Teachers’ Attitudes Towards
Teaching English
Pronunciation
Daniela Madzo
COURSE: English for Subject Teachers, 61-90 credits
PROGRAM: Ämneslärarprogrammet – Degree Project (15 credits) TERM: Spring 2019
SUPERVISOR: Julia Backelin Forsberg EXAMINER: Annika Denke
Abstract
This paper examines three English teachers’ attitudes towards teaching pronunciation. The teachers involved are teachers at upper-secondary level in Sweden. The study is based on a qualitative method, since the research involves collecting data to understand opinions and experiences. The data in this study are collected through semi-structured interviews to analyze teachers’ attitudes. All of the three teachers agreed on their students having good pronunciation and mentioned different sounds as pronunciation difficulties that are problematic for their students. Furthermore, the three teachers expressed that they avoid correcting their students most of the time, however, when the teachers correct their students, they usually use a corrective method that can be interpreted as implicit feedback. Earlier research has shown that explicit feedback is the most effective method to use in a teaching environment to make it possible for students to improve their pronunciation.
Keywords: pronunciation, teaching pronunciation, Swedish L1 learners, learning English, upper-secondary school, English and upper-secondary.
Table of contents
Abstract 2
Table of contents 3
1. Introduction 1
2. Aim and research questions 2
3. Background 2
3.1 Conscious and subconscious learning 2
3.2 Teaching pronunciation 3
3.3 Previous research about pronunciation difficulties in English for learners whose L1 is
Swedish 5 3.4 Feedback on pronunciation 6 4. Method of study 7 4.1 Participants 7 4.2 Data collection 8 4.3 Ethical considerations 8 5. Results 8 5.1 Teacher 1 9 5.2 Teacher 2 10 5.3 Teacher 3 11
5.4 Comparison between T1, T2 and T3 12
6. Discussion 12
6.1 What attitudes do teachers have about giving pronunciation teaching more attention; and how
do they teach pronunciation? 12
6.2 What pronunciation difficulties do teachers report for their students? 13
6.3 Conclusion regarding methodological choices 14
7. Conclusion 14 8. Further research 15 References 16 Appendices 19 Appendix 1 19 Appendix 2 20
1. Introduction
The English language surrounds us in our daily lives and in order to encourage students to develop their language skills, English in the classroom should motivate students and make them aware of the importance of pronunciation. It is useful to be able to speak English both in school and outside of school and according to the syllabus in English, concerning the upper-secondary level, students should develop correctness in their use of language in speech to have the ability to use English in various situations (Skolverket, 2011, p.1). Wolf, Smit and Lowie refer to the European Council that in 2002 advised that all “European pupils from then on needed to improve their skills in two foreign languages, preferably by receiving foreign language instruction from a very early age” (2017, p.341). Hence, Swedish students are introduced to the English language in the early years of school.
Due to the differences between the phonology of English and Swedish, there are sounds in English that are not present in the Swedish language. Interviews in this study have shown that the teachers usually do not explain a pronunciation error, which might make it possible to assume that students continue to make pronunciation errors. Teaching pronunciation makes students aware of different sounds and sound features that help them to improve their speaking ability (Harmer, 2007, p.248). How English should be spoken is included when teaching pronunciation because it will “help [the students] achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility” (Harmer, 2007, p.248). Further, teaching pronunciation can be helpful and meaningful to some students by enabling them to overcome major intelligibility issues.
I noticed that my Swedish classmates whose L1 is Swedish had difficulties with particular sounds in English throughout my school experience. My teachers at elementary school up to upper-secondary level did not correct our pronunciation. This was confusing to me at an early age because I did not have difficulties with particular sounds in English that do not exist in the Swedish phonology. This is because my L1 is not Swedish and most of the sounds that exist in English exist in my L1. Further, during my experience as a substitute teacher, I have also noticed that Swedish students have a slight difficulty to recognize certain sounds. This study will investigate teachers’ attitudes towards teaching pronunciation in English and the purpose is to find out if teachers find it important to teach pronunciation.
2. Aim and research questions
The aim of this study is to discover the attitudes of three English teachers towards teaching pronunciation and if the teachers believe that teaching pronunciation in English should be given more attention or not. Furthermore, the purpose is also to discover if teachers in this study will report any pronunciation difficulties among their students and in that case, what pronunciation difficulties.
