Pronunciation in foreign language classrooms: Instructors’ training, classroom practices, and beliefs

Abstract

The goal of this work was to explore the training, classroom practices, and beliefs related to pronunciation of instructors of languages other than English. While several investigations of this type have been conducted in English as a second/foreign language contexts, very little is known about the beliefs and practices of teachers of languages other than English. It is unknown whether recent shifts to focusing on intelligibility, as advocated by some pronunciation scholars, are borne out in foreign language classrooms. To fill this gap, instructors of Spanish ( n = 127), French ( n = 89), and German ( n = 80) teaching basic language courses (i.e. the first four semesters) at 28 large (e.g. more than 15,000 students), public universities in the United States completed an online survey reporting on their training, classroom practices, and beliefs. Similar to ESL/EFL contexts, the results indicated that instructors believe it is important to incorporate pronunciation in class and that it is possible to improve pronunciation. However, the findings also indicated that instructors have goals which simultaneously prioritize intelligibility and accent reduction. Implications include the need for research on which pronunciation features influence intelligibility in languages other than English and for materials designed to target these features.

The pronunciation teaching practices of university‐level graduate teaching assistants of French and Spanish introductory language courses

“…Much of the research on the amount and type of pronunciation instruction has come from surveys of instructors. Studies have shown that a majority of respondents who taught ESL (Foote et al, ); EFL (Buss, ); and French, German, or Spanish introductory language courses in the United States (Huensch, ) reported that they thought such instruction was important and that they addressed pronunciation in their lessons, although they devoted little instructional time to doing so. For example, Foote et al (2011, p. 11) calculated the average amount of class time spent on pronunciation to be 6%.…”

“…Regarding segmentals and suprasegmentals, in a survey of ESL instructors in Canada, Foote et al () reported a growing awareness of the importance of suprasegmental instruction for intelligibility in English; however, the observation data in Foote et al () indicated that 100% of pronunciation teaching episodes were focused on segmental as opposed to suprasegmental targets (p. 188). In Huensch (), instructors of French, German, and Spanish reported that a majority of the most serious pronunciation problems for their students were segmental, followed by spelling‐based and crosslinguistic influences, with suprasegmentals mentioned least often. It remains unclear which targets are actually focused on in practice in foreign language classes.…”

“…Proponents of a shift toward goals that prioritize intelligibility have emphasized that they are more appropriate for learners both because they are achievable and because empirical evidence shows that foreign‐accented speech can still be perfectly intelligible (Derwing & Munro, ). Despite this shift, Huensch () found a tension in the survey responses of instructors who simultaneously prioritized intelligible speech but also valued native‐like accuracy. Similarly, Nagle et al () reported that while Spanish instructors generally disagreed with a survey item that stated “only individuals with nativelike Spanish pronunciation should teach it,” this item simultaneously had the highest variability on the survey, demonstrating some instructors’ upheld nativeness principles (p. 15).…”

“…However, despite the many potential advantages of focusing on pronunciation, reports from surveys of instructors have demonstrated that only a small proportion of instructional time is devoted to developing it (Buss, ; Foote, Holtby, & Derwing, ; Huensch, ) and that instructors have noted a lack of and desire for training in ways to teach it (Huensch, ; Murphy, ). While a body of survey research has been growing that investigates instructors’ beliefs and attitudes regarding the teaching of pronunciation in both English as a foreign language (EFL)/ESL (e.g., Breitkreutz, Derwing, & Rossiter, ; Buss, ; Foote et al, ) and in languages other than English (e.g., Huensch, ; Nagle, Sachs, & Zárate‐Sández, ), much less is known about instructors’ actual classroom practices. Among what is a very small number of such studies, few have included classroom observations (e.g., Baker, ; Foote, Trofimovich, Collins, & Urzúa, ) and those that did exclusively examined the practices of experienced ESL instructors.…”

Analisis Kebutuhan Penyusunan Buku Ajar Tata Bahasa Jerman

“…https://ojs.unm.ac.id/eralingua PENDAHULUAN Penelitian yang fokus mengkaji pengembangan bahan ajar bahasa asing telah banyak dilakukan oleh peneliti-peneliti sebelumnya (Koda & Yamashita, 2018;Menke & Paesani, 2019;Isik, 2018;Huensch, 2018;Han, 2018). Penelitian tersebut menggunakan pendekatan yang bervariasi dalam mengembangkan bahan ajar baik itu pendekatan integrated learning, multiliteracies framework, Task-Based Learning, dan beberapa pendekatan lainnya.…”