Review #3, Part 3: "Pronunciation Myths", edited by Linda Grant

Hi! My two previous posts (Part 1 - Part 2) reviewed the first four pronunciation myths, debunked by well-known pronunciation and phonetics specialists in the book "Pronunciation Myths", edited by Linda Grant. This post will mark the end of the review of this enriching, thought-provoking, book. Remember this is an informal review, with a few intrusive observations and reflections of my own.

(Warning! This is a very long post, so you may want to bookmark it for later reading.)

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Myth 5: Students would make better progress in pronunciation if they just practiced more - Linda Grant

This chapter begins with a reference to the film "The King's Speech", and an "inconvenient truth" : "long term speech characteristics can become an integral part of who we are" (Grant, 2014, "In the Real World", para. 5), which is why many people decide, consciously or unconsciously, not to introduce any changes to their accent. Citing Dalton and Seildhofer (1994:72), Grant reminds her readers that  there is no "one-to-one relationship between what is taught and what is learned" when it comes to pronunciation. (And yes, we know that too well!)

The next section discusses aspects which have always been present in the debate around second language pronunciation, such as the role of age. Different studies are described which prove and also refute the effects of the Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg, 1967) as far as the issue of accentedness is concerned. Grant believes the research in fact shows that it is social and psychological factors rather than neuro-biological changes that make the utmost difference in the end.

Another construct reviewed in this chapter is Lado's Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Some studies reported found that students whose L1 was similar to English had more English-like accents, but it was also reported that L1-L2 differences sometimes promote learning (in-keeping with Major's Similarity-Dissimilarity Hypothesis), since these are at times more perceptually salient than similarities. Grant finishes this section by revisiting the concepts of positive and negative transfer, both presented as inevitable processes in L2 pronunciation acquisition.

Grant later examines the role of exposure and use of L2 as a positive contribution to a learner's pronunciation achievement, especially in terms of fluency and comprehensibility. The other big factor was length of residence, though it was proven that it was not as effective as the actual frequent use of L2 outside the classroom. 

The following aspect reviewed by Grant is the role of psycho-social factors in the attainment of L2 pronunciation. Issues of identity, motivation, attitude and inhibition are discussed in this section. Studies reported include those examining the roles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, issues of allegiance to their own L1 ethnic group, and identification. I personally believe this is THE issue to consider when it comes to success in pronunciation learning.

The author recaps then some of the most important factors related to the attainment of an L2 pronunciation, but concludes that research has not yet established what is the relative impact of each of these variables: "age at the onset of learning, similarities between L1 and L2 phonologies, extent of exposure to and use of the L2, and affective factors (...), aptitude and natural talent". The research reviewed, however, does give teachers some basic information as to what aspects affecting L2 pronunciation can be addressed, and need to be tackled. (See my post on pronunciation goals for my own take on this) 

Grant draws her chapter to a close by providing some practical suggestions: a) set realistic goals in partnership with our learners, giving more room to intelligibility over accentedness, and engaging students in setting their own personal goals; b) set interim goals to sustain student motivation throughout the course. This second point refers to what Wong (1987:8) has found regarding pronunciation achievement: "dramatic changes in student speech in 3 to 6 months are rare". (Well, I would personally have to read the study, because in my context this does not hold true at all. I guess this is true for a particular number of contexts with a specific set of characteristics...But I do grant them that my lessons are entirely pronunciation-based...). I do agree, however, that short-term goals, clear focus on specific features and assessable targets are a great "carrot and stick" for students not to give up. Suggestion c): increase student engagement by individualising assignments. Oh, yes. As I always say, "pronunciation teaching is a craft". There is a lot we can do with our students as a group, but there is an awful lot we need to do with our students on an individual basis. In this respect, Grant includes self-assessment sheets and rubrics for students to grade their own recorded assignments, for example. Suggestion d): ask students to maintain pronunciation logs. Even though Grant mentions examples that affect learners in which learners can use English outside the classroom, it is true that keeping track of the changes, breakdowns and challenges one encounters in the process of learning pronunciation is a great way to see how the process unfolds. I would have loved to have a diary for my Lab 1 course, I would have loved to see how I personally felt about having to "unlearn" my Spanglish accent and my own mental view of what English was like to get to the less Spanglish accent I have now (I have been listening to my Lab 1 cassettes, though...). Suggestion e): Maximise student exposure to English outside the classroom. This set of ideas includes ways in which we can introduce home practice as well using websites.

A final observation includes the importance of giving considerable amount of time to pronunciation instruction in the classroom, thus the need for integration for it to be an  everpresent priority.

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Myth 6: Accent reduction and pronunciation instruction are the same thing. By Ron Thomson.

This chapter warns the readers of the dangers of falling into advertising traps when it comes to selecting your tutors for accent reduction clinics or courses. By means of a few anecdotes, Thomson clarifies that many immigrants fall prey to deceit because they erroneously believe it is their accent that impedes successful communication and/or integration, whereas "L2 learners' perceived need for accent reduction is often the result of factors unrelated to pronunciation".

The premise to this chapter is that accent reduction and pronunciation instruction are different things, and for this, Thomson quotes Derwing and Munro (2009) with their description of three approaches to characterise programs as following a a) business, b) medical or c) educational model. Accent reduction is generally associated with the business model, accent "modification" with the medical approach, and pronunciation instruction with the latter.

The rest of this chapter reviews a considerable number of Google searches and website descriptions of the language used and the underlying assumptions of a few services offering pronunciation instruction or accent reduction services, some of which are compared to programmes that offer "miracle diets" (Lippi Green, 2012), and go unregulated. The review of programmes includes details of materials, costs, instructor qualifications and claims, which show how vast the offer is, and how confusing advertising could be in some cases. The chapter ends with a few proposals, including the need for provision of "ethical pronunciation instruction" that shows understanding of psycholinguistic, social and personal dimensions of foreign accent. Another major suggestion is that teachers "give more attention to pronunciation instruction as part of English language classes" and also to propose language programs to hold "stand-alone" pronunciation courses if possible. The discussion of this section ends with a set of practical tips as to how to avoid "charlatans".

This chapter left me thinking about a huge number of things. I find myself in a context in which I would say we do "accent modification" or "accent reduction", even, but our model is educational in nature, as we train teachers-to-be. Instruction in our context is carried out by specialised professionals, and the focus is mostly towards a native-like accent (pretty much in the same way other subjects attempt to help students to reach a native-like grammar or use of lexis...), while also training teachers to teach for different purposes (or so I hope). I guess we are all truly aware of the claims to the impossibility of reaching a native-like accent -we, pronunciation teachers, I think, are the best pieces of evidence for that, however obsessive we might be about our accents-, but even so, in our teacher-training context, we have many students who want to reach native-like proficiency (and many who do not, of course), and we work with them towards this goal (yes, there is a lot I could say and be critical about regarding this and a million other issues, but not today!) . I have to say I am lucky to be in a group of institutions in which I have the opportunity to do serious pronunciation instruction work and provide one-to-one moments of feedback, in spite of large classes.  As I always say, pronunciation teaching is a craft, it cannot follow a "one-size-fits-all" model, since what works for one student may not work for the other. We can provide tools to the whole group of students, but feedback and fine-tuning practices need to be individualised and I hope this is something I can pass on to my students with my own feedback practices.

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Myth 7: Teacher Training programs provide adequate preparation in how to teach pronunciation, by John Murphy.

