the complexity of english pronunciation coaching in business language courses - guidelines for...

Krzysztof PrzygońskiCzestochowa University of Technology

[This is a paper published in 2014 in: Julian Maliszewski (ed). Multiaspectual Approach to ESP Training and Use: Verbal and Non-verbal facets. Vol. 1 Częstochowa: Wydawnictwo Politechniki Częstochowskiej. pp. 65-83]

THE COMPLEXITY OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION COACHING IN BUSINESS

LANGUAGE COURSES – GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING CURRICULA

AbstractDesigning a reasonable pronunciation program for ESP (English for Specific Purposes) courses is a complex task requiring a deep knowledge of a wide variety of issues. Bearing in mind the sensitive nature of pronunciation training and the complexity of its incorporation into BE (Business English) courses, program writers should adopt a practical approach taking into account students’ diverse needs and the more general context. The aim of this paper is to adopt a multiaspectual perspective allowing syllabus writers, curriculum designers and pronunciation coaches to comprehend and appreciate better the complexity of their job as well as to help them reconsider their everyday pronunciation teaching practice and, ultimately, encourage them to design better programs and language curricula. To do justice to the multitude of issues to consider, one should take account of a variety of verbal (e.g. language contents, target models) and non-verbal (e.g. attitudes, external constraints) aspects related to pronunciation coaching.

Key words: pronunciation training, curriculum development, business English courses

1. Introduction

Even though L2 speech can in no way be considered to be a pathology but a fully normal

feature of a foreigner accent, some traits of L2 pronunciation may not only seriously affect

intelligibility but also very negatively predispose one’s conversationalists.1 Unfortunately,

pronunciation training seems to be an effort all too rarely put into by teachers in their

everyday teaching practice; especially in business language courses attended by adult learners

frequently oversensitive to any corrections of pronunciation and beset with numerous accent

peculiarities. Some scholars note that students only very rarely can meet a teacher (even if

trained and skilled enough to do so) who takes up the challenge of incorporating some

elements of pronunciation coaching into his/her everyday classes. In fact, it is pointed out that

pronunciation practice is marginalized and that in the cases when it is not wholly so, learners

are merely asked to correct their most blatant mistakes. As a consequence, even very

advanced adult learners of English are frequently unaware of their own pronunciation

1 See: G. Mehlhorn: Individual pronunciation coaching and prosody. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 2007, 211-212.

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problem areas and have no autonomy developed to monitor their performance and correct

themselves should any errors occur.2 This seems to result from inadequate second language

teacher training which leaves graduates without necessary knowledge, skills and preparation

to convey reliable information to their students.3 This poor condition of pronunciation training

is argued to be further aggravated by the fact that scholarly findings concerning pronunciation

coaching all too rarely translate into any concrete changes in the teaching curriculum or the

improvement of everyday teaching.4 It should be discerned that the importance of teachers lies

in that they are usually the most important source of L2 input as well as students’ default role

model for emulation.5 Consequently, non-native teachers should be capable of analyzing their

own pronunciation in terms of its good and bad sides and to use this accent self-awareness in

their day-to-day BE teaching practice.

The need for pronunciation training in general and ESP courses is one that very few

linguists, teachers and students would doubt. Nevertheless, deciding on the models, actual

goals, scope and intensity of pronunciation coaching is a daunting task arousing considerable

controversy. The complexity of this undertaking becomes evident when one considers how

broad the field of business language courses is. Participants attending different BE courses

(but sometimes even the same ones!) may well aspire to become top executives of

international companies or satisfy themselves with getting the job of a sales assistant – a

position much lower in the hierarchy sometimes requiring just some basic communicative

skills and, at most, a smattering of business English. The aim of this paper is to adopt a

multiaspectual perspective allowing syllabus writers, curriculum designers and pronunciation

coaches to comprehend and appreciate better the complexity of their job as well as to help

them reconsider their everyday pronunciation teaching practice and, ultimately, encourage

them to design better programs and language curricula. To do justice to the multitude of

issues to consider, one should take account of a variety of verbal (e.g. language contents,

target models) and non-verbal (e.g. attitudes, external constraints) aspects related to

pronunciation coaching.

2 See: G. Mehlhorn: Individual pronunciation coaching and prosody. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 2007, 211-212.

3 See: T. M. Derwing: Curriculum issues in teaching pronunciation to second language learners. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, 362-363.

4 See: A. Lengeris: Prosody and second language teaching: Lessons from L2 speech perception and production research. [In:] J. Romero-Trillo (ed.): Pragmatics and prosody in English language teaching. New York: Springer 2012, p. 26.

5 See: T. Piske: Phonetic awareness, phonetic sensitivity and the second language learner. [In:] N. H. Hornberger (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and education. Vol 6 New York: Springer: 2008, p. 163-164.

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2. Some notes concerning language curriculum development

When it comes to developing a reasonable pronunciation curriculum for BE courses, it should

be explained that the process is understood here to refer to “any systematic effort to create or

improve the selection and structure of the content and learning processes to fit the needs of

the people in a particular language course or program.”6 To specify, it is possible to

distinguish the following constituents of curriculum development: (1) conducting a needs

analysis and, consequently, deciding on the goals (“general statements about what needs to be

done in order to satisfy the students’ needs”) and objectives (“relatively precise statements of

the content and/or skills that the student will have mastered by the end of each course”), (2)

designing testing tools, (3) preparing teaching materials, (4) planning the conduct of the

teaching practice and (5) undertaking program evaluation procedure.7 In addition, one should

discern that (1) curriculum is organized according to a certain logic (for instance, situational,

functional, or topical syllabi); (2) that it is usually embedded in a specific approach to

teaching; (3) and that it may be applied to different educational levels (e.g. local, national,

international).8 The development of curriculum should also be regarded as a demanding,

ongoing process of constant maintenance, revision and upgrading of the teaching practice

which should aim to satisfy the diverse and changing needs of both students and teachers.9

When preparing a pronunciation coaching program and seeking its place in BE

courses, it is also necessary to give sufficient consideration to the nature of the course itself

and to the sequence in which given pronunciation units are to be taught. Regarding the

former, it is most often possible to encounter BE courses which are organized for private

companies as part of their personnel training, those which are offered by private language

schools for adult learners or those taught at various colleges and universities as a more

specialist foreign language course for students of economy or management.10 Consequently,

there are no possibilities of offering such students stand-alone classes in English

pronunciation and they can only be incorporated into a more general language curriculum.

