Enhancing EFL Teachers’ Pronunciation Pedagogy Through Professional Learning: A Vietnamese Case Study

Abstract

The role of teacher professional learning (TPL) in assisting teachers to teach pronunciation in English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts has received little attention. The study reported in this paper extends this line of research by investigating how six EFL teachers at a Vietnamese university transform and integrate the pronunciation pedagogical knowledge they received from a TPL workshop into teaching practice. It then examines the teachers’ perceptions of the impact of the workshop on their knowledge gains and pronunciation teaching skills. Data were collected from seven lesson plans designed by the teachers, video recordings of 24 subsequent classroom observations, and six individual semi-structured interviews. The study adopted a content-based approach to qualitative data analysis. The findings show that the teachers were all able to translate TPL into classroom practice of pronunciation teaching. The findings further show that workshops designed and implemented in accordance with research-based TPL principles can be effective for promoting teachers’ knowledge of pronunciation pedagogy and refining their pronunciation teaching skills. The study has implications for ESL/EFL teachers’ professional development in pronunciation teaching.

Segmental Aspects of Pronunciation Errors Produced by ELE Students in Classroom Settings

“…Pronunciation is one of the most difficult aspects of English which is faced by adult learners, and they are needed explicit help from the teacher (Buana & Irawan, 2021). Nguyen and Newton (2021) state that students need consistently learning activities to train their pronunciation in class because practices of pronunciation in class are important (Latif & Jupri, 2021;Buana & Irawan, 2021). The goal of pronunciation instruction is not to ask learners to pronounce like native speakers.…”

Teachers’ and Learners’ Beliefs About Pronunciation Instruction in Tertiary English as a Foreign Language Education

“…The focus of the third paper was on how TPL assisted the teachers to become more efficient pronunciation instructors. The study showed that TPL led to changes in the teachers’ beliefs about pronunciation teaching and that the TPL workshop successfully enhanced the teachers’ pronunciation pedagogical knowledge and refined their pronunciation teaching skills ( Nguyen and Newton, 2021 ). Following upon the third study, the fourth paper ( Nguyen and Hung, 2021 ) examined the teachers’ implementation of CPT and the value of the CPT approach from both teaching and learning perspectives.…”

“…With regard to teaching approaches, the teachers all stated that CPT has the potential to facilitate students' pronunciation learning. This belief emerged from the teachers reflecting on their practice of correcting learners' pronunciation errors through recasts and/or prompts as reported in the first paper (Nguyen and Newton, 2020) and their recent teaching experience with the CPT model in the third and fourth papers (Nguyen and Hung, 2021;Nguyen and Newton, 2021). According to the teachers, if pronunciation is taught communicatively, students' pronunciation, listening, and speaking skills can simultaneously improve through various communication tasks.…”

Students' and teachers' perceptions of effective ESP teaching

“…Similarly, learners' beliefs are supposed to play a decisive role in the process and outcomes of their learning (Ellis, 2008;Macalister and Nation, 2020). Recent studies have investigated students' and teachers' beliefs about different aspects of language teaching and learning, such as vocabulary (Dudley-Evans, 2001), corrective feedback (Brown, 2009;Ha and Nguyen, 2021), pronunciation (Nguyen and Newton, 2019), task-based language teaching (Basturkmen, 2017), intercultural competence, critical thinking, and paraphrasing (Kirkgoz, 2009). Regarding linguistic features embedded in materials, teachers might need to provide students with vocabulary and grammar to help them with writing, reading, listening, and writing.…”