This particular chapter is closely related to my current context, as I am a teacher trainer myself. For some reason, I never seem to find a book on pronunciation that will keep me "happy", though there are some good materials out there (my personal favourite being Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin, 1996, 2010) There is always something "missing" in these materials, something that drives my teacher trainees to be good, creative task designers, but at times "poor systematisaters". I try to make it my job to train teachers to actually make the presentation of features right, since after all, no matter how creative a task can be, if the teaching of the feature is not successful or well planned, the whole class plan will very likely fail anyways.

Now, off to the chapter. Murphy begins by retelling a personal experience teaching at a MATESOL course. One of the findings Murphy made in this journey is that pronunciation needs to be taught "within a framework of spoken communication". The author's account serves to introduce the question of confidence and knowledge that teachers may or may not feel they have when it comes to pronunciation teaching.

The research cited by the author includes issues of "teacher cognition" as a fundamental part of what should be the knowledge base for teaching, which includes, of course, knowledge about language, knowledge about second language acquisition, and specialist recommendations about pronunciation teaching. I think Murphy introduces a very important point here, that of the need to dive into teachers' beliefs, perceptions and understandings in order to help them build effective pronunciation teaching practices.

The author includes a table of research reports carried out by different experts and authors in different countries using different instruments, which in turn inform the report Murphy is introducing in this chapter. Some of the key points reviewed regarding teacher cognition include: a) teachers feel unprepared to teach pronunciation because of lack of training; b) there should be a clear focus on the pedagogical aspects of pronunciation teaching; c) previous experiences learning foreign languages have a bearing on the way teachers approach (or not) pronunciation teaching; d) teachers should be introduced to ways of teaching assessing pronunciation for intelligibility, introducing modern technologies and working on integration to the general ESL lesson.

I need to digress again, since this touches directly into my context. I lecture at three Teacher Training Colleges, and in all three, trainees are exposed to a minimum of two, and a maximum of seven (!) periods a week purely devoted to Phonetics and pronunciation, and in the last two years of the course of studies, also to pronunciation teaching. In two of these colleges, teachers have stand-alone pronunciation courses in all four years of training. That is an awful lot (and I am grateful, because it does show in most of trainees' pronunciation), but I sometimes fear these students may not still know how to approach pronunciation in their lessons in spite of all the input. At times, it is just a matter of giving teachers a few tricks and principles to "light the match", (and see the sparks in their eyes appear! Oh, joyful moment!), together with some consciencious reading of pedagogy and acquisition, and a "trip down memory lane" to their own experience learning the accent, but in some other occasions, I find teachers still get really "petrificus totalus" (yes, another HP reference) about this whole pronunciation teaching business. So much to think about....Anyway.

Murphy quotes Borg (2003, 2009) and eight findings on teacher cognitions, which is worth direct citation since they are spot on, in my opinion:

Murphy (2014) in Grant (ed). Amazon Kindle Edition: Position 3272 of 4350

There is another interesting reference, to Gregory (2005) this time, which describes the fact that teachers are rarely given the chance to immediately apply in real classrooms, or even among peers, all the declarative knowledge they attain.

The last sections of  this chapter contain  fantastic remarks for us, non-native speakers of English who have trained as FL teachers. Murphy reminds us that our training in pronunciation as learners will help us understand what our learners are going through. Our own learned accent can be interesting and relevant models for our students, as long as it is intelligible, comprehensible, and only if the teacher is "aware of what some of the more prominent accented characteristics of his or her own speech could be" (oh, yes, I have my own list!)

The chapter presents a few suggestions as to what can be done in training programmes, and also a review of resources for pronunciation teaching and practice which are worth exploring, also listed as an appendix. A second appendix describes sample topics and syllable tasks that can be applied at graduate level. (Not to be missed!)

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Epilogue to the Myths: "Best Practices for Teachers", by Donna Brinton

Brinton opens the epilogue by referring to a personal anecdote that supports her belief that we interpret the stream of speech in the foreign language by referring to our L1 and other languages we may have learned; and also that learners tend to process lexical chunks at the level of syllables/words/phrases, rather than phonemes.

This final section also introduces a very interesting list of "core knowledge and skills needed for L2 teachers to address pronunciation in the classroom", collected by Chan, Goodwin and Brinton in 2013. The list includes conceptual, descriptive and procedural knowledge, and it is truly worth reading (there is a copy of this list, presented by the authors at CATESOL 2013, here).

A second gift to the reader by Brinton: A summary of ideas and "best practices", including: a) the connection and separation of the concepts of intelligibility and accentedness, and a list of features contributing to the former that need to be trained in the classroom; b)  the fact that not all pronunciation features have the same relevance for intelligibility;  c) the finding that segmentals are critical building blocks of the sound system, but they need to be taught in terms of intelligibility needs, and also guided by functional load concerns; d) the tendency that claims that L2 adult learners may not reach an "accentless", native foreign accent; e) the fact that pronunciation learning is different from the learning of grammar or vocabulary, as it involves other modalities; e) the need to recognise the relation between perception and production, which is why it is important to introduce awareness raising activities to build new perceptual categories; f) the awareness that explicit and targeted feedback is truly beneficial; g) success in pronunciation learning depends on a myriad of factors, including age, motivation, identity, exposure, opportunities for real practice outside the classroom , and these need to be considered in our planning; h) L1 does have an influence on our acquisition of L2 pronunciation; i) exposure to authentic language is essential, including an analysis of processes of connected speech, that show the reality of speech "out there".

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And so my review ends. My verdict? Pronunciation Myths  is... a really insightful book, with discussions that probably describe pronunciation teaching issues worldwide, and a few other points and claims that can be questioned if seen from different locations and instructional contexts. A wealth of ideas, tips and tricks. And more importantly, in my opinion, a huge reference list of experimental, bibliographical, educational and also informal research that does not only "preach to the converted" (as a friend always says), but which may also, hopefully, persuade the sceptics, and the fearful.

Review #3, Part 2: "Pronunciation Myths", by Linda Grant.

On my previous post I briefly reviewed the Prologue and the first chapter of the Kindle book version of Pronunciation Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. (BTW, I am trying to come to grips with the way of citing Kindle books....the lack of pagination can be maddening! So I hope you will excuse the lack of page numbers for the quotes. I will, in the future, try to adopt the approach in the APA guidelines (that is...counting paragraphs and all that jazz!): http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/09/how-do-i-cite-a-kindle.html)

This time, I will be discussing the research reviewed in the book to debunk Myths 2, 3 and 4. These chapters were written by Beth Zielinski & Lynda Yates, John Field, and Judy Gilbert, respectively. 

(Warning: It is quite a long post!)

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Myth 2: Pronunciation Instruction is not appropriate for beginning-level learners - Beth Zielinski and Lynda Yates.

I was particularly interested in this chapter, since I remember with great shame my very first class in Italian, and my first lesson in French. I was already a graduate teacher of English and I was in awe at both my new teachers, who spent the first half hour or more discussing the sounds of the languages I was about to embark on learning. The same thing happened to my colleagues learning Portuguese. Why is it that most teachers overlook this very important first introduction to the pronunciation of English language during the first lesson? Isn't this the perfect moment to plant the seed of curiosity and to start drawing students' awareness of the noticeable differences between their L1 (Spanish, in my case) and English?