Moreover, arguments are advanced that pronunciation training should find its place in the

curriculum straight from the beginning of language courses so as to ensure that relevant

6 J. D. Brown: Second language studies: Curriculum Development. [In:] K. Brown (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 2006, p. 102.

7 Ibidem, p. 107.8 Ibidem, pp. 103-108.9 Ibidem, p. 108.10 An exception here is BA linguistic studies in Czestochowa University of Technology which focus on

business English straight for the beginning.3

material can be adequately revised throughout the course in an increasingly more

unmonitored ways.”11 As an aside, it should be noted that pronunciation practice should

always find its place in speaking classes, even if it is possible to organize a separate course

devoted to accent training. The reasoning behind it is that pronunciation should constitute a

part of a general oral proficiency not to be neglected in speaking classes since they allow one

to learn to move from closely monitored practice to more communicative activities where

pronunciation is only one aspect of students’ general performance. 12

Incorporating pronunciation training into a language curriculum, one should start with a

general plan concerning the pronunciation areas to be practiced during a course as well as

their sequence of introduction. The plan should be used as a general pointer of the direction to

be headed in by the teacher and students (a prospective syllabus design)13. In the present

author’s opinion, it is vital not to let a syllabus enslave the trainer since too rigid and formalist

an attitude can prevent one from discussing vital pronunciation problems the moment they

really occur. Lack of such flexibility not only kills students’ enthusiasm and interest but also

causes a teacher to miss a chance for context-relevant practice. Accordingly, a general

curriculum should leave teachers some room for making decisions ‘online’ in the process of

conducting a lesson when the contents of the lesson becomes negotiated by the context and

situation. It is therefore advisable to try to supplement a general, organized pronunciation

teaching program with frequent but short pronunciation exercises should any problems

become evident, even during grammar practice.14 As an aside, one should realize that such an

approach requires from considerable expertise and skills. Finally, upon the completion of a

course, a teacher should revise his/her teaching practice and use the experience gained

throughout the course to revise the curriculum.

3. Needs analysis – General issues

When designing BE courses, it is advisable for teachers and program designers to put some

effort into investigating students’ needs to acquire standard English pronunciation. In order to

do so, one should not only obtain ample information on the issue from students themselves,

11 T. M. Derwing: Curriculum issues in teaching pronunciation to second language learners. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. 357.

12 Ibidem, p. 357.13 See: P. Robinson: Syllabus design. [In:] M. H. Long, C. J. Doughty (eds.): The handbook of language

teaching. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2009, pp. 294-295.14 See: G. Broughton, C. Brumfit, R. Flavell, P. Hill, A. Pincas: Teaching English as a foreign language.

2nd edition. London: Taylor & Francis 2003, 62.4

but also investigate the broader context in which they are going to use English for business

purposes. One should try to gather a wide variety of different types of information – both

objective (data, facts, statistics) and subjective (e.g. students’ and teachers’ beliefs, attitudes,

feelings) – concerning (1) the context (social, psychological, economic, and cultural aspects

and constraints), (2) the language elements to be taught as well as (3) the language process

itself (encompassing such issues as motivation, attitudes, self-esteem or learning strategies).15

One should also answer the question of who the stakeholders are – whether these are only

students and parents or, maybe, also future employers or the society at large. A decision on

the scope and intensity of pronunciation coaching should therefore be taken after the

performance of a needs analysis taking into consideration a range of factors helping to specify

the goals to be achieved and the contents to be taught. Arguments are advanced that a needs

analysis should be the very first step in the development of curriculum as it helps to specify

students’ demands and translate them into learning objectives and the means to achieve

them.16 There are actually many different perspectives and approaches related to the

understanding of what counts as needs, but it is useful to think of them as (1) everything that

“learners need to know to successfully function [in] the target L2”, (2) “differences between

target L2 proficiency and what learners currently know”, (3) “what and how the learners

would like to learn”, (4) “learning goals that are preferred by a majority of the stakeholders

involved”, (5) “any language elements or skills that would be harmful if missing.”17

When it comes to the procedure of needs analysis, it is advisable to start with defining

its purpose and selecting the population it concerns.18 One should also (1) choose the

approach to teaching, (2) decide on the type of syllabus (e.g. structural, functional etc.), (3)

recognize the constraints of the external context and the adopted approach and, finally, (4)

collect, analyze and interpret the data. On such bases, objectives should be determined and

decisions taken concerning materials and teaching strategies. Importantly, curriculum

designers need to acknowledge the impossibility of selecting a universal set of core

pronunciation features which will guarantee English learners intelligibility in all contexts –

“there is no single truth, (…) NA is a political process, and therefore, (…) the goal of a NA is

a defensible curriculum.”19

15 See: J. D. Brown: Second language studies: Curriculum Development. [In:] K. Brown (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 2006, p 105-106.

16 See: J. D. Brown: Foreign and second language needs analysis. [In:] M. H. Long, C. J. Doughty (eds.): The handbook of language teaching. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2009, pp. 264, 271.

17 Ibidem, pp. 271-272.18 Ibidem, p 271.

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4. BE target population

When it comes to BE courses in Poland, participants in such trainings are usually adults

learning English for various job-related purposes. Their instrumental motivation seems to be

usually high but numerous external constraints (especially those time-related) seem to

seriously slow down the rate of learning and its final outcome. In all likelihood, most of them

already have some competence in English but their command of the language at the beginning

of the course may still be rather poor. Adults are also quite likely to experience significant

communicative stress coming to the fore especially when talking to strangers on unfamiliar

topics in new surroundings; this can sometimes cause the L2 user to abandon the topic or even

become unwilling to use L2 in similar contexts associated with communicative stress.20 In

addition, this is a group considered to be generally incapable of acquiring a native-like

pronunciation and one whose L2 speech is frequently full of segmental and suprasegmental

deviations and fossilizations negatively affecting their communicativeness. Nevertheless,

arguments are also put forward suggesting that “there is, in fact, more evidence to support the

concepts of instability and variability as typical characteristics of second-language speaking,

rather than the fixed invariant properties associated with fossilization.”21 To elaborate,

foreigner accent is almost customarily explained referring to “(a) the Chomskian cognitive-

nativist argument that language learning is an innate ability that dissipates with age, and (b)

the Lennebergian neurological argument that one's neural plasticity decreases with age, thus

affecting language learning ability.”22 In this light, the advantage of children seems to be in

their ultimate attainment (especially in the case of pronunciation) as well as the development

of native-like intuition and not in their learning rate which is frequently faster, especially

when it comes to syntax and morphology, in the case of adult learners.23 It is pointed out that

