Você está na página 1de 13

1

Running Head: STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM

Students’ Perceptions of Pronunciation Instruction in the Classroom

Jennifer Hansen

Brigham Young University


2
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM

Abstract

There is a wealth of current research supporting the importance of explicit pronunciation

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

and their pronunciation improved.

Keywords: ESL pronunciation, classroom pronunciation instruction, suprasegmentals


3
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM

Introduction

There is a wealth of current research supporting the importance of explicit pronunciation

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

pronunciation in the classroom.


4
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM

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

quantitative improvement in pronunciation after the 15-week course, however, students’

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
5
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

answer the following questions:

1. How does intentional pronunciation instruction in a listening and speaking class affect

students’ perceived progress in their own pronunciation?

2. Which pronunciation activities do my students find most beneficial?

Method

Participants and Procedure

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

suprasegmental pronunciation to improve intelligibility in speaking and listening comprehension.

I supplemented the textbook instruction with weekly pronunciation activities in suprasegmentals

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-
6
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

textbook. The focus of these activities is further described below.

Pronunciation Activities

Minimal pairs.

Several lessons focused on minimal pairs using Pronunciation Matters flashcards

(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

/ɹ/; /ð/ vs /θ/, etc.

Past tense verbs.

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.
7
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

was primarily on suprasegmental components of speech emphasizing stress in sentences that

changed the meaning of the phrases. The activities involved listening for a particular stress and

then practicing speaking with a partner.

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

to help improve their intonation and fluency.

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

pronunciation instruction in class.

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?
8
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

you? Why or why not?

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

semester because we forget after that so do it more.”

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
9
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

and emphasis in sentences is super easy.”

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

all because they were too easy and boring.”

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

activity beneficial to you? Why or why not?

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

which ones I didn’t make the correct pronunciation.”

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

more aware of your pronunciation?

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
10
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

have my accent but people can understand me.”

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

of the importance of this speech feature in English.

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).
11
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.
12
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM

References

Atli, I., & Bergil, A. S. (2012). The effect of pronunciation instruction on students’ overall

speaking skills. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, 3665–3671.

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

research-based approach. TESOL Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers

of Other Languages and of Standard English as a Second Dialect, 39(3), 379-397

Gilakjani, A., Ahmadi, S., & Ahmadi, M. (2011). Why is pronunciation so difficult to learn?

English Language Teaching, 4(3), 74–83.

Hahn, L. D. (2004). Primary stress and intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching of

suprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of

Other Languages and of Standard English as a Second Dialect, 38(2), 201-223.

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.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.


13
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSROOM

Henrichsen, L., & Stephens, C. (2015). Advanced adult ESL students’ perspectives on the

benefits of pronunciation instruction. Proceedings of the 6th Pronunciation in Second

Language Learning and Teaching Conference, Santa Barbara, CA, 197- 205. Ames, IA:

Iowa State University.

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

Sciences Journal, 21, 133–142.

Thomson, R. I., & Derwing, T. M. (2015). The effectiveness of L2 pronunciation instruction: A

narrative review. Applied Linguistics, 36(3), 326–344.

Lansford, L., Lockwood, R. B., Blackwell, A., & Cavage, C. (2017). Prism. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Murphey, T. (2001). Exploring conversational shadowing. Language Teaching Research, 5(2),

128-155.

Você também pode gostar