Towards Improving Second-Language Pronunciation

Abstract

Over two decades ago the spoken message was characterized as the most prized of the four language skills. The emphasis on communicative competence in recent years where second-language (L2) instruction has focused on the primacy of speech from the very onset of instruction would seem to indicate that priorities have not changed. Entire chapters, even volumes, have been written on this topic.2 With the Report of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies advocating that second-language instruction should concentrate on speaking and understanding before other skills are developed, and with the advent of methodologies such as the natural approach to L2 acquisition, it is likely that a strong emphasis on speaking will continue in our classrooms for years to come.3 Furthermore, the notion of proficiency-based foreign language teaching, which stresses the importance of the productive skills, is rapidly gaining momentum.4 Although the goal of producing a comprehensible spoken message has remained the same, discussions of this topic rarely devote much attention to the teaching of pronunciation. (The rating scales developed for the ACTFL-ETS oral proficiency interviews are a notable exception, since they attempt to provide a graduated sequence of learning goals for teachers and learners, including the quality of sounds produced at the various levels of proficiency.5) This is ironic, since the comprehensibility of a message depends, to a large degree, on the speaker's mastery of the prosodic features of a language. Encounters with persons who have mastered the structure and lexicon of a second language, yet produce all but unintelligible speech due to inadequacies in pronunciation, are not rare. With appropriate training, such speech habits could certainly be improved. The same holds true for our L2 classrooms. Clearly, if we expect reasonable accuracy in structure and vocabulary, then our expectations should be no lower in pronunciation. Apparently, little or no time is devoted to the creative teaching of pronunciation in many classrooms today.6 One way to remedy this problem might be to spend a minimal amount of time (even as little as five minutes daily) on the improvement of pronunciation in four-skills courses at the elementary and intermediate levels. On the post-secondary level, a solution to the problem might be a course devoted to the teaching of pronunciation, such as the one described here.7