L2 can be learned without a trace of foreign accent if its acquisition starts before the age of

six and that L2 is most often accented if learned after the age of 12 years.24 Nonetheless, there

19 J. D. Brown: Foreign and second language needs analysis. [In:] M. H. Long, C. J. Doughty (eds.): The handbook of language teaching. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2009, p. 286.

20 G. Yule: Speaking in second language. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 304.

21 Ibidem.

22 R. L. Oxford: Second language learning: Individual differences. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 553.

23 T. Scovel: Age in second language learning. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 284; R. L. Oxford: Second language learning: Individual differences. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 553.

24 See: T. Piske: Phonetic awareness, phonetic sensitivity and the second language learner. [In:] N. H. Hornberger (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and education. Vol 6 New York: Springer: 2008, 160, 162.

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is research showing that computer-based training can help adults overcome the age-related

loss in neural plasticity and teach them to recognize and produce various L2 segmental and

suprasegmental features.25 Furthermore, there is argued to be ample evidence indicating that

adults are also in some circumstances capable of achieving a near-native competence26 and

that even native speaker judges may be at a loss (listening to a vocal stimuli) to decide

whether a speech sample is by native or near-native users of English.27

5. Constraints

It must be acknowledged that due to a variety of different kinds of constraints most adults

acquire pronunciation which is far from being native-like. Some of the most important factors

having a bearing on this state of affairs are the following: (1) the age of first intensive

exposure to L2, (2) residence and/or length of visits to countries using L2, (3) the quantity and

quality of L2 input, (4) specialist pronunciation coaching, (5) aptitude, (6) L1 background, (7)

motivation and concern for correct pronunciation (regarded to be rarely strong enough to help

attain a native-like accent).28 It is even remarked that some learners may be uninterested in

learning pronunciation and see no point in having pronunciation instruction.29 Personal factors

have thus a great impact on ultimate pronunciation attainment, especially when it comes to

attempts to teach adults new patterns of rhythm and intonation (they are considered to

seriously threaten one’s language ego and undermine self-confidence). Furthermore, it is

noted that “[t]he conditioning potential of psychological and affective variables is particularly

significant because foreign language pronunciation learning, especially learning L2 prosody

may be a stress inducing experience. Stress, in turn, results in muscular tension and stiffened

articulators, a learning disadvantage which is largely beyond learners’ control.”30 Moreover,

because of attitudinal and identity-related reasons learners may in some situations fully


26 See: T. Angelovska, H. Angela: English with a native-like accent: An empirical study on proficiency. [In:] A. G. Benati (ed.): Issues in second language proficiency. New York: Continuum 2009, p 147.

27 Ibidem. pp. 159, 161.28 See: T. Piske: Phonetic awareness, phonetic sensitivity and the second language learner. [In:] N. H.

Hornberger (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and education. Vol 6 New York: Springer: 2008, 160, 162. 29 See: T. M. Derwing: Curriculum issues in teaching pronunciation to second language learners. [In:] J.

G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. 347-348.

30 M. Wrembel: Metacompetence-based approach to the teaching of L2 prosody: practical implications. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. 2007, p. 196.

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consciously decide to retain some L1 pronunciation features when speaking English.31

One should further discern that learners’ aptitude also seems to play a significant role

in achieving success in pronunciation attainment. To elaborate, it is argued that:

even within groups where learners are of one age, mother tongue and gender; where individuals receive comparable amount and type of exposure; the same explicit formal training; where students are highly motivated, and their attitudes are positive; where all learners are taught by the same teacher who uses specific teaching methods and techniques, the pronunciation of individuals still differs sometimes even to a great extent. Foreign language learners of the same mother tongue differ not only with respect to the amount and grade of particular deviations in the pronunciation of the foreign language, but also in terms of: – their ability of segmental and prosodic differentiation, – their articulatory skills, – their cognitive learning styles (e.g. with respect to their preferred perception mode), – learning strategies used, – the degree of language awareness, – their self-monitoring skills, – their motivation and – their expectations regarding their pronunciation level.32

In addition to learner-related constraints, it is necessary to recognize a variety of other,

possibly even more important, external factors affecting students’ acquisition of proper

pronunciation. Accordingly, curriculum writers who want to include pronunciation training

into their teaching programs must take into consideration the following issues which,

depending on the situation, can become either serious constraints or important facilitators:

administrative attitudes, availability of audio-video aids, class size, general government

language policies, society’s general attitudes as well as teachers’ proficiency, skills, expertise,

experience, morale, motivation, teaching styles, and beliefs.33

6. Reasons for taking up the challenge

In light of what was written above, it is becoming clear why one may be tempted to abandon

altogether the idea of more systematic and detailed pronunciation practice and its inclusion

into BE courses. Nevertheless, teachers and students should be provided with an explanation

of the reasoning behind pronunciation coaching and of some possible negative consequence

of conspicuous L2 transfer in interactions with native speakers and/or other L2 users of

English from different countries. All in all, there seem to be two interrelated kinds of reasons

for the incorporation of pronunciation training into BE (and other specialist and general)

courses: communicativeness and attitudes. Even though communicativeness is only to some

extent dependent on intelligibility (comprehensibility and interpretability are argued to be 31 Cf. J. G. Edwards: Social factors and variation in production in L2 phonology. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M.

L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. 273.

32 See: Baran 2002 quoted after G. Mehlhorn: Individual pronunciation coaching and prosody. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 2007, 211-236.

33 See: J. D. Brown: Foreign and second language needs analysis. [In:] M. H. Long, C. J. Doughty (eds.): The handbook of language teaching. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2009, pp.275-276.

