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Jennifer Hansen
Abstract
instruction in the ESL classroom, but there is a gap between what researchers know and what is
taught. Teachers often find pronunciation teaching beyond their training, yet studies show that
students highly value explicit instruction. In some studies, students’ perceptions of pronunciation
instruction has been positive even when assessment shows no improvement. In this study, I
supplemented ESL classroom instruction with a variety of pronunciation activities and surveyed
students (17 students with multiple L1 backgrounds) on the perceived effectiveness of the
various approaches and compared student perception with my own perceptions of improvement.
A key finding of the survey is that students had a more positive perception of instruction in
segmental pronunciation than they did suprasegmentals. Progress in student pronunciation was
difficult to assess, but the overall perception of the students was that the instruction was helpful
Introduction
instruction in the ESL classroom, but there is a gap between what researchers know and what is
taught (Wahid & Sulong, 2013). The history of pronunciation teaching has been a picture of
extremes (Brown, 2006). Decades ago audiolingualism made pronunciation paramount with
practiced drills. The more current communicative method focuses more on content than
pronunciation with the idea that good pronunciation will come as a result of communication
(Thomson & Derwig, 2015; Atli & Bergil, 2012). The importance of explicit pronunciation
instruction has received more attention recently, but there is still a lack of specific direction in
most curriculum (Gilakjani, Ahmadi, & Ahmadi, 2011). According to Derwing and Munro
(2005) “teachers are often left to rely on their own intuitions with little direction.” Levis (2005)
concurs, “to a large extent, pronunciation's importance has always been determined by ideology
and intuition rather than research. Teachers have intuitively decided which features have the
greatest effect on clarity and which are learnable in a classroom setting.” In the past 15 years
there has been more research on effective pronunciation techniques, yet there is still a gap
between research and instruction in the classroom (Thomson & Derwing, 2015). Wahid and
Sulong (2013) suggest that teachers avoid teaching pronunciation because they doubt their ability
to teach it. Teachers are also unaware of current pronunciation research (Wahid & Sulong,
2013). There is strong evidence that English language learners desire explicit pronunciation
instruction and that their positive perceptions of the benefits of instruction outweigh their actual
progress (Atli & Bergil, 2012). This finding of positive student perceptions combined with
research supporting the importance of instruction should inspire teachers to more readily teach
Atli and Bergil (2012) did a study to discover students’ attitudes and perceptions towards
English pronunciation. They had students tell a story from a picture strip both before and after a
five-week pronunciation course. They were targeting specific vowel sounds and two consonant
sounds. At the end of the course students answered a questionnaire about their perceived
pronunciation difficulties and understanding of English pronunciation. After the instruction, the
students improved slightly in their pronunciation, but most of the problems remained. The
students’ perception of improvement dramatically differed with the actual results, however. They
claimed to have an awareness of and increased ability in English pronunciation. The course was
only five weeks, but the benefits of increased awareness could help the students continue to
improve in the future. A delayed post-test may show improvement that wasn’t measured in the
study because changes in pronunciation take effort and time (Atli & Bergil, 2012).
Henrichsen and Stephens (2015) did a qualitative and quantitative study of 12 ESL
students in a pronunciation course. They first performed a pronunciation diagnostic and gave the
students a “prescription” with specific pronunciation issues to work on. The students then
received pronunciation specific instruction using a variety of methods. The pre- and post-
diagnostic was rated by two or more people using a Likert scale. It was difficult to measure
perceptions told a different story. They had a very positive experience, felt that their listening
skills improved, and were more metacognitively aware of their pronunciation. Their confidence
and willingness to speak with native speakers also improved (Henrichsen & Stephens, 2015).
Research Questions
As a teacher of English to speakers of other languages, I would like to lessen the gap
between the research of applied linguistics on pronunciation and my practices in the classroom. I
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
would also like to know how my students feel about focused pronunciation instruction and
practice. Over the course of 15 weeks I planned weekly pronunciation lessons with the intent to
1. How does intentional pronunciation instruction in a listening and speaking class affect
Method
The participants were 17 adults (6 women, 11 men) who were enrolled in an intensive
English program at a university in the Western United States in an academic level listening and
speaking class. They represented a variety of primary language (L1) backgrounds—Turkish (1),
Mandarin (2), Japanese (1), Russian (1), Cantonese (1), Spanish (7), and Portuguese (4). The
coursebook for this class was Prism published by Cambridge (Lansford, Lockwood, Blackwell,
& Cavage, 2017). This coursebook had a pronunciation for listening component as part of each
unit in the curriculum. The pronunciation lessons in the book primarily focused on
and segmentals.