The research questions are:
1. What attitudes do teachers have about giving pronunciation teaching more attention; and how do they teach pronunciation?
2. What pronunciation difficulties do teachers report for their students?
3. Background
In this section, previous research will be presented concerning teaching pronunciation, conscious learning, difficulties in English for Swedish students and the importance of giving students feedback. These parts are introduced in the background to enhance understanding regarding different views on teaching pronunciation. Furthermore, the sections below are presented to evaluate the importance of teaching pronunciation, since the study investigates what attitudes the three teachers in Sweden in upper-secondary school have towards teaching pronunciation.
3.1 Conscious and subconscious learning
One way of learning a language is called conscious learning because it is explained as being conscious and aware of learning a second language (Krashen, 1982, p.10). Learning is a conscious process “of accumulating knowledge of the features of a language, such as pronunciation” (Yule, 2014, p.187) that usually takes place in a learning environment with teachers. Conscious learning is therefore a way of learning that requires going to language classes to study the language in a classroom situation where pronunciation can be explained and corrected. Subconscious learning is a way of learning a language without going to particular English lessons (Harmer, 2007, p.59). Error correction is more beneficial for conscious learning (Krashen, 1982, p.11) and listening activities might be helpful for learners of a second language “in order to become aware of pronunciation patterns” (Trofimovich, 2016, p.419). The
importance of listening and repeating different sounds becomes crucial to achieve successful communication.
Teachers use different methods to intervene and correct their students’ use of language, and according to Saito and Lyster (2012), more focus on the phonological form of a language can “benefit L2 pronunciation development” (p.626). Dlska and Krekeler argue that teachers’ feedback is “potentially motivating” and that it “can take the form of dialogue on learning and occur with immediate effect” (2013, p.32) for the reason that teachers are able to tell learners how to improve their language and how to achieve good pronunciation.
3.2 Teaching pronunciation
According to Burri’s (2015) study, there are many L2 instructors who find pronunciation pedagogy challenging, if not the most challenging element of English language teaching. Teacher students consider teaching pronunciation important because learning a language consists of making oneself understood and using intelligible language. Previous research shows that L2 teachers “generally do not possess adequate training in pronunciation instructions and that they often desire additional professional development opportunities in this area” (Burri, 2015, p.69), which indicates a need for more educational opportunities.
The Swedish teachers that participated in a study (Forsberg, Mohr & Jansen, 2019, p.46) ranked grammar as more important than teaching pronunciation. Harmer (2007) states that teachers generally do not make much of an effort to teach pronunciation but tend to give attention to pronunciation in passing. He also says that intelligibility has become accepted and established by language teachers as the primary goal of teaching pronunciation. This is because teachers, according to Harmer, are usually satisfied if students can make themselves understood in order to achieve a fairly fluent conversation. Hence, students ought to have the ability to use pronunciation that is at the very leastgood enough to speak at an understandable level of the language (Harmer, 2007, pp.248-249). Previous research concerning teaching pronunciation presents that having a foreign accent does not impede intelligibility, and therefore mutual understanding through intelligible speech should be the aspirational model in the L2 classroom (Munri & Derwing, 1995, p.2 and Couper, 2006, p.58). If teachers urge students to only have an intelligible pronunciation, it will not please all the students. A potential explanation to why students want to retain their own accent can possibly be due to their attitude and identity, yet
there are students who yearn to sound exactly like a native speaker. According to Harmer (2007) it would be “absurd to attempt to deny such an objective in such situations” (p.249).