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even more important in some respects), one’s pronunciation must be over a specific threshold

to allow your listeners (even those having positive attitudes and putting serious effort into

deciphering your speech) to understand you. Too many segmental or suprasegmental errors

are likely to make communication very difficult (maybe, even impossible) and very

ineffective (time-consuming and/or largely misunderstood). Regarding attitudinal reasons,

they seem to be even more significant, at least from the perspective of BE students and their

future communication in the English language and functioning in the English-dominated

world of international business. First of all, curriculum designers should take heed of folk

beliefs in the existence of standards and pure accents which are prestigious and desirable at

least in more formal contexts.34 Attitudinal reactions to non-standard accents (and especially

non-native ones) lead to discrimination and prejudice as well as to unwillingness to listen to

people having a heavy L2 accent.35 To specify, the perception of non-native accent is

dependent on both segmental and suprasegmental features. It is pointed out that while the

former seem to be more readily recognized by listeners36, the latter, when seriously affected

by L1, are especially conducive to leading interlocutors to develop negative judgments of L2

users’ personality and attitudes.37

7. Language contents

A point should be made straightaway that pronunciation training hinges on teaching an

idealized and abstract model, since it would be rather unreasonable and quite difficult to teach

students, for example, the accent used by Eddie Murphy when he starred in The Nutty

Professor, or in any case any other accent used by a randomly chosen native-speaker of

English. The pronunciation we should teach must be on a higher level of abstractness and

refer to more general pronunciation tendencies (standard understood as an idealized and

abstract model encompassing the totality of prestigious and acceptable features of

pronunciation), even if it were impossible to find any native speaker whose phonological

34 Cf. J. Weckwerth, K. Janicka, Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, S. Scheuer, D. Wolfram-Romanowska, M. Kul: Native standards or non-native ELF: which English to teach in the 21st century? [In:] K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk. (ed.): IFAtuation: A Life in IFA. A Festschrift for Professor Jacek Fisiak on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2006, p. 248.

35 See: T. M. Derwing: Curriculum issues in teaching pronunciation to second language learners. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, pp. 360-361.

36 See: T. Piske: Factors affecting the perception and production of L2 prosody: Research results and their implications for the teaching of foreign languages. [In:] J. Romero-Trillo (ed.): Pragmatics and prosody in English language teaching. New York: Springer 2012, p. 55.

37 See: G. Broughton, C. Brumfit, R. Flavell, P. Hill, A. Pincas: Teaching English as a foreign language. 2nd edition. London: Taylor & Francis 2003, p. 61.

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http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Weckwerth

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/node/385

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Kul

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Wolfram-Romanowska

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Scheuer

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Dziubalska-Ko%C5%82aczyk

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Janicka

system would be perfectly matching. In a sense, such a pronunciation model is indeed

artificial since it may not be used by any single ‘real’ native speaker. Similarly, L2 users of

English are also in most cases going to fall short of the role model and transfer numerous L1

pronunciation features into the target language and develop various accent idiosyncrasies.

One should discern that in this respect they will be in no way very different from native

speakers because the concept of language (and pronunciation as one of its components) may

be regarded from one perspective as a collection of resembling idiolects. To some extent, it

seems true that the language we use either as our L1, L2 or even L3 is not (and, actually,

cannot be) formally identical to the ones of any other speakers. Any generalizations we make

are on the abstract level.

To elaborate, most conservative arguments put forward in favor of traditional native

models of pronunciation refer to the following facts: (1) they are codified; (2) they have been

shown to be learnable; (3) they have long been regarded as good reference points for EFL

learners; (4) they seem to defy any clear territorial origin and are understandable to all native

speakers; (5) they keep being updated to follow recent changes in pronunciation preferences;

(6) they make the task of assessing students’ pronunciation progress much easier.38 In

addition, we should realize that the ideal we teach is neither politically neutral nor really

freely chosen but embedded in a larger political context and imposed by more general

economic and political circumstances. Nevertheless, any model would be so; even teaching

ELF starts from concrete political assumptions and is supposed to bring concrete, not only

linguistic per se, consequences. In light of this brief discussion, the most sensible approach to

take is one which resembles the one by Trudgill who expressed it along the following lines:

Discussions about using native-speaker models in ELT are thus not really about whether to use native speaker models but about how far to use such models. (…) The sensible, pragmatic course is to continue as before, employing ENL models (and ESL models in ESL countries) as before, with, as before, the understanding that in most cases phonetic accuracy is unlikely to be achieved and is in any case for many purposes not necessary.39

8. Goals and objectives

Deciding on the general goals and specific objectives of the pronunciation program for BE

courses, it is important to remember that students’ ultimate attainment is influenced by 38 See: J. Weckwerth, K. Janicka, Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, S. Scheuer, D. Wolfram-Romanowska, M.

Kul: Native standards or non-native ELF: which English to teach in the 21st century? [In:] K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk. (ed.): IFAtuation: A Life in IFA. A Festschrift for Professor Jacek Fisiak on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2006, p. 244-246.

39 P. Trudgill: Native-speaker Segmental Phonological Models and the English Lingua Franca Core. [In:] K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, J. Przedlacka (eds.): English pronunciation models: A changing scene. Bern: Peter Lang 2005, 2005, pp. 87, 93

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http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/node/385

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Kul

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Wolfram-Romanowska

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Scheuer

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Dziubalska-Ko%C5%82aczyk

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Janicka

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/publications/biblio/author/Weckwerth

motivation, L1 characteristics, aptitude, age and personal factors.40 The present author

believes that all teachers-practitioners would agree, basing on their own experience, with a

claim that students as a rule only very rarely manage to fully accomplish all of the objectives

stipulated in the curriculum, even if the expectations are quite low. Therefore, for the sake of

students, it is better to incorporate more material into the teaching program and lower, if

necessary, the level of difficulty of final tests. In this way, more skilled students would realize

their potential to a greater extent and those less talented would still have a chance to practice

(and acquire to some extent) the material for the better-predisposed without a significant

decrease in their chances of passing the course or subject.