The very first point the authors make is that pronunciation does indeed affect both intelligibility and confidence to speak, as previous research has found, at least in a context where English is spoken outside the classroom. It is claimed that beginnning learners do care about pronunciation, and that the later students are introduced to it, the more limited their improvement will be. Zielinski and Yates favour both the introduction to metaphonological knowledge and awareness, and incidental teaching and correction. They underline the fact that instruction also enhances on other, less "assessable" skills, such as confidence and understanding, and this was found in the action research projects in Springwall (2002).

The authors of this chapter propose following a systematic approach to instruction following four stages: a) listening and awareness, b) control, c) practice, d) extension.

I want to highlight the essential remark made in this chapter, which is that pronunciation is a spoken skill, and however obvious this may sound, we at times forget about this when we carry out reading aloud tasks and select texts to that end. Lexico-grammatical and discourse-semantic choices differ greatly in the spoken-written mode continuum, as those of us who do Systemic Functional Linguistic work very well know.

A few other reminders are made on this chapter, regarding the use of different "modalities" (i.e.: learning styles); provide targeted feedback, immediately or in a delayed form, depending on the task at hand; have one pronunciation goal in every lesson, in combination with other areas and skills; introduce a variety of activities. The authors suggest that readers consult the AMEP Research Centre in Australia website for ideas.

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Myth 3: Pronunciation Teaching has to establish in the minds of language learners a set of distinct consonant and vowel sounds - John Field

John Field addresses a very interesting topic, and begins with a number of thought-provoking questions: "a) What is it that we expect learners to store in their minds during ear training? (...) b) How confident are we that storing a phoneme in the mind in some way enables the learner to recognise it when it is heard again in connected speech?". Apart from recognition, Field also questions how much of this "storing" of sounds actually contributes to production as well.

The research review reports on some truths we sometimes forget about: phonemes do not have a "standard" form because of the multiplicity of allophones they may be realised with, and because of all the phenomena involved in co-articulation. This is why training via minimal pairs does not always work as a form of enabling the later recall of phonemes. A clear implication of this is the need to expose learners to the sound in different contexts and in different word positions.

The rest of the chapter unfolds under the scrutiny of two theories that present assumptions in the ESL world:

"A- Although phonemes vary a great deal, any example of a given phoneme has characteristics that distinguish it from all others."

Field notes a first very important truth "the raw speech reaching the listener's ear is not a string of phonemes but a series of acoustic cues that the listener has to match to phonemes". The author reports studies carried out by Liberman in Yale in 1957 that attempted to somehow find "quintessential" (my own interpretation of the study) characterising features of English phonemes, but did not find features which were unique or exclusive to each. Plus, they found that speed had an effect on the perception of phonemes. The perception of consonants was found to be categorical, whereas perceiving vowels requires a distinction between three formants. There are no "constant" values to identify vowels, as we know. So this first theory in a way appears to be quite weak, since as Field concludes, "there is no simple one-to-one match between a group of acoustic cues and a phoneme".

"B - We store a set of 'ideal' phonemes in the mind, against which to match what we hear."

This assumption is related to the belief that our mind cancels out unusual features in the perception of sounds so as to match them to the closest "ideal" phoneme around. This view is related to  the notion of "prototype" (Rosch, 1975) or "template" against which all other manifestations of a word or phoneme are contrasted, and this makes for an economical view of the work the mind carries out in perception. However, Field argues that research by neuroscientists has proven that the mind is capable of more complex forms of storing, and that individual variation of phonemes due to coarticulation also acts counter to the "template" rule. 

(BTW, these two very interesting questions are currently being addressed by Richard Cauldwell in his "Listening Cherries" blog, and in his book "Phonology for Listening (2013)".)

Therefore, three alternative theories are put forward, which claim that a) the phoneme is not the unit of representation we use when we listen; b) the phoneme is just one of the clues used, perhaps not the most important; c) our minds store many variants of the phoneme heard in different contexts and voices.

Regarding a), Field reports studies that have found that listeners need to access the word, the "demi-syllable" (Dupoux, 1993) or the syllable in order to identify the number of phonemes. In this respect, the author believes that teachers should focus on high-frequency syllables as units of perception.

As to theory b), Field notes that phenomena such as ambisyllabicity shows the complexity existing in the recognition of syllable boundaries, and extends the list of cues employed by listeners to include phonemes, words and lexical chunks, and these are supplemented by contextual and co-textual elements. Research by Marlsen-Wilson 1975 has revealed that apparently we "process speech as we hear it at a delay of about a quarter of a second" and that we are actively making hypotheses as to what we believe we have heard, fine-tuning our perception unit by unit. Studies on L2 perception have found that learners "do not trust their perceptual skills in relation to smaller units of language", and they use a more "constant" unit, the word. However, as we know, words also vary, as Cauldwell (2013) states, by adopting different "shapes" in the stream of speech. So Field believes that perception should be trained at the level of the syntatic and lexical chunk as well.

The remarks made by Field regarding the last theory are quite fascinating. It seems that we store in our minds a large number of versions and examples of phonemes and word shapes, and we activate our memory of these items. The teaching implications that Field mentions include the need to expose learners to different realisations and accents, and reviews studies by Pisoni, Lively and Logan (1994) in which this kind of variable ear training was found to be effective. 

Field suggests that teachers should work at the level of the syllable, by working on common syllable patterns and recognition of syllable boundaries, as well as for stress. Later, instruction should be driven into larger units, by proposing "word activation" tasks to predict lexical items to be encountered, as well as "gap fill" activities with typical lexical chunks and their reductions and variation (Field introduces an interesting appendix on this). Focus on function words also acts as a good training exercise to identify changes in speech. The author also proposes exposing learners to many accents, voices and contexts following a gradual progression, in order to create "memories" of different sound and word shapes.

I found this chapter particularly fascinating and thought-provoking. I think it also bears great implications for production, since at times our students attempt to produce these "ideal" phonemes in contexts that in fact require a number of variations due to co-articulation. Even though we may teach allophonic and phonemic rules for different processes, students at times only produce strings of "ideal" phonemes, as if they were putting together a puzzle of individual sound shapes instead of making all the changes and adaptations that the surrounding environment of neighbouring sound requires. A lot to continue pondering on...

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Myth 4: Intonation is hard to teach - Judy Gilbert

Those of you who know me will have guessed that this is one of the chapters that drove me into buying the book. There is such a huge gap in intonation teaching (for a huge number of reasons, some of those listed in the chapter), and there is so much that could be done in this respect....Anyway.

Judy Gilbert begins with the retelling of a few anecdotes regarding misunderstandings and intonation. She believes that one of the problems with intonation teaching is that it is filled with "too many abstract concepts.....that tend to blur the specific teaching point". Studies by Kang and Pickering (2011) on comprehensibility highlight the role of intonation for listeners to "confirm if an item is new or one that they are already aware of, to track important information, and to predict when one topic is ending and another is beginning" (2011:6). A stronger focus on prosody in the language lesson is also recommended by Derwing and Rossiter (2003) in order to make students' English more understandable. 

Gilbert reminds her readers that the "basic signals of rhythm and melody specific to one's first language are generally learned by the time a child is one year old". This affects the way we may produce our L2 intonation, and the way we perceive other people's intonation, which could lead to cultural misunderstandings, as well as communication problems, especially when it comes to inaccurate stress choices.