Tergujeff (2012) argues that CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) should be the center of learning a language and included in teaching pronunciation. Pronunciation is a part of communication that needs to be focused on and the purpose is to get the correct message across. Pronunciation can be difficult to learn if learners do not pay attention to the language form, and according to the Swedish curriculum (LGY11), in the core content of production and interaction, teaching in English should cover “processing of their [students’] own and others’ oral [communication] in order to vary, clarify and specify” (Skolverket, 2011, p.4). To actualize this quotation, one could use formative feedback in a teaching environment in order to give students more than one opportunity to reach the aim and to enable improvements in students’ pronunciation and as a consequence in their speaking ability. Students should therefore be encouraged to identify their shortcomings and opportunities for development regarding pronunciation. Teachers’ awareness of the importance of teaching pronunciation and the need to develop further insight into how pronunciation could be taught is presented in a survey by Foote, Holtby and Derwing (2011, p.20). Baker and Murphy (2011, p.33) claim that the role of pronunciation has commanded little attention to date. Teachers have different opinions about what is more important in their teaching, and there are teachers who choose to focus on grammar, while other teachers find it more important to teach vocabulary.
Teaching pronunciation should be involved in the planning of lessons because pronunciation work is a part of learning a language. Hence, knowledge of a language will be incomplete if pronunciation is ignored when learning a language. Lessons in English that focus on language structures or lexis need to include features of pronunciation in order to give students the full picture, and hence a better chance to be able to communicate successfully (Kelly, 2000, p.13).
In conclusion, which part is given most attention depends on the teacher and what part they find most important to teach. However, teaching pronunciation is a requirement, since the curriculum says that students should be given the “opportunity to develop correctness in their use of language in speech…” (LGY11, English subject, p.1). This means that using correct pronunciation is a part of speaking a language correctly. However, there are difficulties for learners whose L1 is Swedish, which will be discussed in the next section.
3.3 Previous research about pronunciation difficulties in English for learners whose L1 is Swedish
Phonology “deals with the system and pattern of the sounds which exist within particular languages” since phonology “is primarily concerned with how we interpret and systematize sounds” (Kelly, 2000, p.9). English pronunciation can be problematic for learners whose L1 is Swedish due to the differences in phonology between the two languages, Swedish and English. Several sounds were identified as common origins of pronunciation errors for L1 Swedish speakers as early as in 1991 by Norell. Recent research by Otterstedt (2016) and Sylvén (2013) indicates that these sounds are among the most common areas where learners whose L1 is Swedish make pronunciation mistakes. The recognition of these sounds is based on interviews with teachers of English at upper-secondary school and university. Norell (1991) explains that “[…] <y> and <j> are pronounced as [dʒ], particularly since the Swedish <j> is pronounced [j]” (p.7). Furthermore, words like journey, job and join have kept their English spelling while the pronunciation “has been adapted to the Swedish phonetic system” (p.7), which means that the <j> is realized as [j]. Thus, a Swedish speaker who studies English in school, for example, treats the English <j> as a Swedish <j>.
The sound [dʒ] requires serious attention and practice when it is incorrectly applied, since it is the most common error that makes learners whose L1 is Swedish confused and leads to them switching between [dʒ] and [j]. It is important to be aware of the difference between these sounds because if the wrong pronunciation is used it could lead to confusion with regard to word meaning. For instance, the word juice is pronounced with /dʒ/ in the beginning of the word. However, if students pronounce it with a /j/ it results in the word use. It is important to make students aware of the letter <j>, because it is never pronounced /j/ in English (Otterstedt, 2016, pp. 40-41). Swedish learners often find it difficult to distinguish between /dʒ/ and /j/ since words like yet and jet, for instance, are pronounced with an initial /j/ by Swedish learners (Sylvén, 2013, p.95).
The letters <v> and <w> can be challenging for Swedish learners, since these voiced consonants are often not distinguished between in Swedish. The challenge for Swedish learners of English is “to keep [the /w/] apart from the /v/ sound” (Otterstedt, 2016, p.42). When this fails, it results in these sounds being mispronounced by Swedish learners. The combination <th> is a common difficulty as well, among Swedish learners since <th> can be voiceless, voiced or pronounced as /t/. These sounds are problematic for Swedish learners, since the sounds do not exist in
Swedish (Otterstedt, 2016, p.36). Examples of voiceless <th> pronunciations are therapy and anthem while voiced <th> is pronounced in for example that and mother. Segments that are pronounced with a /t/ are for example the initial sounds in the words Theresa and Thailand (Sylvén, 2013, pp.55-56).
Corrective feedback is important because it gives the students an opportunity to improve their oral skills. Thus, the next section will discuss the importance of feedback by addressing the concepts of implicit and explicit feedback.