In addition, it is always good to have at least a general knowledge as to which

segmentals and suprasegmentals are especially important for students from a given L1

background to learn and which would contribute to intelligibility and communication success

the most. As an aside, one also needs to discern that even if there are some reasonable

taxonomies related to either the communicative importance of certain pronunciation features

or their relative degree of difficulty, a good teacher should get to know the actual problems

and skills that a given student or a given group has. This is so since, not infrequently, within a

given group there are likely to be students who may actually find it easier to acquire a

segmental or suprasegmental feature which is theoretically more difficult to learn. In no way

should a teacher turn a blind eye to such an unexpected bonus but rather take advantage of it

and encourage its further acquisition and development. Finally, when it comes to setting the

aims, one should remember that: “1 Objectives can range in type and level of specificity”; “2

Objectives are not permanent [they must be flexible enough to satisfy students’ changing

needs]”; “3 Objectives must be developed by consensus among all of the teachers involved”;

“4 Objectives must not be prescriptive in terms of restricting what the teacher does in the

classroom to enable students to perform well by the end of the course”; “5 Because of all of

the above, objectives will necessarily be specific to a particular program”; “6 Above all else,

the objectives must be designed to help the teachers, not hinder their already considerable

efforts.”41

9. Language contents and accuracy

40 See: T. M. Derwing: Curriculum issues in teaching pronunciation to second language learners. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. 349.

41 J. D. Brown: Foreign and second language needs analysis. [In:] M. H. Long, C. J. Doughty (eds.): The handbook of language teaching. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2009, p. 285.

11

Regarding pronunciation accuracy and its role in facilitating intelligibility and fostering

communicativeness, it must be acknowledged that native-like pronunciation alone is not

enough to guarantee a successful spoken interaction. In this vein, it is pointed out that:

(...) pronunciation errors have a cumulative effect on the listener, and that when the attention required to process the speech signal becomes too great, the listener loses the ability, or the desire, to understand. This explanation also shows the impossibility of a quantifiable standard of pronunciation accuracy. Since unintelligibility depends on listener internal factors, not just on number of errors, any attempt to quantify an appropriate level of accuracy will have little relationship to whether speakers can actually make themselves understood. Pronunciation accuracy cannot be an adequate criterion for assessment of speech.42

Importantly, research seems to suggest that “an overemphasis on the linguistic features of

speaking, particularly in terms of formal accuracy, will lead to an excess of self-monitoring

and a corresponding reduction in both fluency and attention to the interactive expectations of

the interlocutor.”43 A too great focus on pronunciation, especially when combined with

hypersensitivity to one's own fluency, can lead to creating proficient monologue speakers

blind to other communicative demands of interaction and concentrated “on themselves, their

perspective, and their expression of that perspective, rather than attempt to take the other's

perspective into account.”44

Consequently, teachers need to help students “realize their full communicative potential

in second language acquisition”, but that means remembering that intelligible speech is not

necessarily equal to or resultant from “perfect formal 'correctness'”.45 Comfortable

intelligibility is thought to be the goal set by most teachers, (but not necessarily approved of

by all learners, especially those most ambitious) whose aim is just to help learners “be

understood without difficulty in (…) situations where there is likely to be a need or wish to

use the L2.”46 But this is not achieved only thanks to pronunciation instructions making L2

speech less different from native standards. This is so because even quite different accents can

be quite understandable and because, as research shows, understanding is due to a shared

42 J. Levis: Pronunciation and the assessment of spoken language. [In:] R. Hughes (ed.): Spoken English, TESOL and applied linguistics: Challenges for theory and practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008, p. 252.

43 G. Yule: Speaking in second language. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 305.

44 G. Yule: Speaking in second language. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of EducationalLinguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 305

45 See: M. J. Munro: Foreign accent and speech intelligibility. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. 213.

46 D. Porter: Pronunciation. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p 649.

12

effort on the part of both the speaker and listener.47 To help L2 users of English become more

communicative and understandable for both native and non-native interlocutors, teachers

should remember about the following principles:

1. Rather than see foreign accentedness as inherently problematic in L2 oral output, we should accept it is as part of normal variation in human speech. 2. Rather than view “accent reduction” as automatically desirable for L2 speakers, we should focus on intelligibility as a more important concern. (…) 3. In interactive situations, we should not assign L2 speakers all the responsibility for intelligibility. Rather, we should acknowledge the role of listeners as active participants in the interaction and recognize that they may be capable of enhancing their ability to understand L2 speech. 4. We should not define the intelligibility of L2 speech solely in terms of native listeners’ perceptions, but should understand it as the response of a linguistically diverse audience to the L2 speaker.48

Consequently, a reasonable and practical stance would be to set the objectives just on

pursuing the aim of accuracy, rather than its actual attainment at all costs. Such an approach

seems to have a host of advantages. It is less stress inducing for students, but it neither

discourages nor prevents those more ambitious and talented from the goal of acquiring a

native-like pronunciation.

A good teaching program for BE courses should incorporate into its general

curriculum training in the perception and production of both segmental and suprasegmental

features of English pronunciation. When it comes to the former, course designers should

realize, above all, that students' inaccurate pronunciation of words may be caused by the

simple fact that they have never heard a given lexical item pronounced (or pronounced

correctly).49 This is rather unsurprising bearing in mind the largely unpredictable nature of the

relationship between the spelling of English words and their pronunciation as well as the fact

that EFL students' input is most of all from other learners whose pronunciation leaves much to

be desired. Such problems seem to concern all L2 learners but they are especially great when

it comes to the less advanced students and when more specialist or advanced vocabulary is

taught. It is therefore very important to help students notice some pronunciation tendencies

and patterns as well as provide them with a skilled trainer making very few mistakes as she/he

is the immediate role model for emulation. In addition, arguments are advanced that teaching

47 See: M. J. Munro: Foreign accent and speech intelligibility. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. 210.

48 M. J. Munro: Foreign accent and speech intelligibility. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. 213.

49 T. M. Derwing: Curriculum issues in teaching pronunciation to second language learners. [In:] J. G. Edwards, M. L. Zampini (eds.): Phonology and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008, p. .352.