The author discusses some of the reasons behind teachers' uneasiness when it comes to intonation teaching, such as the lack of "friendliness" of intonational descriptions. The first "discouraging approach" is the set of technical rules based on grammar; the second relates to "technical rules based on pitch levels" drawn by phoneticians who cannot establish an agreement when it comes to "meanings" . Gilbert also nots that in these models, the different manifestations of pitch levels which are at times presented as absolutes, instead of as gradient. The third approach seen as "uninviting" is what Gilbert calls "subjective rules based on intuitions about attitude", which is "anxiety-inducing" (Roach 1991:165) Gilbert makes a point of the fact that attitudes are "culturally or contextually dependent", and that most attitudinal descriptions of intonation have applied conflicting values to different pitch levels and emotions. It is also establised that attitude is never expressed by intonation alone.

Gilbert moves on to present different proposals for the teaching of intonation. The first suggestion is to draw students' awareness as to how their L1 and English differ in terms of information delivery, since English uses specific prosodic signals (change in pich, lengthening and "extra clarity" of the vowel in question), and other languages may perhaps employ other non-prosodic features, such as word order. Another suggestion includes the teaching of intonation as a priority, done contextually in dialogues. The next idea is related to the teaching of "listener-friendly" intonation, intonation that helps the listener "follow" what the speaker is saying in the belief that "time spent helping students concentrate on the major rhythmic and melodic signals of English is more importnat than any other efforts to improve intelligibility". However, Gilbert warns teachers that learners may not believe the teacher when it comes to the introduction of intonation, and that they may feel silly trying intonation tasks, which in a way implies that the teaching of prosody is also an act of "persuasion" (and I agree entirely!). Creating activities that may focus on miscommunication or ambiguity, and which require immpediate communicative feedback, may help to debunk this view. Gilbert reminds her readers that one of the clearer benefits of intonation teaching include the fact that suprasegmentals fit nicely into communicative settings. 

Next, Gilbert makes a point of the features which she considers to be "main", and "most teachable". These include forms of highlighting new information and the separation of the message into thought groups. Gilbert puts forward her model of the "Pyramid of the musical signalling system", which goes from a peak vowel to a stressed syllable, followed by a focus word embedded in a thought group. The attention given to the production the peak vowel in the stressed syllable of the most important word in the thought group is an essential component of communication, and thus makes the delivery of the mssage more "listener-friendly".

Prosody Pyramid - Gilbert (2008)

Gilbert also suggests a holistic presentation of intonation, using template sentences through "quality repetition" so as to "get a clear image of what the flow" should feel like and thus not sacrifice fluency. The author believes that students should get an "acoustic impression" of a short chunk as a whole, and then focus on their individual components through repetition. The presentation of the template should be done through listening first, many times, before actually producing it, respecting the rhtyhm and intonation of the thought group (or larger unit) selected. Students can then be invited to analyse the inner workings of the tought group which has now been internalised.

I particularly liked Gilbert's defence of repetition as a strategy to "produce a long-term memory resource that they (students) can access when they need to remember how it went", since "cells that fire together wire together" (Shatz, 1992:65). The value of group practice to "overcome individual pyschological inhibitions" is also highlighted. 

The inclusion of other styles, such as kynesthetic reinforcement, or the use of gadgets (such as a kazoo or a wide rubber band) to introduce pitch patterns, stress or lengthening is an interesting addition to the teacher's kit that Gilbert proposes.

This is a great chapter, full of ideas, but the most fantastic inclusion to my mind is this quote, drawn from an unnamed teacher trainee Gilbert once met: "teaching pronunciation without prosody is like teaching ballroom dancing, only the students must practice standing still, without a partner, and without music".

I believe that the points made by Gilbert are definitely true. However, I need to point out that when it comes to intonation teaching, the "native speaker gut" is very useful, especially to give feedback or make associations between intonation and "meanings" or "interpretation". But the truth is that us, non-native teachers of English, struggle when trying to understand how the intonation of English works, and many of the theories reviewed and slightly criticised in this chapter have actually proven useful to many of us to get an idea of what patterns to use. In fact, I think that the development of metaphonological awareness and constructs when it comes to understanding -and later teaching- the intonation of English really works, if done conscientiously, and within the study of pragmatics and discourse.

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Thank you for bearing with me till the end of this long post. Part 3 of this review will discuss the remaining "myths" in this fabulous collection by Linda Grant. See you soon!

Book Review #3: Pronunciation Myths, edited by Linda Grant - Part 1

I am now back on my "commuting reading" mode, since by November my whole body hurts and I don't engage in those usual 45-minute long walks to work. I decided to make the journeys productive, so I got hold of the Kindle version of the book "Pronunciation Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teching", edited by Linda Grant, and wtih conributions from Donna Brinton, Tracey Derwing and Murray Muro, John Field, Judy Gilbert, John Murphy, Ron Thomson and Beth Zielinsky and Lynda Yates.

The book is structured around seven myths related to pronunciation teaching and learning, some of which sound all too familiar for my Argentinian context. The discussion of each myth is carried out through an adequate balance of personal anecdotes that illustrate the points in question, and what the research has found. Each chapter also presents a number of practical tasks or advice to deal with the matters described.

In this review, I would like to briefly comment on each myth/chapter, and add my own humble take on what is said, and how it relates to my context.

As usual, I will piece this review into parts for your (and my!) sake!

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A few comments: this volume is mostly written by researchers who have done a lot of work in English in an L2 environment, that is, many of the experiences shared refer to students who learn English in instructional settings and have to use English outside the classroom. At times, there are explicit references to non-L2 environments, but I think it is important to keep this in mind when reading the book. 

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Prologue, by Linda Grant

Grant discusses four interesting aspects of pronunciation teaching and learning as part of the prologue. The first part discusses the last four decades of pronunciation teaching, reviewing some of the tenets identifying different movements, such as audiolingualism, and communicative language teaching, all ascribing different roles and goals to pronunciation teaching in L2. Grant claims that current approaches draw from both traditions mentioned in terms of techniques and goals, and discusses the need for integration of pronunciation work to other areas of the curriculum.  The author describes a shift from concern with native-likeness to intelligibility, and the separation of ideas of accentedness from those of intelligibility, as two different phenomena, also separated from degrees of comprehensibility, based on the research by Derwing and Munro. A very interesting addition to this discussion is the explicit acknowledgement of the listener in this process of interaction.

The second aspect that Grant reviews in her prologue includes the definition and scope of pronunciation, based on Fraser's (2001) contribution, which establishes three categories: peripheral and global features, suprasegmentals and segmentals. The review of these features includes references to research and published materials that describe the complexity of these categories, and the difficulties in language teaching when it comes to the selection of features to teach. 

I particularly enjoyed the "bulls-eye" analogy: 

"in the circle or ring around the eye are all of the acceptable variants of the target sound as they occur in spoken English. So variants diverge from the target more than others, but all of the sounds falling within that first circle are acceptable pronunciations" (Grant, 2014)

Through this comparison, I think many things can be encompassed, and I celebrate Grant's mention of allophonic variants, since these appear to be neglected in pronunciation books, and after all, it is the production of allophones which in fact allows learners to leave the "ideal", "isolated" phoneme and place it around others, to ease co-articulation and thus, together with phonemic processes of connected speech, to produce fluent speech. The comparison with the bulls-eye also goes beyond segment into the production of words, and the variations from "citation forms" to other forms in real speech (in the "jungle", as Cauldwell, 2013 rightly claims!). 

The next feature described in Grant's prologue is related to the levels of pronunciation teaching: motor or physical, perceptual, cognitive and psycho-social. I found this classification so neat and so true, and I can't help thinking that it is the psycho-social that really defines what my students end up reaching. So much to think about!

