Discourse Prosody and Teachers' Stated Beliefs and Practices

Abstract

Over the past few decades, research has demonstrated the important role that prosody (i.e., stress, rhythm, intonation) plays in the intelligibility of speakers of English as a second language (ESL). Yet the impact of this research on teacher cognition—the beliefs and knowledge that teachers possess in relation to their classroom practices—has received limited attention. This article explores how research into English prosody has influenced pronunciation instruction in the ESL classroom, teachers' knowledge and beliefs about this instruction, and what teachers believe to be the most effective way to improve their knowledge base in this area. In particular, the opinions of teachers of beginning, intermediate, and advanced classes are investigated. Through semistructured interviews with five instructors and the pronunciation journal of the author, these issues are examined. Results show that research into English pronunciation has clearly influenced the teaching and prioritization of features of pronunciation for instructors with graduate education that has included a course dedicated to pronunciation or pronunciation pedagogy. However, even with this education, teachers may lack confidence in teaching different aspects of pronunciation.

Why Is English Pronunciation Ignored by EFL Teachers in Their Classes?

“…It was also revealed that lack of educational resources and insufficient knowledge toward evaluating learners' pronunciation contributed to their reluctance to teach English pronunciation. In another study done by Baker (2011), it was shown that teachers who had a training in pronunciation preferred the instruction of supra-segmental aspects of English pronunciation. Unfortunately, a lot of these teachers did not have enough confidence in the instruction of some features of pronunciation.…”

“…6, No. 6;2016 for weak and strong forms of the words and this causes unusual sounds in their pronunciation. Teachers are advised to use appropriate exercises for the weak and strong words for their learners (Bekleyen, 2011).…”

“…6, No. 6;2016 errors of Iranian EFL learners. Researchers chose 300 male and female EFL learners for their study.…”

“…6, No. 6;2016 English pronunciation instruction in different issues. Ten questions were designed for this aim.…”

The effect of prosody awareness training on the performance of consecutive interpretation by Farsi-English interpreter trainees: an experimental study

“…Several methodological perspectives are available for the explicit teaching of pronunciation (Derwing and Munro 2005;Foote, Holtby, and Derwing 2011) but instructors often do not feel comfortable explicitly teaching pronunciation (Burns 2006;Baker 2011;Foote, Holtby, and Derwing 2011;reported in Koike 2014), either because they find it difficult to listen analytically to the students' pronunciation, identify errors, and suggest remedies, or because they give priority to other aspects of communicative competence such as the acquisition of vocabulary and morphosyntax. Prosody awareness training is the most marginalized activity in the training of interpreters though prosody plays a key role in communicating the message.…”