The role of pronunciation in non-native language teaching
has been in a state of constant change. In the earlier approaches,
foreign language pronunciation was either the result of exposure
to the target language or of approaches which used complex sets
of drills and repetitions. As suggested, to a large extent, the
importance of pronunciation has always been determined by
ideology and intuition rather than by research. Teachers have
intuitively decided which features have the greatest effect on
clarity and which are learnable in a classroom setting. Saito
claims that while the morphological and syntactical levels of
languages are taught in contextualized meaningful exercises,
pronunciation practice is decontextualized due to the use of drills
and repetition.
Pronunciation is one of the aspects of language both
native and non-native teachers of English are not keen on
teaching, and a lack of adequate teacher training results in an
intuitive use of available materials and techniques. Setting
pedagogical goals must be based on knowledge of pronunciation
issues. Unqualified teachers may have misconceptions about
phonological phenomena, cannot evaluate or use teaching
materials accurately, and do not set realistic goals when teaching
pronunciation. Furthermore, even teaching materials do not
reflect the conclusions of current research, and they can be
perceived as boring; however, Baker argues that teachers who
complete a pronunciation course have, and apply, a wider range
of pronunciation activities in their classrooms.
H. Vančová. Current Issues in Pronunciation Teaching to Non-Native Learners of English.
In: Journal of Language and Cultural Education, Vol. 7, Issue 2, 2019 (adapted).