***

Myth 1, debunked by Tracey Derwing and Murray Munro: "Once you have been speaking a second language for years, it's too late to change your pronunciation"

This chapter discusses issues of fossilization. Some interesting remarks that the authors make include the fact that this phenonmenon is not only restricted to L2, as it can happen in L1 with a few specific linguistic forms. 

Munro and Derwing begin by analysing some of the reasons pronunciation work is not (effectively) addressed in the lesson: a) the belief that explicit instruction cannot possibly be effective; b) the influence of communicative language teaching tenets, that leave learners to their own devices when it comes to pronunciation; c) lack of training in pronunciation teaching. 

Regarding the first reason, the authors quote research findings that prove that explicit instruction does make a difference in learners' performance. These studies appear as a response to the claim that most pronunciation changes are to be made during the first year of residency in the foreign country (remember that this is an English as L2 context), as this is the period where fossilization could become decisive.

A very interesting study reported is that of Derwing, Munro and Wiebe (1998), in which three groups of learners received differentiated instruction: 1) suprasegmental; 2) segmental; 3) no training. The first group rated higher in fluency and comprehensibility, but got no improvement in accent ratings. The chart below by Derwing and Munro (in Grant, 2014) discusses the dimensions for L2 evaluation that they propose:

Derwing & Munro (in Grant, 2014)

One of the most interesting features, I believe, that these authors address is the interdependence of these variables. In my context I struggle with advanced students who could rate perhaps high in accentedness and still render unintelligible speech. I also see fluency problems in advanced students, even when their control over segments appears to be pretty native-like. As a pronunciation instructor, I do wonder at times whether I may be overlooking some of these aspects in my teaching of pronunciation for speaking and reading...especially since my teaching context values accentedness as a goal over perhaps other variables....

Another interesting question that the authors address is related to what makes pronunciation instruction effective.  Apart from the usual perception-production relation already reported in the research, the authors highlight the proper selection of features to teach, following an intelligibility criterion, and they also make a very important point of corrective feedback. This may not come as a surprise to those of us who have been doing this for years, but it is clear to me that correction may be seen as many teachers as an "intrusion" into learner space. This is, I guess, because of the physical nature of pronunciation, whereas all other skills that can be corrected "on paper" do not seem to suffer the same fate. Most teachers would not object to picking a red pen or pencil and giving corrective feedback on the page. This opens up a whole new debate, of course, when it comes to feedback on something which is so physical and so personal as one's accent (worth a million blog posts!)...

Another study included in this chapter was related to student success in de-fossilising speech towards better comprehensibility and intelligibility, even after a long time of residence (10 years, even) in the foreign country.

This chapter finishes with a few suggestions. I would like to quote a very interesting point made by the authors to shed light on what they propose to solve this issue:

"years of input from their (L2) own speech patterns contributes to fossilization because the learners come to establish their own perceptual categories for segments and for prosodic phenomena. These deeply engrained representations make it difficult to change pronunciation patterns" (Derwing & Munro in Grant, 2014)

The first thing these researchers believe should be done in the classroom is, precisely, draw students' attention of their own version versus other more intelligible forms, and train their perception. This is a key aspect of what we do in Lab 1 at College, as we need to teach students to "de-automatise", "de-fossilize", and "un-learn" past habits and targets towards new perceptual and also motor habits. It's indeed a "painful" process, and at times tinted by psycho-social aspects as well. Quite a challenge, methinks!

The second invitation the authors make is, of course, give explicit corrective feedback, not only from teachers, but also from peers. Another suggestion in the conclusion includes choosing the right focus, deciding on pronunciation priorities based on the course and students being taught (which I have addressed in these posts on pronunciation goals: part 1, part 2). One way of approaching this includes considering the relative functional load of pronunciation features, based on the list of criteria drawn by Catford (1987). The next tip for effective pronunciation instruction relates to the use of authentic language over focus on citation forms, and working both on shadowing and mirroring techniques. The use of technology is also put forward, though the presence of the teacher as a judicious guide and feedback-provider needs to be highlighted whenever technological resources appear. The last piece of advice by Derwing and Munro warns teachers against the presence of early fossilization, that is, teachers need to act before fossilization has a chance to seize our students!

***

Hope you have found these comments useful, and interesting.

The next posts will review the chapters that follow. Stay tuned!

Report on the Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference (#PTLC2015) at UCL. August 5-7th, 2015 - Part 1

I have just attended another fabulous conference, this time, on the teaching and learning of Phonetics at University College London. I was also blessed with the opportunity of presenting my own paper! PTLC takes place every two years, and as with other conferences the papers submitted are subjected to blind review by the academic commitee (hopefully the proceedings will be published soon!). In the meantime, you can read about the conference and check previous proceedings here.

In this post, I will be talking about some of the presentations I would like to comment on (as usual, any misinterpretations are my own). If you want to get a deferred "feel" of what the conference was like, you may want to see the Storify collection of live- tweets that Jane Setter put together (scroll to the very bottom of this post - and yes, there was some hectic tweeeting!)

This first post is on Day 1. 

Day 1: August 5th

The conference kicked off with University of Reading's Jane Setter's presentation of her "flipped learning" experience in her Phonetics courses at graduate and undergraduate levels. This methodology basically consists in making the most of class-time for practical and problem-solving tasks while assigning videotaped lectures and practical tasks with key as homework. There were some interesting references to the well-known Bloom's taxonomy, and also to Dale's 1969Cone of Experience, a thought-provoking approach to types of learning tasks that may contribute to the increase of retention types. Jane discussed the results of her assessment tasks with the flipped and "unflipped" (?) classes, with a marked improvement for students in the former, except for the dictation tasks. (Dictations and decoding tasks are always a problem, if you ask me! This does deserve a whole new post!)

Shawn Nissen from Brigham Young University also reported on a blended learning experience with large Phonetics classes (for Speech Therapy trainees, if I remember correctly) consisting of, among other things, lots of self-paced theoretical and practical tasks with key, leading to online assessment tasks (of which an 80% success grade should be achieved). I found it particularly interesting, and challenging as well, that many of the materials for decoding included audio files containing noise levels, and also disordered speech. There were also some true and realistic remarks worth recalling, such as the fact that Phonetics teaching needs to be orderly and it needs a "unique learning environment"and set of techniques we may not find when teaching other subjects.

Alice Yin Wa Chan introduced some of her own ideas to bring variety into the Phonetics classroom, including the use of water bottles as an analogy to draw students' awareness of the cavities, shapes, amplification in the vocal tract. She also found ways of connecting students' cultural practices (like the use of acronyms to describe their relationship status) to minimal pairs, and a reference to Peter Roach's comparison of allophones to different styles in handwriting.

Gwen Brekelmans discussed the results of her study on a group of Dutch learners of English at University and compared the effects of lack of explicit pronunciation instruction in two groups, one group of learners who had taken their "year abroad" experience, and others who had instruction for two years but were not trained during their third year. Once instruction had stopped for the second group of learners, subjects showed a clear deterioration of their foreign accent, especially in vowels. Those students spending a year abroad did show a bit more improvement. In all cases it was found that pronunciation of English as an L2 did not remain fully stable after instruction (which is exactly what happens with many of my teacher trainees once they graduate, sadly. Lots of pondering to do in this respect. It is definitely something worth giving a thought...)