3.4 Feedback on pronunciation
The Swedish national curriculum for English states that “[t]eaching of English should aim at helping the pupils to develop knowledge of the English language and of the areas and contexts where English is used, and also pupils’ confidence in their ability to use the language in different situations and for different purposes” (Skolverket, 2011, p.1). Thus, pronunciation is “highlighted in the national curriculum as an important component in mastering the language” (Otterstedt, 2016, p.80). Yet it is not suggested how the teacher should work with pronunciation in the classroom and include feedback to improve students’ pronunciation. Pronunciation teaching often occurs when teachers respond to errors that students make in the classroom and “[s]uch reactive teaching, is, of course, absolutely necessary, and will always be so” (Kelly, 2000, p.13) because it is essential when it comes to the ability to communicate. Having good pronunciation boosts the confidence of the speaker and could possibly be a way of defeating speaking anxiety (Sylvén, 2013, p.18). Correcting students’ pronunciation helps them to improve their speaking ability in English, which is why feedback is important and correcting students should be done in a way so as not to make them feel bad about themselves. This is connected to developing speech modification skills to help learners develop a positive understanding regarding correction (Morely, 1991, p.504). Rahimi and Zhang show in their study that “experienced teachers favored error correction more than their novice colleagues” (2014, p.115) to help students develop their language. It is important do deal with pronunciation in the classroom, which also involves dealing with pronunciation errors since this can become an issue if one wants to achieve successful communication (Kelly, 2000, p.11).
According to Lightbown and Spada (1993), corrective feedback is “any indication to the learners that their use of the target language is incorrect” (p.171). Implicit and explicit feedback are two methods that can be used by teachers when correcting students’ pronunciation. Implicit
feedback “does not overtly signal that an error has been made, while explicit feedback does” (Adams, 2011, p.42). Thus, implicit feedback often takes place when a teacher repeats a pronunciation error made by students. Implicit feedback is “commonly used by teachers in the language classroom” (Dlaska & Krekeler, 2013, p.26) and this may result in students not being able to understand how to improve their pronunciation in English. However, implicit feedback should not be seen as a lack of correction, since it does not necessarily mean that teachers avoid correcting their students. Explicit feedback can be “realized as explicit correction (e.g., no, it’s not eated-ate)” (Adams, Nuevo & Egi, 2011, p.42). Explicit feedback is a method that teachers often avoid, according to Harmer (2007, p.143), since it may affect students’ motivation to speak.
According to much previous research, then, neither implicit nor explicit feedback should be excluded by teachers, since it is important that they somehow respond to learners’ pronunciation errors. However, according to Li (2013), explicit feedback should be used more to make it possible for students to “achieve optimal instructional effects” (p.634).
4. Method of study
This study is based on a qualitative method and interviews are required in this study to be able to discover if pronunciation should be given more attention or not according to the teachers. Qualitative research “answers how and when a certain phenomenon occurs” (Berg and Lune, 2012, p.3) and this study investigates if three English teachers at three different upper-secondary schools in Sweden work with pronunciation and how they work with it. To do this, semi-structured interviews were conducted by using four main questions and ten follow-up questions (see appendix 2). Furthermore, the interviews were carried out in English and recorded to facilitate the analysis of the answers to compare the three teachers’ thoughts about the importance of pronunciation teaching. The comparison between the teachers’ answers was done to identify similarities and differences concerning their attitudes towards pronunciation teaching.
4.1 Participants
A number of upper-secondary schools in a county in Sweden were contacted and through the principals at the participating schools I received contact information to eight different English teachers. These teachers were contacted through email and asked to participate in the study.
They were informed that its focus was teaching pronunciation. I explained that interviews were required and that I would like to investigate if they find teaching pronunciation important and how they teach pronunciation. Only three English teachers agreed to participate, and they are all L1 Swedish speakers.
4.2 Data collection
The interview recordings were transcribed, which made the process of drawing conclusions about the teachers’ views easier.
