This article reports on teachers' knowledge and perceptions and the issues they are concerned about in relation to pronunciation teaching. Understanding teacher cognition helps to ensure research and pedagogical advice are appropriately directed. However, there has been only a limited amount of research in this area. The researcher collected data for this study through semistructured interviews with 19 English language teachers in New Zealand. A number of themes emerged, including a lack of initial training and knowledge of phonology, leading to uncertainty about exactly what should be taught and how. This often meant pronunciation was neglected, especially in areas such as stress and intonation. It was also found that much teaching was ad hoc and in response to errors. Concerns included how to teach pronunciation in mixedfirst language classes and how to help learners with speech perception. The findings raise questions for reflective practice, teacher education, and professional development; recent research has found some answers, but these are not all represented in the knowledge base of teachers, teacher education courses, or classroom textbooks. The issues raised also underline the need for more research in a number of areas.

This article reports on the concerns and issues which 28 experienced and well-qualified teachers expressed during individual semi-structured interviews with the researcher. It describes and discusses the participants’ views, pulling together themes representative of a wide range of perspectives on pronunciation teaching. Themes include: teacher anxiety about pronunciation and pronunciation teaching; external factors affecting pronunciation teaching such as curriculum and exam pressures, textbooks, and training received; approaches to teaching and error correction; activities and techniques; and issues related to literacy bias, listen-and-repeat, use of phonemic symbols and pronunciation goals and models. These findings, taken in conjunction with studies of teacher cognition in other contexts, serve to inform all those with an interest in English language teaching, whether they be researchers, teachers or teacher educators, curriculum designers or textbook writers.

While there is growing evidence that pronunciation teaching can work, there is a need to establish what it is that makes it work. The study reported here tested for the effect of two particular factors: socially constructed metalanguage (SCM) and critical listening (CL). SCM is a term proposed for metalanguage developed by students working together with the teacher using already understood first language (L1) concepts to help in the formation of target language phonological concepts. CL is based on listening and contrasting to learn phonological categories and their boundaries. The study involved four groups of six high-intermediate level adult students. Each group received 45-50 minutes of instruction on pronouncing syllable codas. The instruction was carefully scripted for each group to create four conditions; SCM+/CL+, SCM+/CL−, SCM−/CL+, and SCM−/CL−. The results showed significant immediate effects for SCM on speech production and for CL on speech perception. The SCM+/CL+ lesson was replicated for four members of the SCM−/CL− group, who then made similar gains to those achieved by the first group to receive SCM+/CL+ instruction. These results add to the theoretical debate on what makes pronunciation instruction effective and have practical implications for the classroom.

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