Eva Estebas made a truly interesting presentation (fitting timely and perfectly with my current personal interests!) on an adaptation of ToBI and the School of London's nuclear configurations to teach intonation and help learners work autonomously at a graduate distance programme (big challenge, if you ask me!). Eva called this special concoction "TL_ToBI" (Tone and Break Indices for Teaching and Learning), and I would say she collected the best of both approaches, focusing on the connections between metrical and tonal structure, and the notation and visual aids for ToBI, and the tune description and nuclear configurations of the British School. Estebas reported an improvement in students' perception and production of English Intonation after employing this new approach.

***

Here ends my Day 1 report on PTLC. More on this great conference coming up soon!

In the meantime, take a peek at this wonderful collection of tweets!

#IATEFL2015 Online Coverage #2: Interview to Luke Meddings

Part of the IATEFL Manchester Conference 2015 online experience included interviews with many delegates and presenters. In a previous post, I reviewed an interview with David Crystal. I would like to briefly comment on the 6-minute conversation a British Council presenter held with Luke Meddings this time. As usual, my own input, in a different colour.

Being 12,000 km away, I did not get to see Meddings' talk, which I was told was hilarious, but I would be happy to hear or read about it online, if anyone out there wants to report on it! (There's a brief reference to his talk and other pron talks in Mark Hancock's blog, BTW)

The interview with Luke Meddings, available here, begins with some points of reflection about the way we feel when we speak another language, the idea of being "frozen up", filled with anxiety, fearful of making mistakes. As the interviewer points out, at times it is this fear or anxiety that may lead us to focus on form, and forget meaning. This is something I generally notice with my advanced students at College: they are so concerned with sounds, or even with their own intonation patterns, that it just sounds as if they are reading "patterns" (as one of my colleagues says), reading a set of marks on the page, totally devoid of meaning. I was just thinking of David Brazil's (1980, 1997) notion of oblique orientation here. And not because my students, necessarily, use many level tones, but because their approach is oblique, even when using fall-rises, or rises! Their concern with form and accuracy is stronger than the expression of meaning and the need to address an audience. Moreover, I generally notice many learners making appropriate choices of tone and nucleus in their reading aloud experiences who fail to get the message across! And this, again, is connected to some features that I sometimes fear we may neglect when teaching pronunciation, and even when teaching speaking skills in general: the contribution of paralinguistic features to the overall meaning, and mood, of a text. 

The approach that Meddings suggests appears to address some of these paralinguistic concerns, as he takes up the idea of "impersonation" through body language and gesture, as well as breath and volume control, as a "key" to pronunciation. From what the interview shows, Meddings appears to have got the "hang" of voice quality and articulatory setting features of different people, like the Queen, or John Lennon, and even makes use of chewing gum to aid his impersonation. I remember students talking about impersonation techniques for English learning used in some English institutes in Buenos Aires. Students were asked to pick a celebrity they liked on their very first day, and they adopted this "second personality" throughout their studies. So one of my students was "Ginger Rogers", and that is what she was called by her teachers during her lessons, for six good years! In spite of the fact that this student did not entirely approve of the method, she said that this approach made her feel safe, as it was "Ginger" who was making mistakes, and not herself. Interesting.

Part of Meddings' premise is that we should learn to "let go", as pronunciation is physical and feedback can get on our skin. Once again, there is an invitation for learners to "find their own way of speaking English their own way". I have been thinking about these issues for quite some time, issues related to the "ownership of your interlanguage accent", to the challenge of "finding your own voice", and I have decided to put some of these ideas into a podcast-like post, coming soon, called "Your Accent, Your Patronus" (Yes, another Harry Potter reference! <3).

All in all, the interview gives us a taste of Luke Meddings' style, and it is always enriching to see other ways of doing pronunciation work in the classroom.

#IATEFL2015 online coverage #1: Interview with David Crystal

As a Manchester, IATEFL 2015 registered blogger, I have to admit I have not had the time to catch up the way I would have liked to, but here I am, with my first report.

This time, I'll be talking about an interview with David Crystal (available here), which of course, was the obvious choice for me to start!

As usual, a bit of a report of what was said, and my own input, in a different colour.

***

The Crystals have been pretty active in this 450th celebration of Shakespeare's wonders, and they have been busy publishing materials for all our enjoyment. The illustrated Shakespearian dictionary is mentioned by David, with a few interesting tips and tricks regarding our approach to Shakespeare in the classroom:

• Shakespearean language has to be learned in context, and we need to have the pictures in our head of what these words represent in order to make sense of the images Shakespeare so very skillfully presents!
• Before approaching the play on paper with your students, see it on stage or watch a DVD! I looooved this bit of advice. Watching "a book" on DVD/YouTube/stage should not be a "sin" or a form of "cheating", it is yet another interpretation of the book in print through the eyes of the semiotic systems of image, sound, motion, and I agree entirely that this is a valid way of going about it!
• Act a bit of Shakespeare in the classroom. Nothing more exciting, methinks!

Now off to my personal favourite bit: Original Pronunciation. I've written about this in my review post of the latest Crystals' book here, but I would like to write down some of the points David raises in this interview.

David reminds us that the powerful resource of rhyme in Shakespeare's sonnets (because if I remember correctly blank verse does not rhyme except in the last verses of each scene?! Do I remember my Shakespeare?!) does "not appear to work in Modern English". We all remember the lovely Sonnet 116, and the supposed rhyming pair "loved"-"proved" [lʌvd - pru:vd], which in OP would be something like [lɤvd - prɤvd]. You can hear more about it here:

Crystal invites us to experience Original Pronunciation (OP) here:
http://originalpronunciation.com/

The last part of the interview leads us back to the "You Say Potato" book. Apart from retelling some bits from the book, David mentions the fact that the accent issue is complex, and that in order to faithfully represent the idea of how accents change, there had to be more than one person in the book, a "young person, and a slightly less young person". He mentions the fact that there will be an audiobook version later in the year (looking forward to it!)


There is an interesting discussion in the interview regarding the notion of accents. As we have heard countless times, accents are "all over the English speaking world" and they are "mixed". We are no longer speaking about RP as the norm, but as a "mixed or modified RP", what other authors called General British, which Crystal defines as "educated, understandable". This is a complex issue as well, in my opinion. Clearly, if you read the news, what the media sees as RP is the "Queen's English" or the "Public School English" which Cruttenden (2008) called "Refined RP" and is now termed "Conspicuous General British". I think this RP they may be talking about, spoken by 2% of the population, is not necessarily what we may call "General British" and of course, "Regional General British", which I associate more with universities and the media.  So when we say "RP", what are we really talking about? I would also question the use of the term "understandable", as my students would claim that it is General American that sounds "intelligible" to them, and not really British varieties, but it may be a problem of exposure. Worth another post!

Crystal then addresses learners of English by urging them to embrace the idea of keeping traces of their native language in the accent of English, except for "spies, who are the only ones who need to be anonymous" (LOL!). He sees English as a "garden of flowers", with each individual accent making a different variety and bringing colour to it (<3). David tells teachers that the priority should be students' clarity, and an approach to flexibility, that is, not focussing on teaching every single feature of an accent to students. He mentions, for example, the features of glottalisation (as in [hɒt -hɒʔ] and GOOSE-fronting (as in [ku:l - kʉ:l]), clear examples of the changes to General British, that ought to be accepted in the English classroom. Exposure to different accents as early as possible is key. Crystal does make a point as well of "knowing how to do it", that is, having the necessary tools to teach pronunciation of the accent(s) of choice. (Worth another post! #2)

As an answer to a question on the importance of stress and connected speech over the segmentals, David believes there is more an issue of complementarity. David also mentions the fact that if we look at the different Englishes around the world, 3/4 of the speakers actually employ syllable-timed versions of their accent, which is why, in his opinion, stress-timing as a teaching priority is actually outdated. The challenges to the "stress-timing" hypothesis have been going round since the early 1980s, including some papers by Peter Roach and Cauldwell, among many others. Very very interesting topic, by the way.