4.2.1 Interviews
The three English teachers knew beforehand what the focus of the study was and what aim the investigator had and agreed to be recorded during the interviews. The main questions aimed to collect information about teachers’ attitudes towards teaching pronunciation in English and whether there are any typical pronunciation mistakes their students exhibit during classes. The semi-structured form allows interviews to be completed by using supplementary questions. The supplementary questions aim to allow teachers to reflect further on their answers and simultaneously help the investigator to widen the discussion and collect additional information. The interviews were conducted in English, as stated above, to avoid translation from Swedish to English.
4.3 Ethical considerations
Teachers were asked to sign a consent form (see appendix 1) to allow me to interview them as well as record the conversation. The consent form contains information about what the study will examine and information about the students not being identified while participating. Participants in the different classes cannot be identified because they are only asked to share their age, gender and information about whether Swedish is their first language or not. Additionally, information about the students’ participation is included in the consent form, where it is clearly stated that they are allowed to drop out of the test whenever they want without stating a reason.
5. Results
This section will present what has been accomplished by conducting the semi-structured interviews. The teachers’ answers in the interview were collected to analyze possible differences and similarities between their attitudes concerning teaching pronunciation.
5.1 Teacher 1
Teacher 1, who will be referred to as T1, has 12 years’ experience of working as an English teacher at upper-secondary level. T1 expresses that she rarely gives attention to pronunciation in her teaching because she “finds it difficult” to teach and because the majority of the students already have good pronunciation. T1 has observed that her students have other things that they need to work more with, “like grammar and such” which T1 therefore chooses to focus on more. However, T1 agrees that pronunciation should be given more attention every now and then, which is why she has thought about teaching phonetics.
T1 does not correct her students when they pronounce a word incorrectly because it can result in students not wanting to speak at all. T1 feels that wanting to speak is “more important”. T1 prefers to pronounce the word that is incorrectly pronounced by “confirming what they said” and instead say it correctly to give the students an opportunity to hear the correct way of saying it. In this way, she says, it “becomes an indirect correction”. T1 says that she never corrects her students while they perform an oral presentation or when they read out loud. T1 corrects her students when they are answering questions, since her aim is to “show them the correct pronunciation by speaking correctly”. Pronunciation is not that big of an issue, according to T1 who claims that her students have a “good enough” pronunciation in English to make themselves understood. Furthermore, T1 explains that she aims to teach her students “in advance instead”, indicating the importance of listening to words and the pronunciation of certain sounds. T1 reports that the sound [th] is a common difficulty among her students and continues to explain another issue, that is the intonation that Swedish students have, indicating that the Swedish accent makes it difficult to pronounce certain words in English.
T1 further states that another common mistake that Swedish students make is to distinguish between the sounds [v] and [w], meanwhile adding that she “still understands what they’re saying”. T1 has noticed that the sounds [dʒ] and [j] have been pronounced incorrectly and expresses that she explains the error “sometimes”, but that either way she chooses not to focus on it much, since her students have “greater issues with grammar”, which is why teaching pronunciation has not been a priority. In addition to the main questions, ten follow-up questions were asked. One of the follow-up questions that every teacher in the study answered was “if a teacher enters a classroom and has bad pronunciation, will the students trust the teacher’s teaching?”. T1 expresses that it is difficult to answer that question because her view “has always
been that it’s important that I [T1] have a good pronunciation” and that she aims to be “better than my [her] students”. Additionally, T1 believes that it is important to have good pronunciation if you are a teacher because students listen to a great extent of English nowadays and will notice if the teacher has bad or good pronunciation. Bad pronunciation is defined as sounding too Swedish, while good pronunciation is defined as speaking almost like an L1 English speaker. Furthermore, pronunciation errors made by teachers could result in students doubting the teachers’ knowledge.