13

more than one pronunciation in class is rather impractical and that “[t]he teacher will have to

concentrate on the important phonemic contrasts and select allophonic variations only to

ensure intelligibility, not to achieve a total set of native-speaker-like variations”.50

This last issue is exactly the one which causes the greatest deal of controversy and

constitutes a real bone of contention for linguists, educators and pedagogues. Some linguists

focus on formal accuracy and opt for a full inventory of segmental and suprasegmental

features of native models, while others are either satisfied with comfortable intelligibility

allegedly assured by a command of some most basic phonemic contrasts found in native

English standard varieties or postulate their rejections and adherence to the pronunciation

features singled out in the English lingua franca core. To specify, depending on the level of

BE students' advancement, their more general goals and aspirations as well as the broader

external context, curriculum writers should give ample thought to consider including the

following when designing their pronunciation training programs: (1) the consonantal

inventory and consonant clusters, (2) the vowel inventory, (3) the phonemic and allophonic

accuracy of the production of the English sounds, (4) weak forms and features of connected

speech, (5) stress and intonation.

10. Suprasegmentals

An increasingly more common perception of the need to incorporate pronunciation training

into conversation classes seems to be accompanied by a shift of focus to teaching

suprasegmental features.51 This is likely to result from research showing how considerable

their impact on intelligibility and communicativeness may be. It is pointed out, for instance,

that misplacing word stress can lead to problems with decoding a message and that while

suprasegmental errors may be especially difficult for native speakers of English, segmental

ones cause greater problems for non-native users of English.52 One should also discern that

prosodic patterns may be more problematic for learners to perceive and reproduce but they are

of great communicative importance (especially the attitudinal role of intonation).53 As for the

50 G. Broughton, C. Brumfit, R. Flavell, P. Hill, A. Pincas: Teaching English as a foreign language. 2nd edition. London: Taylor & Francis 2003, p. 58.

51 See: M. Wrembel: Metacompetence-based approach to the teaching of L2 prosody: practical implications. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. 2007, p. 189.

52 See: J. Levis: Pronunciation and the assessment of spoken language. [In:] R. Hughes (ed.): Spoken English, TESOL and applied linguistics: Challenges for theory and practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008, 251-252.


14

issue of stress (understood as emphasis or loudness), one should not forget that it does not

concern only the level of single words but also the level of whole phrases and sentences.

When it comes to the former, the proper placement of word stress facilitates intelligibility and

can, in cases when it functions phonemically, determine the meaning of some words (e.g. in

words like project or desert).54 It is also noteworthy that even though the system of word

stress patterning is not rigid in the English language, there do exist unchanging stress patterns

for given words the learning of which involves experience and ample exposure.55 An adequate

acquisition of word stress is also necessary for students to start working on the rhythm of

English. This is so because it is determined by the stressed syllables of words in a way

requiring the speaker to maintain more or less the same intervals between accented syllables

no matter the actual number of unstressed syllables occurring between them. This feature of

the English language seems to constitute a significant problem for learners who frequently

have problem not only with the production but also with the perception of (and, thus,

understanding) unstressed syllables and some words (especially, function ones). Importantly,

when it comes to phrase and sentence levels, a speaker may choose, depending on the

intended meaning, a word to stress. But this should also be subject to adequate training and

further practice. Finally, syllabus writers should recognize the role of stress for teaching

intonation. In this vein, it is pointed out that:

Stress, at phrase and sentence level, is closely tied with intonation, since the pitch of the voice moves either up or down on the word which is most heavily stressed. Thus, even if a foreign speaker places his stress correctly, he cannot convey his meaning effectively unless he also uses appropriate intonation. (…) On the whole English intonation conveys attitudinal or emotional meaning and is very closely tied to the context of an utterance56.

11. Production and perception training

Teaching pronunciation involves training in both perception and production. Research is

thought to provide evidence to corroborate an old tenant that “without theory, practical skills

suffer” and make it usually more difficult to teach the target pronunciation.57 Nevertheless, it

is also argued that recognition of speech and its accurate production are skills that “rely very

little on intellectual mastery of any pronunciation rules” and that “using the vocal organs


55 Ibidem.56 G. Broughton, C. Brumfit, R. Flavell, P. Hill, A. Pincas: Teaching English as a foreign language. 2nd

edition. London: Taylor & Francis 2003, pp. 54-55.57 See: P. Ashby: Phonetic pedagogy. [In:] K. Brown (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and linguistics.

Amsterdam: Elsevier 2006, p. 373.

15

properly for speech is a matter of motor habits, well below the level of consciousness."58

Furthermore, these articulatory habits can be changed (not without effort) through constant

practice and context-sensitive learning to hear the L2 sounds sufficiently well to enable their

accurate imitation. In addition, it is important for teachers not to forget about the difference

between learning (“moving from a state of not knowing something, or how to do something,

to a new state of knowing something, or knowing how to do it”) and practice (“exercising the

newly acquired knowledge in order to strengthen it and make it more readily and effectively

deployable”).59

Even though it seems advisable to move quickly on to the phase of practice, arguments

are advanced for the importance of the development of metacompetence; i.e. “conscious

knowledge of and about the grammar of the language and which may be developed by

making the learner metalinguistically aware of L2 phonetics and phonology.”60 The need for

that is thought to stem from the fact that second language acquisition, unlike the acquisition of

the mother tongue, needs a fair amount of cognitive processing as it usually takes place when

the L1 phonological system is already developed and the learner must “unsuppress, re-order

and limit anew some processes in a conscious and controlled manner” in order to gain access

to some more universal phonological processes.61 In this context, metacompetence is seen as a

multilevel construct encompassing: (1) metalinguistic consciousness (“conscious noticing and

understanding as a necessary condition for the input to become intake”), (2) explicit formal

instruction (“theoretical training in phonetics and phonology targeted at developing conscious

knowledge of the second language phonological system”), (3) first language competence

(“drawing on a learner’s first language competence as a complete detachment from the native

tongue is neither psychologically possible nor pedagogically desirable).”62 In addition, it is

pointed out that a distinction should be made between phonological and phonetic awareness,

with the former concerning “awareness of the contrastive units of a sound system including

consonants and vowels as well as suprasegmentals such as syllables, stress and intonation”

and the latter referring to “awareness of more specific properties of sounds including 58 G. Broughton, C. Brumfit, R. Flavell, P. Hill, A. Pincas: Teaching English as a foreign language. 2nd

edition. London: Taylor & Francis 2003, p. 49. 59 See: D. Porter: Pronunciation. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics.

Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 648.60 M. Wrembel: Metacompetence-based approach to the teaching of L2 prosody: practical implications.

[In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. 2007, p. 193.


62 Ibidem, pp. 193-194. 16

awareness of their articulatory, acoustic and perceptual characteristics as well as awareness of

the different realizations of phonological units in speech.”63

Arguments are put forward that most pronunciation problems are perceptual in nature

as students frequently find it difficult to hear a given contrast as accurately as a native

speaker, especially in cases when a given sound in L1 and L2 is quite similar.64 It is indeed

true that some people are more capable of imitating L2 sounds than others but teachers can, to

some extent, help students develop the skill by exposing them to the target pronunciation and

drawing their attention to relevant sound contrasts.65 Rather than expose students to sounds in

isolation, teachers should place greater emphasis on their presentation within the contexts in

which they appear as this is the way they function in speech (even if their quality is affected

by the neighboring sounds).66 Developing students’ awareness and care for pronunciation are

important early stages of pronunciation training also with respect to intonation which, due to

difficulties in describing it, seems to be best taught through sensitizing and conscious raising

activities.67 In this respect, teachers are advised to take advantage of puns which can be used

to draw students’ attention to a variety of different segmental and suprasegmental features of

English pronunciation and which make the task more memorable and enjoyable.68

Regarding the production component of pronunciation training, it should be noted

straightaway that while accuracy rises together with the attention paid to speech (e.g. when

reading minimal pairs), it is usually considerably impaired in free-speaking tasks.69 To help

students monitor their speech, they should acquire a sufficient knowledge concerning the

articulation of the target language sounds found to be especially difficult for them.70

Importantly, there are some principles letting teachers foster better teaching practice: (1)

63 T. Piske: Phonetic awareness, phonetic sensitivity and the second language learner. [In:] N. H. Hornberger (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and education. Vol 6 New York: Springer: 2008, pp. 156, 158.



66 See: D. Porter: Pronunciation. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 650.

67 See: M. Wrembel: Metacompetence-based approach to the teaching of L2 prosody: practical implications. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. 2007, pp. 198-199.

68 See: M. Wrembel: Metacompetence-based approach to the teaching of L2 prosody: practical implications. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. 2007, pp. 198-199.

69 See: G. Yule: Speaking in second language. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 304.

70 T. Piske: Phonetic awareness, phonetic sensitivity and the second language learner. [In:] N. H. Hornberger (ed.): Encyclopedia of language and education. Vol 6 New York: Springer: 2008, 164

17

“[r]ecognition practice should precede production practice”; (2) “since production reinforces

recognition, there is no need to wait for perfect recognition before asking for production”; (3)

“[t]he sounds to be heard and spoken should be clearly highlighted in short utterances”; (4)

“[s]tudents should be given the opportunity to hear the same things said by more than one

voice as the model”; (5) “[t]he English sounds can be demonstrated in contrast with other

English sounds or else in contrast with sounds from the native language”, (6) “[t]he target

sound contrast should be shown to function meaningfully, i.e. students should realise that it

makes an important difference to their intelligibility to use it properly.”71 As for specific types

of articulatory exercises, a point is made that traditional methods of practice should be

supplemented with drama coaches’ techniques increasing articulatory agility (i.e. “pre-speech

physical preparation including, among others, postural alignment, muscular tension release

and warming, vocal work-out, massaging face and jaw muscles, lip and tongue activation,

warming the voice and releasing resonance as well as pitch, volume and speech rate

modulation exercises.)”72 Importantly, it must be acknowledged that while visualizations of

the pitch contour seem quite beneficial for the improvement of the production of prosody (at

both sentence and discourse levels)73, visual displays presenting the articulation of segmentals

(e.g. the position of tongue or the shape of lips) are helpful only to some students (most find it

difficult to “translate readily such visual information into actual position and movements of

the appropriate vocal organs74).

One should bear in mind the fact that the ultimate goal of pronunciation training

should be the ability to recognize and use certain sounds in normal speech in an unconscious

manner.75 Argument are thus put forward that slow speaking L2 learners seem to benefit from

speeding up and that fast talkers are better off lowering their speech rate.76 Furthermore,

because pronunciation training can be particularly stressful for some learners, special care

71 G. Broughton, C. Brumfit, R. Flavell, P. Hill, A. Pincas: Teaching English as a foreign language. 2nd edition. London: Taylor & Francis 2003, p. 62.

72 See: M. Wrembel: Metacompetence-based approach to the teaching of L2 prosody: practical implications. [In:] J. Trouvian, U. Gut (eds.): Non-native prosody: Phonetic description and teaching practice. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. 2007, Ibid, p. 201.


74 D. Porter: Pronunciation. [In:] B. Spolsky (ed.): Concise Encyclopedia of Educational Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1999, p. 648.



18

should also be taken to reduce the amount of stress as this additionally causes muscular

tension and the stiffening of articulators leading to significant problems with production.77

This can be achieved through relaxation techniques and confidence building practice78

supplemented with “voice quality setting exercises involving, among others, oral mimicry

(e.g. making an English face or finding one’s English voice) and conscious imitations of

model intonation patterns.”79 Their importance is seen to lie in that they facilitate L2 prosody

learning thanks to: (1) “reducing learning inhibition”, (2) “creating a position atmosphere”,

(3) “enhancing learners’ confidence in L2 production, (4) “and incorporating extra- and para-

linguistic elements such as gestures, mimicry and relaxation exercises.80

12. Critical issues

A good pronunciation program should not neglect to include into its syllabus some more

critical perspectives. This is so as the issue of pronunciation models and their teaching is

unavoidably highly controversial due to its embeddedness within a broader political and

social context. First of all, one needs to acknowledge that it is both impractical and

impracticable to teach students more than one pronunciation model and to inform them of all

options and communicative contexts possible. Nevertheless, the teacher can (and should)

strive to sensitize students in his/her everyday teaching practice to the accent diversity of

world Englishes.81 In this vein, it is noted that the task of a student is to learn openheartedness

and that the job of a teacher “is to prepare their students to meet perceptual challenges with

assured flexibility.”82 Accordingly, irrespective of the target model chosen for emulation,

students must have a chance to acquaint themselves with other English dialects and accents to

prepare themselves for the communicative challenges of the real world.83

One of the most important aspects of any curriculum design concerns the development

of the assessment methods of students’ attainment. In this vein, it is argued that “[m]eeting

the needs of the students and addressing the resulting goals and objectives may necessitate a


78 Ibidem, p. 201. 79 Ibidem, p. 201. 80 Ibidem, pp. 202. 81 See: C. L. Nelson: Intelligibility in World Englishes: Theory and application. Routledge: New York.