To conclude, Crystal presents some pieces of advice for teachers to "keep up with the times" by "listening, listening, listening" to English, to young speakers of English in the media, especially social media, in the understanding that the young speakers of the language are the ones pushing the language forward, the future parents of the future generations. He reminds us that we should not underestimate the power of Internet, as these generations take "screens as central, books as marginal".

All in all, a short, yet enjoyable interview, with that lovely accent of Crystals' (IMO) and his smooth, "surfable" intonation patterns (really worth teaching!), but first and foremost, with a very engaging discussion of hot topics which may at times be a bit "thorny" for teachers.

I expect to be able to report more on the online coverage of IATEFL 2015 soon!

A PS to my latest post: Pronunciation goals and models - Part 2: What the experts say

Pronunciation goals and models - Part 2 - What the experts say

In one of my latest posts, I discussed a number of key questions we should ask ourselves when deciding what accent to teach, what we would like our students to achieve, how we would like to go about it, among other issues for pronunciation planning.

In this post, I intend to briefly review what the "big names" in pronunciation teaching have said. As usual, some disclaimers acting as a "foreword":

• I will be mostly referring to "pronunciation goals", but I will also be including issues connected to "pronunciation models" as well.
• In spite of the fact that much of the current bibliography does not favour the terms "native" or "non-native", I will employ them in this post, for the sake of clarity.
• I have organised the information chronologically, from the latest editions of the materials reported, to the earliest.
• This is by far NOT all the bibliography on the topic, but I have decided to begin by referring to those materials which are very popular in the ELT world.
• I will not pass (explicit) judgement on the views presented by the authors. As I claim in my previous post, the teaching contexts that exist for English lessons are so vast, that a single answer, a single target, cannot be set as "universal", so I think that all these authors have a great contribution to make to the debate.

Brown, A. (2014). Pronunciation and Phonetics - Chapter 24 "Targets"

Brown establishes three "I"s in the setting up of pronunciation targets: Intelligibility, Image and Identity.

Intelligibility is seen as a "scalar continuum" including notions of both "intra-" and "inter" national range. Brown reviews notions of "restricted intelligibility" (Cruttenden, 2001) and "comfortable intelligibility" (Abercrombie, 1956). The author believes that the difference between these ideas lies on the original authors' standpoints: whereas Cruttenden on Gimson's behalf discusses the notion of intelligiblity from a native speaker's perspective, Jenkins (seen as represented by Abercrombie's view) responds to communication in English among non-native speakers. Brown also introduces another of Gimson's points: high acceptability. This is defined as "a level of attainment in production, which for the native listener, is as readily intelligible as that of a native RP speaker and which is not immediately recognizable as foreign" (Cruttenden 1995: 276). Brown comments on the fact that acceptability is generally put together with intelligibility, and poses the question "intelligible and acceptable to whom?".

The second "I" is "image", and it has got to do with the way non-native speakers of English want to be perceived by others (a sort of "face giving" idea, I guess).

The third "I" refers to "identity", and it covers a very important aspect regarding accents, which other authors refer to "ego permeability": how much of the foreign accent you want to attain in order to keep your "identity", your idea of self. 

Quoting Tabouret-Keller (1985), Brown acknowledges that linguistic behaviour has a role to play in both personal identity and social roles, which is why all these three "I"s are in fact, in tension. This continuum of targets has been presented by Brown, thus:

Cruttenden, A (2014). Gimson's Pronunciation of English . (8th Edition) - Chapter 13

Cruttenden first acknowledges that even though RP (GB) used to be the native-speaker accent taken as the norm in ELT, nowadays it competes with other native accents, such as General American (GA) or Australian English. The author admits that many English language users have "no realistic possibility or necessity to acquire a standard native-like accent" (p.327). Those learners using English as a Lingua Franca or as an L2 may want to acquire an "Amalgam English" accent, "based on an amalgam of native speaker Englishes, together with some local features arising from a local L1". Likewise, they may want to use what is known as "International English". Cruttenden admits the distinction between these Englishes would not be easy to make, and associates the former variety to a "hybrid between American and British varieties, and possibly varieties from the southern hemisphere and the Caribbean as well....and transfer from the local L1". International English includes features of Amalgam English plus tolerating "a much wider adaptation to features common in other languages".

Companion website to this textbook: http://www.routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781444183092/ppractice.php

Derwing, T and M. Munro (2014) "Accent and intelligibility: cracking the conundrum". In Speak Out, Issue 50 (pp. 12-16).

These authors present a number of studies aimed at discussing perceptions of non-native accents of English. They discuss the notion of intelligibility as "the degree of a listener’s actual comprehension of an utterance", and cross-compare it with perceptions of comprehensibility "listeners’ perceptions of how easy or difficult it is to understand speech" and accentedness, the "the result of differences in speech patterns compared to a local variety". They have found that many samples of speech rating high in accentedness were also highly intellibigle, thus, both features are seen to be independent. Comprehensibility, however, is more closely connected to intelligibility, though still retaining some independence as well. The authors summarise the role of these three variables, thus: "accent is about difference; comprehensibility concerns the listener’s effort; and intelligibility is the end result: how much the listener actually understands (Munro, 2008)". 

Derwing and Munro advocate explicit pronunciation instruction but with the right focus on intelligibility and comprehensibility, as at times focusing on reducing accentedness may lead to a neglect of these other factors, more essential for communication, or threaten a learner's identity, the authors claim. Plus, the authors believe that many features of accent are non-volitional, and thus, "outside the speaker's control". Therefore, they believe that "if one is intelligible and comprehensible, one’s expression of identity will be more effective", so in other words, training on these first features will enhance the possibilities for self-expression. Derwing and Munro also point out that communication is two-way, and listeners also have an important bearing on the whole process, so their willingness to contribute to the process and leave aside prejudice is essential. 

More research is needed, the authors conclude, to establish the weight of the different variables in different contexts of communication and instruction.

Rogerson-Revell, P. (2011) English Phonology and Pronunciation Teaching - Chapter 14

This author invites us to ask ourselves a few questions in order to reflect about our "gut feelings" regarding foreign accents:

• Imagine you are talking in your first language to a NNS. The person doesn't speak your language ver well and is difficult to understand. What do you do?
• What do you say when the NNS apologises for their poor accent?
• How do you feel when a NNS pronounces your name wrong?
• How do you feel when you meet a NNS who speaks you language with a near perfect accent?

Rogerson-Revell acknowledges the complexity of the targets issue, and reminds the reader that "pronunciation can be a more sensitive area of language learning than other areas, such as grammar and vocabulary, in that it involves modification of accent which can raise issues of attitude and identity". Rogerson refers to the view of Kenworthy 1987 and Roach 2000 regarding the "need for teachers to acquire a high level of proficiency in target language pronunciation", while "willing to consider ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) goals for students". These conflicting interests add to the goal of intelligiblity, the ideas of performance and proficiency as well.