At the beginning of the semester each student recorded themselves reading an assigned
paragraph which I used as a pronunciation diagnostic similar to what Henrichsen and Stephens
used (2015). My TA and I listened to the recordings and noted a few specific pronunciation
items that the individual could improve to become more understandable to both native and non-
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
native English speakers. We met with each student individually and gave specific guidance and
pronunciation practice activities that the student could utilize both in and outside the classroom
based on Pronunciation matters: Communicative, story-based activities for mastering the sounds
of North American English (Henrichsen, Green, Nishitani, & Bagley, 1999). (1999).). The
students read and recorded the diagnostic paragraph again at the end of the semester and my TA
and I listened for improvement and gave the students written feedback. Once a week a thirty-
minute pronunciation lesson was planned in addition to the pronunciation instruction in the
Pronunciation Activities
Minimal pairs.
(Henrichsen, et al, 1999). Working as a class on pronunciation was challenging because of the
wide variety of L1 backgrounds. Lessons addressing trouble spots for some were not challenging
for others. Focus was on minimal pairs that cause the most trouble, for example /i/ vs /ɪ/; /l/ vs
We had two lessons specifically focusing on the correct pronunciation of past tense verb
endings of regular verbs. Students were taught the simple rules for pronunciation based on
voiced and unvoiced word endings and we had games and competitions to practice the correct
endings.
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
Suprasegmentals.
The textbook, Prism (Lansford, et al, 2017) has incorporated current research on
pronunciation in the curriculum. Each unit had a pronunciation component that was designed to
help students increase their listening comprehension and speaking ability. The focus in the book
changed the meaning of the phrases. The activities involved listening for a particular stress and
Prosody.
The students were assigned to find an English poem of their own choosing, or from a list
that I provided. I recorded myself reading the poems in a fluent, expression-filled way. The
students were taught to shadow (Murphey, 2001) the pronunciation of the recording (i.e. to read
the poem along with the recording, but slightly delayed so as to mimic the expression of the
native speaker). They practiced this at home and in class with their classmates. The students
performed a reading of the poem to their classmates at the end of the semester. This was meant
Questionnaire
At the end of the semester I gave the students a questionnaire to survey their impressions of
the pronunciation instruction in order to make improvements and to discover their perceptions of
1. At the beginning of the semester you recorded a pronunciation diagnostic and met
individually with the teacher. Was this helpful to you? Why or why not?
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
All of the students responded positively to this question. One wrote, “It’s very helpful
because she told me my pronunciation mistake and help me make a plan. So I can know how to
improve my mistake and correct my other weakness.” Another wrote, “It was helpful because
individual feedback is rare and helped me a lot.” One commented, “Yes it was. Indeed after
having that meeting I started to focus more on the things that they gave me on my feedback.
2. Throughout the semester we had pronunciation activities with minimal pairs (i.e.
“sheep” and “ship) and past tense verb endings. Were these activities helpful to
Again, all of the students responded positively to this question. One wrote, “Yes, these
activities were helpful, especially the activity with minimal pairs. This kind of activity has a big
impact in our pronunciation and confidence when we speak.” Another commented, “Sure, yes. It
helped me to identify which words I want to pronounce without confusing me and the native
speakers.”
One common theme was that students wanted more of these activities. “It was helpful
because we can check our pronunciation. I need more activities like that.” Another said, “Yes, I
think you need to use them more because it was helpful but not if you use it for two times of the
3. The textbook had pronunciation activities to help you understand stress and
emphasis in sentences. Were these activities helpful to you? Why or why not?
