Shaping Learners Pronunciation

A straightforward entry to understanding crucial components of phonological literacy, this essential text explains the theoretical and practical rationale for teaching connected speech (CS) and offers useful pedagogical applications. Brown and Crowther describe the basic phonemes (including consonants, vowels, and diphthongs) of spoken North American English and examine word stress, utterance stress, and timing, as they are related to CS. With accessible, non-technical language, the authors show how phoneme variations, simple transitions, dropping sounds, inserting sounds, and changing sounds operate, and how CS is integral to English language teaching, especially for developing non-native users’ oral English communicative ability. Each chapter features explicit discussions of pedagogical ideas targeting L2 learners, further resources, and CS-oriented exercises that are accessible and easy to implement for L2 teachers. These exercises are accompanied when relevant with recorded audio examples of CS production at www.routledge.com/9780367697570.

This text explains the theoretical and practical rationale for teaching connected speech (CS) and offers useful pedagogical applications. The authors describe the basic phonemes (consonants, vowels, and diphthongs) of spoken North American English and examine word stress, utterance stress, and timing, as they are related to CS.

This edited book brings together ten empirical papers reporting original studies investigating different facets of individual variation second language learning and teaching. The individual difference factors covered include, among others, motivation, self, anxiety, emotions, willingness to communicate, beliefs, age, and language learning strategies. What is especially important, some of the contributions to the volume offer insights into intricate interplays of these factors while others attempt to relate them to learning specific target language subsystems or concrete instructional options. All the chapters also include tangible implications for language pedagogy. The book is of interest to both researchers examining the role of individual variation in second language learning and teaching, teacher trainers, graduate and doctoral students in foreign languages departments, as well as practitioners wishing to enhance the effectiveness of second language instruction in their classrooms.

English Pronunciation Instruction: Research-based insights presents recent research on L2 English pronunciation including pedagogical implications and applications, and seeks to bridge the gulf between pronunciation research and teaching practice. The volume’s 15 chapters cover a range of aspects that are central to pronunciation teaching, including the teaching of different segmental and suprasegmental features, teachers’ and learners’ views and practices, types and sources of learners’ errors, feedback and assessment, tools and strategies for pronunciation instruction, reactions towards accented speech, as well as the connection between research and teaching. Chapters offer a fully developed section on pedagogical implications with insightful suggestions for classroom instruction. This format and the variety of topics will be informative for researchers, language teachers, and students interested in English pronunciation, as it explores the diverse challenges learners of different L1 backgrounds face, and also provides research-informed techniques and recommendations on how to cope with them.

This book provides an overview of pronunciation teaching and learning practices in secondary schools, providing insights into secondary school learners' needs, expectations and motivation regarding the importance of learning English and particularly English pronunciation. It presents a summary of the research on L2 pronunciation acquisition, teaching techniques and factors affecting the learning process as well as the results and conclusions of a longitudinal study conducted in a Polish secondary school. The study indicates that learners consider pronunciation a crucial component of English learning and a predictor of successful communication. Moreover, it shows that accuracy is highly valued by learners, and that systematic and regular pronunciation instruction, even if devoted mainly to segments, has the potential to contribute to the overall improvement in learners' communicative competence and their confidence as speakers and users of English. The book is based on the first-hand experience of a teacher-researcher.

This course includes an overview of current theory and practice. The paperback edition offers current and prospective teachers of English a comprehensive treatment of pronunciation pedagogy, drawing on current theory and practice. The text provides an overview of teaching issues from the perspective of different methodologies and second language acquisition research. It has a thorough grounding in the sound system of North American English, and contains insights into how this sound system intersects with listening, morphology, and spelling. It also contains diagnostic tools, assessment measures, and suggestions for syllabus design. Discussion questions encourage readers to draw on their personal language learning/teaching experiences as they assimilate the contents of each chapter. Follow-up exercises guide teachers in developing a range of classroom activities within a communicative framework.