EFL Pronunciation Teaching: A Theoretical Review

• Main Author: Hamid Nikbakht
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch 2010-05-01
• Series: Journal of Applied Linguistics
• Subjects: Teaching Pronunciation; Innovative Approaches; Intelligibility; Techniques/Activities
• Online Access: http://jal.iaut.ac.ir/article_520182_1a1930dc06fb127946beaa9cf5ca29d1.pdf

This study aims to represent the developing status of pronunciation teaching and presents the current perspectives on pronunciation learning and teaching, coupled with innovative approaches and techniques/activities. It is argued that pronunciation teaching methodologies have changed over decades since the Reform Movement. The exact status of teaching pronunciation appeared first in the Audio Lingual Methods and continued in the Communicative Language Teaching methods; however, the ways of teaching pronunciation have explicitly a long history. In this study, the researcher scrutinizes the most influential factors in pronunciation learning, the knowledge of which can by and large facilitate both the teaching and the acquisition of pronunciation. Next, the focus of the article will be placed mainly on pronunciation intelligibility as a more realistic purpose of pronunciation pedagogy and instruction. Additionally, the article discusses a number of suggestions for teaching pronunciation and indicates that the teaching of pronunciation can be made more effective and facilitative in the EFL classrooms by offering some state-of-the-art teaching approaches to pronunciation convenient to EFL environment, along with a set of diverse techniques/activities. Finally, the study outlines the current innovative approaches and gives new insights into pronunciation instruction.