1. TEACHINGTEACHING
PRONUNCIATIONPRONUNCIATION
WHY, WHAT, HOWWHY, WHAT, HOW

2. Your learning experience?
• THINK ABOUT YOUR PREVIOUS ENGLISH LEARNING
EXPERIENCE
• What percentage of instructional time was devoted to
pronunciation?
• How would you rate the quality of your teachers’ pronunciation
of English (good, fair, poor)?
• Which techniques for teaching pronunciation did your teachers
use?
• What type of feedback did you recieve regarding your
pronunciation?
• What else contributed to your learning the pronunciation of
English? (at and outside school)

3. WHY TEACHING PRONUNCIATION
• English is the major lingua franca
globally.
• More and more people need to use
English for social, educational, and
professional reasons in all kinds of
contexts, locally and internationally.
• It is essential that people who use
English to communicate have a high level
of intelligibility. (Celce-Murcia et al,
1996)

4. HOW: APPROACHES TO PRONUNCIATION
TEACHING
• INTUITIVE-IMITATIVE:
pronunciation is acquired as a result of
exposure and interaction in an
environment where the target language
is spoken.
• ANALYTIC-LINGUISTIC :
pronunciation is learned through
instruction in order to raise awareness

5. LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS AND
PRONUNCIATION
∼ Grammar translation
∼ Direct method
∼ Audiolingual method
∼ Silent way
∼ Community language learning
∼ Total physical response
∼ Communicative approach

6. • Teaching pronunciation within the communicative
framework means guiding learners to experience
speech as transfer of a message from one person
to another. Doing this helps learners to think
about their pronunciation as communication,
rather than as a classroom exercise, and to focus
on their listener’s perception rather than on their
own production. (Celce-Murcia et al., 2001)

7. Aims
• TO PROMOTE INTELLIGIBILITY (a
high amount of understandable
utterances)
• TO ENSURE COMPREHENSIBILITY
(meaning of the message is clearly
understood) (Jenkins, 2002)

8. WHAT ASPECTS OF THE ENGLISH
PRONUNCIATION TO TEACH?
• PHONETICS vs PHONOLOGY
• SEGMENTAL vs SUPRASEGMENTAL
• LINGUA FRANCA CORE LANGUAGE:
the pronunciation features that can
cause interference in international
communication contexts. (Jenkins
2000)

9. Lingua franca core
• Vowel quantity: the distinction between long and short vowels is
more important than exact vowel quality.
• Phonetic realisations of consonants: some such approximations
may lead to unintelligibility.
• Consonant cluster simplification: consonant deletion to simplify a
cluster affects intelligibility considerably.
• Prominence and weak forms: teaching should focus on achieving
correct prominence on stressed syllables, rather than on weak
forms or schwa.
• Tone groups: failing to use tone groups to divide the stream of
speech into manageable, meaningful chunks has a serious effect on
intelligibility for all listeners.
• Nuclear/contrastive stress: putting prominence on the wrong word
in an utterance, will direct the listener’s attention to the wrong
place, leading to confusion.

10. • What really works? Pronunciation teaching
works better if the focus is on larger chunks
of speech, such as words, phrases and
sentences.
• Pronunciation lessons work best if they
involve the students in actually speaking,
rather than in just learning facts or rules of
pronunciation.
• Learning pronunciation requires an enormous
amount of practice, especially at early
stages.

11. Good teaching principles?
* Setting realistic goals
* Integrating pronunciation to listening
and speaking skills practice
* Being student-centred
* Helping learners become self-reliant

12. TEACHING STRATEGIES
• DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS: phonemic
charts, minimal pairs, transcriptions,
kinesthetic activities.
• LISTENING DISCRIMINATION: listening
for meaning, listening for pronunciation.
• CONTROLLED PRACTICE: drills, repetition,
shadow reading, reading aloud, role plays.
• COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE: discussions,
speeches, conversations, problem solving.

13. ASSESSING PRONUNCIATION
• Diagnostic evaluation: identifying
students’ pronunciation needs.
• Ongoing feedback: growing awareness
on progress and focus on improvement.
• Self-monitoring.
• Peer feedback.
• Teacher’s feedback.
Celce-Murcia et al, 2001

14. LEARNING STRATEGIES
• COGNITIVE: memory strategies, practising
naturalistically, formally practising the sounds and
rhythm, analysing patterns.
• METACOGNITIVE: setting goals, planning, self-
monitoring, looking for opportunities to speak/
listen to English outside classroom.
• SOCIO- AFECTIVE: asking for help, cooperating,
peer-assessment, lowering anxiety.

15. Learners’ characteristics that may
affect the process of learning :
• Personality traits, self consciosness,
self image (identity)
• Overdemanding attitude
• Physiological problems: articulators
• Cognitive skills: memory, a “good ear”

16. Key points in pronunciation
teaching
* Perception and Production
* Practice and patience
* Relaxing atmosphere, confidence
building, awareness raising
* Focus on communication

17. YOUR TASK!
A- Choose a textbook and analize
the pronunciation activities
presented in terms of purpose
and interaction.
B- Design a lesson integrating
pronunciation into language
teaching.

18. Bibliography
• Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin (1996)
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION. A
Reference for Teachers of English to
Speakers of Other Languages.
Cambridge:CUP
• Celce-Murcia, Marianne (2001) TEACHING
ENGLISH AS A SECOND OR FOREIGN
LANGUAGE. United Kingdom:Heinle-
Heinle.