Rogerson-Revell's academic webpage: http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/education/people/pamela-rogerson-revell

Walker, R. (2010) Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca - Chapter 1

Walker vastly reviews bibliography and statistics that prove that English is a global language, and that non-native speakers of English are by far more likely to communicate with other non-native speakers of English than with speakers of English as an L1. This author believes that "the primary goal of teaching pronunciation must now be to make learners intelligible to the greatest number of people possible, and not just to the native speakers of the language". Added to this, Walker remarks that "many users from Expanding Circle may want to retain their local accent as a mark of their identity". (BTW, the "Expanding Circle" refers to one of the layers of Krachu's 1985 model describing the profiles of English users, consisting of "those countries where English is neither a first language, a second language, nor an official language" (Walker, 2010:4)).

As regards the ideas of intelligibility and identity, Walker refers to Kirkpatrick's (2007) continuum of functions, going from "mutual intelligibility" towards "identity". Apart from these two goals, Walker includes Dalton and Seildhofer's (1994) reference to the notion of "teachability". These three goals need to be considered in an ELF approach, as the "Lingua Franca Core", the set of features of pronunciation set up as essential to ensure successful communication among non-native speakers of English also ensures teachability (as they can be achieved through classroom teacing) and identity, as learners can retain features of their local accents, Walker states.

More on ELF and the LFC:

Robin Walker's blog: https://englishglobalcom.wordpress.com/

Laura Patsko and Katy Simpson's blog: https://elfpron.wordpress.com/

Jenkins, J (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language.OUP.

Celce-Murcia, M., D. Brinton and J. Goodwin (2010) - Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages - (2nd Ed) - Chapter 1

The authors review a number of groups of English learners that require a high level of intelligibility: "foreign language assistants; foreign born technical, business and professional employees; international business people and diplomats; refugees in resettlement and vocational training programmes; teachers of English as a foreign language who are non-native speakers of the language (who expect to serve as the major model and source of input in English for their students); people in non-English-speaking countries working as tour-guides, hotel staff, customs agents."

However, they acknowledge that in spite of this need for high intelligibility, a native-like pronunciation can be an unrealistic goal. The authors believe that learners should be able to "surpass the threshold level so that their pronunciation will not detract from their ability to communicate" (p.8)

Preview of 1st edition: http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=twC-H4a8VcYC&printsec=frontcover

Donna Brinton's numerous presentation slides: http://es.slideshare.net/brinton

Hewings, M (2004) Pronunciation Practice Activities - Introduction

In the introduction to the really valuable set of activities in this book, Hewings presents a number of questions. One of those questions is related to the accent that students should be taught, which depends on:

• the contexts that the students will be using English at
• the low or high status of certain varieties in the teaching context
• the inclination students may have to speak a certain variety
• the teaching materials available
• the accent the teacher her/himself happens to have.

Hewings presents a distinction between a model as a "target" (a pronunciation standard to which students or the teacher select or aspire to), and one as a "point of reference" (a model presented as an acceptable guide, as long as it does not interfere with communication)

The second question relates to "how good" our students' pronunciation should get. This is a key question in the bibliography, as the "native speaker" is no longer the rule when it comes to English for communication, and Hewings also claims that some students may not even find this "desirable", or it may not be really "achievable". This author believes that an "appropriate and reasonable goal is to achieve an English pronunciation which is usually understandable in international communication, but retains unobtrusive features of a non-English accent". 

However, Hewings alerts the readers to the fact that there are a few factors that may influence our choice of features and targets. The fact that younger learners can easily "pick up" foreign accent features, for example, may lead us to aim for a more "native like" variety if we wished. Another feature Hewings considers is the "tolerance or experience" of the interlocutors our learners will be interacting with.

Books by Martin Hewings: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Speaking-Pronunciation-Martin-Hewings/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A714274%2Cp_lbr_books_authors_browse-bin%3AMartin%20Hewings

Kelly, G (2000). How to Teach Pronunciation - Chapter 2

Kelly defines pronunciation model as "the pronunciation characteristics of the language a teacher presents to learners in the classroom". This author makes a point of the fact that teachers need to be aware of different variants and accents of English, and of the present role of RP as well. He concludes that teachers can "work on issues of production and reception independently, enabling students to understand a wide range of varieties, while allowing them to choose their own target model so long as it is widely comprehensible". As a final piece of advice, Kelly suggests that teachers should "teach what they know and use, and be as informed as they can be about other varieties".

Gerald Kelly's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/GeraldKellywork

Pennington, M (1996) Phonology in English Language Teaching - Introduction & Chapter 6

Pennington adopts a "variationist approach" to teaching phonology, which implies that "learner's individual circumstances should dictate the targets of language learning". The author proposes exposing learners to "multiple models of English phonology" and then involve them actively in "deciding what they will learn and in developing their own learning process" to enhance "collection, not correction" (Esling, 1987).

Pennington believes that the most pressing goal is intelligibility, and that this dictates the need for feedback in the lesson, no matter how much explicit instruction on pronunciation may be given. As the learner advances from beginning to intermediate levels, the author presents the need to consider other goals, such as fluency, and also accuracy in terms of "audience-determined norms". For some speakers, Pennington claims, functioning in the target culture also entails "mastering those aspects of pronunciation that define a person's attitude, mood, orientation to the audience and the topic, and other basic characteristics of the speaker's personal, social and cultural orientation" (p.221). The author goes further to say that these speakers may need to focus on "casual and expressive ability in phonology" to avoid being assessed as "stand-offish" or "unfriendly".

Like previous authors, Pennington considers that the decisions on goals begin from intelligibility and can then be further defined in terms of "what is feasible under the constraints of the course (...) and in the context of other decisions about what to teach and on what schedule" (p.222)

More books by M. Pennington: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AMartha%20C.%20Pennington

Kenworthy, J (1987) Teaching English Pronunciation - Chapters 1 and 2

Kenworthy recognises that native-like pronunciation may be an inadequate goal, given that many learners have "practical" aims for learning English. Those who strive for native-like pronunciation may do so because of an occupation-related priority, including teachers, who may want to not only approximate this goal, but who should also become exposed to as many varieties of English as possible.

A realistic goal for the general language learner according to Kenworthy is to become "comfortably intelligible". The use of the word "comfortable" refers to the interlocutor's "tolerance" in trying to understand the message put forward by the non-native speaker. Intelligibility is defined by the author as "being understood by a listener at a given time in a given situation" (p.13), and it is measured in terms of how many words can be understood. Kenworthy believes that this aim may be "close enough" to a native-like goal in terms of contrasts that would enable a native-listener "match the sound heard with the sound (or feature) a native speaker would use without too much difficulty", thus intelligibility is dependent on "counts of sameness". Intelligibility is closely related to successful communication in terms of "efficiency, effectiveness and speaker's intentions".

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This humble selection of readings has presented some of the most important points in the "pronunciation goals and models" debate. The key issues raised include:

• intelligibility: comfortable? restricted? international? intranational?
• identity and ego-permeability, image and accentedness
• acceptability
• comprehensibility
• native vs non-native interlocutors
• native-like accent norms
• model as "target" or "point of reference"
• efficiency, effectiveness and speaker intentions
• occupational-related goals
• perception vs production
• teachability and attainability

Want to read more?

• "Goals in Teaching English Pronunciation", by JC Wells.
• "Goals of English Pronunciation Instruction", by Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani
• "Utopian Goals for Pronunciation Teaching" by Tracey Derwing

Have you read other sources? Share them with us in the "Comments" box below!