5.2 Teacher 2
T2 has worked as an English teacher for nineteen years in upper-secondary school. She expresses that she does not give attention to pronunciation in her teaching and that pronunciation teaching should not be given more attention since “that’s one of the areas where [the students] are fairly developed” due to them being surrounded by the English language. T2 goes on to narrate a story about her mother’s friend who told her (T2) that she got a great deal of criticism for her pronunciation by her teacher in English and ended up not wanting to speak at all. By telling this story, T2 explains that she believes that correcting students’ pronunciation results in them not wanting to speak. T2 believes that grammar is a part that students need to work with more, claiming that the importance of correcting students’ pronunciation depends on the students who have English as their L3, because those students have difficulties with particular sounds sometimes. For example, the most common difficulty for students that come from the middle-east is to distinguish between [v] and [w]. T2 explains that the students say “[V]imen” ([w]omen), that T2 tries to correct because it will sound different from how it should be pronounced”. T2 does sometimes correct her students’ pronunciations due to the amount of reading out loud that occurs in the classroom. According to T2, she does not correct her students in a way that makes them feel ashamed. T2 explains that she goes through the pronunciation errors with the whole class if she pays attention to particular pronunciation errors made by her students repeatedly, so as not to make students feel that she points out someone specific.
T2 has noticed that the [th] combination is the most common pronunciation error made by her students and that they usually “bring on like an ≤s> or an <f> like ‘[f]ing’ or ‘[s[ing’ instead of ‘[th]ing’”. I asked if her students find it problematic to recognize and distinguish between [dʒ] and [j] and T2 answered that she had not observed it as a difficulty and expressed that she does not “think so much about that, because we [teachers] still understand what they say”. According to T2, this is due to the tolerance teachers have when students speak in English. T2 believes
that a teacher with bad pronunciation will not appear trustworthy for the students, since students these days are “very much aware” of how English should be spoken.
5.3 Teacher 3
Teacher 3 (T3) has worked as an English teacher for ten years. She makes it clear that she gives attention to pronunciation in her teaching, since she believes that it is important, indicating that particular pronunciation errors could change the meaning of a word. Further, T3 claims that she, rather than teaching phonetics, prefers to “talk about [pronunciation] and sometimes make the sounds and make [students] use the tongue in different positions”. T3 points out that she does not go through different sounds that often and expresses that she “could do it more”, since there are sounds that are difficult for especially Swedish students. Furthermore, T3 believes that pronunciation should be given more attention because there are existing words that can change the meaning of the word if the pronunciation is incorrect. She says that it is necessary to correct students’ pronunciation errors. Furthermore, T3 does not feel the need to correct her students’ pronunciation often because she does not want to discourage their speaking. Usually, T3 collects mistakes that she notices during the lessons and at a later stage goes through the difficult sounds in class to avoid pointing out someone specific in front of the whole class. The [th] sound and the difference between the sounds [v] and [w] are common mistakes that her (T3) students make when pronouncing certain words and T3 explains these areas as typically Swedish mistakes. On the other hand, most students speak quite well “from my [T3] judgement”, which is why T3 does not devote a great deal of attention to the pronunciation errors as often as she would like to, since the students overall are aware of how to pronounce most of the sounds correctly.
Difficulties between the sounds [dʒ] and [j] have been noticed by T3 “a bit actually” especially when a couple of American teacher students came to work with T3 for a few weeks. These teacher students observed this difficulty among the students and thus made it clearer to T3, who explains that she noticed that the American teacher students had a “harder time to understand” when her students did not distinguish between those two sounds. As a native-speaker it is easier to recognize and hear the difference and since T3 is not a “native-English-speaker”, she confesses that she indeed has difficulties with the two sounds [dʒ] and [j]. When students pronounce particular words incorrectly, she usually explains the error “when the meaning could be different” depending on which of the sounds [dʒ] and [j] the students use when they pronounce a word.
As well as the other two teachers, T3 agrees that teachers need to have good pronunciation to be able to feel confident and make it possible for students to trust the teacher, since students notice if a teacher has bad pronunciation and are not afraid of commenting on it.
5.4 Comparison between T1, T2 and T3
The similarities between T1, T2 and T3 are that they all agreed on their students having good pronunciation overall and that grammar is a field that needs a lot more practice. Furthermore, all the three teachers that were interviewed expressed that they do not correct their students when they pronounce words incorrectly, provided the mispronounced word does not change the meaning of the word. T1, T2 and T3 brought up common difficulties that their students have regarding pronunciation, that is, the difference between /v/ and /w/ and the /th/ pronunciation. The difference between T1 and T3, in contrast to T2, lies in their attitudes towards the importance of teaching pronunciation. T1 and T3 expressed that teaching pronunciation is important and that they would like to work more with that particular part. T2, by contrast, is completely against giving pronunciation more attention in the classroom.
