.20
	Reliability (α)	.91	.89	.78	.65

Note. Only factor loadings ⩾ .30 are displayed.

Declaration of conflicting interests

In a previous article, published in The Modern Language Journal (Nagle et al., 2018), we analysed the results of a survey on teachers’ beliefs on pronunciation learning and teaching. In this Language Teaching Research article, we analyse the results of a second survey, administered to the same group of participants, on teachers’ beliefs on various types of pronunciation knowledge, activities, and skills, and their confidence in those areas. Thus, together, the two articles form part of a larger project whose goal was to examine teachers’ conceptual knowledge and beliefs related to pronunciation teaching, and their practical knowledge and confidence in implementing pronunciation instruction in the language classroom.

Funding

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

ORCID iD

Charles Nagle

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