There were less positive responses to these exercises. Only two were positive without
reservations. Eight of the responses were moderate in their praise, for example, “I could say that
the activities were not bad but not completely helpful.” Another commented, “I believe that this
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
activities are helpful but not too necessary to do often because, at least for me, recognizing stress
Several commented that they did not like the workbook exercises. “I do not like the activities
in the book. I prefer the ones that you do.” Another said, “In my opinion they weren’t’ helpful at
4. At the end of the semester we had a poetry reading to help you practice speaking
with more fluency and prosody. I recorded the poem so you could practice. Was this
This activity also got mixed reviews, but the students who took advantage of practicing with
the recordings (9 of them) enjoyed it. “Yes, it was beneficial for me because I could compare my
pronunciation to yours and then improve.” Another wrote, “Yes, I’ve been wanting to do this for
so long. It enhanced my pronunciation by mimicking the tone and accent of native speaker.”
Some students didn’t enjoy the activity because it was out of their comfort zone, or they
hadn’t spent much time practicing. One wrote, “This one maybe not that much. I still don’t know
5. How do you feel about your pronunciation? Do you feel that you have improved this
semester? Do you feel like the pronunciation activities we did in class made you
Ten of the 17 students responded very positively to this question while others were less
confident. “I’ve felt that my pronunciation has improved a lot. As I improve my speaking, it also
enhanced my listening as well.” On the other hand a student wrote, “For me is difficult to
recognize if I'm improving or not, but your comments and suggestions I think I improved my
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
English skill in speaking.” One wrote, “I don’t feel that my pronunciation is getting better. I still
Discussion
The overall impression of the students was that pronunciation instruction was very
beneficial to them and they enjoyed it. The majority felt they became more aware of the
pronunciation difficulties they personally struggled with and that they were inspired to make
conscious efforts to improve. The students who perceived that they improved the least were
those who were more introverted or hesitant to speak in class. A key finding of the survey is that
all of the students enjoyed the activities focusing on minimal pairs more than the activities
dealing with suprasegmentals the textbook provided. Suprasegmentals have been shown to be of
primary importance in English pronunciation (Hahn, 2001; Levis 2005), so this feedback from
my students is interesting to me. It is possible that they find the minimal pair practice to be more
concrete and therefore easier to measure their improvement. I am determined to find more
interesting suprasegmental learning experiences to supplement the textbook in the future because
One thing missing from my instruction was a quantitative assessment of the students’
pronunciation. The pronunciation diagnostic given at the beginning and ending of the semester
was not an objective measure. I felt that the students each improved when I compared their first
and last recordings, but the perceived improvement could have also been an improvement in
reading fluency, not just pronunciation. A better way to assess pronunciation would be to
separate the pronunciation diagnostic from reading and have the students describe a picture story
while looking for specific pronunciation traits (Atli & Bergil, 2012).
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
The best outcome of this emphasis on pronunciation was the students’ positive feelings.
They all enjoyed the pronunciation lessons because it made them more aware of specific ways
they could improve the intelligibility and comprehensibility of their speech. They also
appreciated individual feedback. Giving individual feedback takes more time as a teacher, but it
is worth the effort for the benefits of the students. I will continue to improve my teaching
techniques in pronunciation and plan to include even more in my next listening and speaking
class.
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STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM
References
Atli, I., & Bergil, A. S. (2012). The effect of pronunciation instruction on students’ overall
Brown, A. (2006). Functional load and the teaching of pronunciation. TESOL Quarterly, 22(4),
593.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2005). Second language accent and pronunciation teaching: A
Gilakjani, A., Ahmadi, S., & Ahmadi, M. (2011). Why is pronunciation so difficult to learn?
Hahn, L. D. (2004). Primary stress and intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching of
Henrichsen, L. E., Green, B. A., Nishitani, A., & Bagley, C. L. (1999). Pronunciation matters:
Communicative, story-based activities for mastering the sounds of North American English.
Henrichsen, L., & Stephens, C. (2015). Advanced adult ESL students’ perspectives on the
Language Learning and Teaching Conference, Santa Barbara, CA, 197- 205. Ames, IA:
Wahid, R., & Sulong, S. (2013). The gap between research and practice in the teaching of
English pronunciation: Insights from teachers’ beliefs and practices. World Applied
Lansford, L., Lockwood, R. B., Blackwell, A., & Cavage, C. (2017). Prism. Cambridge:
128-155.