6. Discussion
This section will include a discussion concerning the interviews and the research questions will be addressed.
6.1 What attitudes do teachers have about giving pronunciation teaching more attention; and how do they teach pronunciation?
T1 and T3 believe that pronunciation should be given more attention in the classroom. T1 explains that she has thought about teaching phonetics to her students, although phonetics is not a “top priority”. Further, T3 agrees on the benefit of giving pronunciation “a bit more” attention because she believes that it is important to work with pronunciation in English. The attitudes of T1 and T3 towards the importance of working with pronunciation are supported by Harmer (2007, p.248), who explains that pronunciation teaching is done to improve students’ speaking abilities. The three teachers do not devote much time in the classroom to pronunciation, since they claim that grammar is a greater issue. T1 and T3 agree that pronunciation should be given more attention, since they believe that it is important to make students aware of the fact that the meaning of a word can change if pronounced differently. T1 and T3 do not express why they believe that pronunciation teaching should receive more
attention and why they would like to devote more time to pronunciation. Previous research shows that teaching pronunciation requires knowledge about the language and that many L2 instructors find it challenging to teach (Burri, 2015, p.69). Further, T2 expresses that pronunciation should not be given more attention since “that is one of the areas where [the students] are fairly well developed”, which is a natural consequence of students listening to a great deal of English in various situations today. All the teachers in this study are L1 Swedish speakers, and therefore T2 expects and accepts certain errors. Furthermore, T2 finds it necessary to correct other sounds, such as [v] and [w].
One aspect that all three teachers present is that they aim for an English-speaking person to be able to understand the students’ English language. Hence, T1, T2 and T3 are satisfied with their students’ pronunciation because they at least speak and therefore all the three teachers prefer to make their students comfortable speaking and express the opinion that communicative skills are more important than being aware of how to pronounce each sound completely correctly. However, such attitudes can result in teachers becoming more and more tolerant to pronunciation errors in the classroom. Kelly (2000, p.11) argues that these pronunciation errors can become an issue if one wants to achieve successful communication.
T3 explains that she and her students usually “talk about” different pronunciations and try out the sounds together in the classroom. T2 expresses that they do not work with pronunciation more specifically than occasionally reading out loud to practice reading. In conclusion, T1, T2 and T3 barely address pronunciation issues and avoid correcting their students’ pronunciation n errors because they (T1, T2, T3) are afraid that by pointing out pronunciation errors they would risk their students not wanting to speak at all. Research (Kelly, 2000; Sylvén, 2013; Morely, 1991; Rahimi & Zhang, 2014; Adams, 2011; Dlaska & Krekeler, 2013; Li, 2013) has, however, shown that correcting students in fact helps them rather than discourages them. More precisely, according to Li (2013), teachers should use explicit feedback that contains a direct signal that an error has been made, instead of using the implicit feedback method that is commonly used by teachers, since implicit feedback is not as effective as explicit feedback.
6.2 What pronunciation difficulties do teachers report for their students?
The three interviewed teachers point out exactly the same most common pronunciation errors in English among their Swedish students. The most common difficulties among Swedish
students in upper-secondary school are the pronunciation of <th> and the difference between [v] and [w]. This is supported by Norell (1991, p.6), who lists them as two of the eleven pronunciation errors in her study. Otterstedt (2016) and Sylvén (2013) present three of the sounds as a continuous problem for learners whose L1 is Swedish. The explanation to this is to be found in differences between English and Swedish. The teachers in this study explain the errors as “typically Swedish”, since there are sounds in the English language that are not present in the Swedish language. T1, T2 and T3 express in their interviews that Swedish students still have “good enough” pronunciation in English. This means that even if certain sounds do not exist in the Swedish language, Swedish students manage to pronounce English words well enough to at least be understood. One possible explanation to this could be that Swedish students are influenced by English through social media.