2011, p. 88.82 Ibidem, p. 95.83 See: G. Broughton, C. Brumfit, R. Flavell, P. Hill, A. Pincas: Teaching English as a foreign language.

2nd edition. London: Taylor & Francis 2003, p. 56.19

fair amount of test development for a variety of different purposes.”84 Importantly, tests

should meet a host of very important standards concerning their utility, accuracy, and

fairness.85 As is aptly observed, one of the most serious problems pertaining to evaluating

pronunciation consists in that “[p]ronunciation accuracy may be quantifiable, but the effect of

deviation is not”; i.e., while the former seems to refer to rather clear, even if variable and

different, target models and standards, the latter is difficult to measure and evaluate as not all

errors are serious enough to hinder intelligibility.86 Accordingly, it would be neither fair nor

much revealing, if one decided just to count the number of errors to grade students’ command

of L2 pronunciation. There is thus an immediate need for curriculum writers and test

developers to pay heed to tests and their consequences. It is pointed out that:

Tests have a very powerful role in modern societies. Their results have detrimental effects on individuals as they can create winners and losers, successes and failures, rejections and acceptances. Test scores are often the sole indicators for placing people in class levels, for granting certificates and prizes, for determining whether persons will be allowed to continue in future studies, for deciding on professions, for entering special education classes, for participating in honor classes, for getting accepted to higher education and for obtaining jobs.87

It also needs to be acknowledged that tests cannot be regarded as neutral means for

knowledge assessment but rather as tools determined, or at least affected, by the more general

political, social, educational, economic or even ideological contexts.88 Any person involved in

the process of testing seems to share some responsibility for the misuses and consequences of

the testing process.89 This seems especially important bearing in mind the importance of

English for the present-day world and the role of English tests which are claimed to be

“powerful and widely used tools, leading to high stake decisions for individuals, groups and

political systems.”90 Tests also serve as measures for increasing the status, power and prestige

of English (or rather its standard varieties) and for promoting a specific vision of the idea of

standards and correctness, which further leads to suppressing diversity.91 Finally, one should 84 J. D. Brown: Second language studies: Curriculum Development. [In:] K. Brown (ed.): Encyclopedia of

language and linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier 2006, p. 107.85 Ibid, pp. 122-123.86 See: J. Levis: Pronunciation and the assessment of spoken language. [In:] R. Hughes (ed.): Spoken

English, TESOL and applied linguistics: Challenges for theory and practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008, p. 249.

87 E. Shohamy: The social responsibility of the language tester. [In:] R. L. Cooper, E. Shohamy, J. Walters (eds): New perspectives and issues in educational language policy. A festschrift for Bernard Dov Spolsky. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2001, p. 113.

88 Ibidem, p. 114.89 Ibidem, pp. 115-119.90 E. Shohamy: The power of language tests, the power of the English language and the role of ELT. [In:]

J. Cummis, C. Davison (eds): International handbook of English language teaching. New York: Springer: 2007, p. 525.

91 Ibidem, p. 527.20

discern that a too powerful test can have a variety of undesirable consequences for the

teaching practice. Shohamy argues the following:

Given the high-stakes power of tests, those who introduce English language tests know that teachers and students will comply by changing their behaviors in order to succeed, dictating what to teach and what test takers will study, as teachers and tests takers comply with these demands so to maximize their scores. In such situations, teachers are not viewed as equal partners but rather as servants of the system. (…) However, English language teachers often experience fear and anxiety as students, principals, and parents all demand intensive preparation for these high stakes English tests, especially since teachers are often judged by the success of their students on these tests. Hence, teachers change their behavior and start teaching for the test or teaching the test itself . The test then serves as the model of knowledge and as the main pedagogical source and guide. Over the years, new teaching materials are developed and workshops are designed to prepare teachers for these English tests. This is especially the case if no meaningful professional teacher training takes place, then the tests become the de facto curriculum. Even when a richer and more appropriate curriculum exists, it often becomes subordinate to the power of the test.92

13. Conclusion

Undeniably, designing a reasonable pronunciation program for ESP courses is a complex task

requiring a deep knowledge of a wide variety of issues. Bearing in mind the sensitive nature

of pronunciation training and the complexity of its incorporation into BE courses, program

writers should adopt a practical approach taking into account students’ diverse needs and the

more general context. The major goal of such training should be to help BE students (1) to

learn how to make themselves understood in the widest possible range of contexts in which

they may find themselves in, (2) to improve their understanding of other accents, (3) and to

develop their appreciation of the diversity of L1 and L2 English accents to help them

overcome their linguistic and cultural stereotypes which frequently prevent people from

successful communication. All in all, the aim of pronunciation training should be just

pursuing the targets and not necessarily reaching them at all costs because an overemphasis

on accent reduction is neither pedagogically nor communicatively beneficial or desirable.

After all, a sound and critical teaching pedagogy and methodology should take into

consideration the fact that even if in theory almost everyone can learn a foreign language and

L2 pronunciation to a high level of achievement, in practice, very few learners can

accomplish such goals due to various internal and external (of the speaker) circumstances.

KRZYSZTOF PRZYGOŃSKI received his PhD at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań and works at Czestochowa University of Technology. He has taught a variety of EFL courses and lectured in English linguistics. His main research interests include, among others, language and education, language planning and policy, World Englishes and sociolinguistics. His most recent publications include the following: (1)

92 Ibidem, p. 528.21

Sociolinguistic aspects of the functioning of English in post-1989 Poland. 2012. Peter Lang. (2) “Teaching pronunciation in ESP courses – a knowledge management perspective”, [In:], Julian Maliszewski (ed.), Knowledge management in ESP training. 2013. .

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