6.3 Conclusion regarding methodological choices
The methodological choices in this study supported the investigator’s objective, viz. to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards teaching pronunciation and how they work with it and, additionally, whether there are any pronunciation difficulties among their students that the teachers could report. There are both advantages and disadvantages of conducting a study with this chosen method. More participants, in this case teachers, would have given the results of this study more validity and replicability. The disadvantages of having few participants are that it takes away the possibility to generalise the results. Another disadvantage can be if one does not give the interviewees enough time to think before they answer a question, which would lead to short and insufficient information. One possible risk with this methodological choice can be that the participants do not answer the questions completely honestly and, as a result, do not display the actual picture of why pronunciation is not given much attention. This could happen if the participants have not had time to think their answers through, or if they have thought them through and would prefer to present a better picture of how things are than what is actually the case.
7. Conclusion
In conclusion, teaching pronunciation is not a top priority according to the interviewees. All the teachers claim that their students have quite good pronunciation already. The interviewed teachers do not give much attention to pronunciation teaching since they argue that grammar is
a part that is prioritized and should be dealt with more than pronunciation. Although, T1 and T3 would like to give more attention to pronunciation teaching, they find it hard to teach, which also is supported by Burri (2015, p.69) who claims that L2 instructors find it challenging to teach pronunciation. The teachers that participated noticed some pronunciation difficulties and give attention to certain sounds more than others. However, it is presented in this study that the participating teachers aim for their students to speak intelligible English to make it comprehensible for an English-speaking person. This means that T1, T2 and T3 are satisfied as long as their students feel comfortable to at least speak. The most common pronunciation difficulties that the teachers in this study reported are corroborated by Norell (1991), which lends support to the conclusion that particular sounds remain problematic for Swedish learners.
In conclusion, these teachers’ attitudes can result in English teachers in Sweden becoming more tolerant to pronunciation errors if they avoid correcting their students. This study shows that previous research about teachers' use of implicit feedback regarding pronunciation correction still holds, since the teachers in this study attest to similar results.
8. Further research
The sounds that the three teachers presented as difficulties among their students could be taken into consideration and researched in further studies as well. It would be interesting to investigate if their students actually have particular pronunciation problems by letting them take a pronunciation test. Furthermore, it would be interesting to investigate how students think that pronunciation teaching should be dealt with.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Consent form for participation in research – made in Swedish
Jag heter Daniela Madzo och studerar till ämneslärare inom gymnasiet på Jönköping University. Mina två ämnen är engelska och religion och just nu skriver jag min C-uppsats i engelska och skulle därför behöva er hjälp att komma fram till ett resultat.
Jag vill intervjua lärare om elevers uttal, och genomföra en klassrumsstudie där jag genom en kort enkät testar uttal. Studien förväntas ta ungefär 10–15 minuter, och jag skulle vara tacksam om jag kan få tillgång till klassrumstid. Intervjun kommer att spelas in men aktiviteten i klassrummet kommer inte att spelas in. Jag kommer inte samla in personliga data om eleverna endast ålder, kön och om de har annat modersmål och i så fall vilket.
Deltagare får när som helst dra sig ur utan att behöva uppge skäl.
Detta kommer vara helt anonymt, det går alltså inte att identifiera deltagare. Godkänner du att delta i studien?
Intervju
Ja, jag har tagit del av ovanstående information och godkänner att delta i studien. Nej, jag har tagit del av ovanstående information och vill inte delta i studien. Klassrumstid
Ja, jag har tagit del av ovanstående information och godkänner att delta i studien. Nej, jag har tagit del av ovanstående information och vill inte delta i studien.
______________________________ ________________________________
Datum:_____________
Appendix 2
Interview questions for Teacher 1, 2 and 3 – main and follow up questions How many years have you worked as a teacher?
1. Do you give attention to pronunciation in your teaching? Why? Why not? To what extent. • How much attention? How often?
• In what way?
• Do you think there should be more attention given to pronunciation?
2. Do you think it is important to correct your students’ pronunciation? • If yes, why?
• If no, why?
• In what way do you correct them? - Reading out loud
- Articulation teaching? - Explaining different sounds?
• When do you correct them? when they are having oral presentations? When you hear them talk in the classroom?
3. What are the most common pronunciation error made by your students?
• Do the majority of your students have difficulties with that specific pronunciation or only a few?
• Have you noticed if they pronounce the sound /dʒ/ as [j]? • If yes, do you explain the error? How?
