Pronunciation teaching is often asked for by students and often avoided by teachers in the English language classroom. Like many newer teachers, I have felt intimidated by this skill set that students nearly always want to practice in class. I’m still learning, but along the way, I’ve become fascinated with the framework of English as a lingua franca (ELF), and what it might mean—or not mean—for the everyday ESOL teacher. This past September, I had the privilege of exploring the topic of teaching pronunciation with 30 teachers, language coaches, and administrators from around Latin America and the world at the Panama TESOL Annual Congress. In my workshop, entitled “Phonemes and Politics: Making Decisions About Teaching Pronunciation,” we talked about how pronunciation models play out in our classrooms based on our highly specific contexts, individual students, and teacher identities.

While native speaker models for English pronunciation are still prevalent ideals in classrooms around the world, ELF offers an alternative to this ideal or even the opportunity to reject it altogether. In contrast to General American and other native speaker models of pronunciation, ELF emphasizes intelligibility and comprehensibility in communication between nonnative speakers. ELF’s lingua franca core seeks to distinguish what is necessary for nonnative communication, requiring a different set of priorities for learning pronunciation than more native-speaker-modeled frameworks. The following chart briefly highlights some of the major differences between ELF and more traditional EFL/ESL English pronunciation models (see Jenkins, 2000, and Walker, 2010, for more details).

I present the above chart knowing that the dichotomies may be insufficiently nuanced—the distinction between a native and nonnative speaker, for example, is not always black and white. Comparing these two general frameworks, however, has challenged me to consider my classroom approaches to English pronunciation more thoughtfully. These approaches are useful and interesting to consider theoretically, but how can they inform my decisions about teaching pronunciation? Furthermore, what is the relationship between pronunciation and power, and how to do I, as a General American accented teacher who teaches mostly adult students from multiple linguistic backgrounds, facilitate pronunciation lessons that will help my students empower themselves?

At Panama TESOL, workshop participants and I explored these questions and ideas as supportive colleagues looking critically at our own contexts. To start the session, participants shared information on posters about their students, their teaching environments, and their own comfort levels with teaching English pronunciation. Below are some sample questions and responses demonstrating the incredible variety that was present in the room.

The question “whose pronunciation do you teach?” proved particularly relevant when juxtaposed with the diversity of types of students and learning contexts. A language coach working for a U.S. company’s call center in Panama deals with the reality of callers complaining and asking for “someone who can speak English.” A K–12 international school teacher uses ELF among her students. A Panamanian adult education teacher working with all native Spanish speakers focuses on the English language issues most common and familiar to that background. Working within their diverse contexts, teachers present a variety of pronunciation models. Choices about models may be influenced by the teacher’s English-speaking identity, the expectations of students and other stakeholders, and the relationship between English and power within the students’ contexts, among seemingly countless other factors.

Add your own teaching identity and context to the mix, and ask yourself what this means for you. Why do you teach pronunciation the way that you do? In Panama, we discussed a series of more specific questions about the teacher, the students, and the context that I hope will be thought-provoking for you as well. Perhaps you will think of your own questions to add.

Questions About the Teacher

• Who am I—where am I from and what variety of English do I speak?
• Do I define myself as a native or nonnative speaker or something in between or beyond?
• What are my goals for this class? What do I want students to be able to do?
• How comfortable do I feel teaching pronunciation in general?
• How comfortable do I feel teaching variations of English that I don’t speak?
• What beliefs and attitudes do I hold about different varieties of English and different accents?
• Do I agree with my students about English varieties and accents?
• How well am I able to get to know individual students while teaching within my context?
  
  

Questions About the Student (Students Are Individuals!)

• Who is she—where is she from and what is her native language? How does her prior first and additional language learning affect her learning of English?
• Where does he live now, where will he live in the future, and what are his goals for learning English?
• Does she want to be in my class? Does she want to speak and be spoken to in English?
• Will he be communicating in English outside of the classroom, and if so, will it be primarily with native speakers or nonnative speakers?
• What are her goals for learning pronunciation in particular—does she want to pursue a particular standard?
• How does he feel about his accent in English, and how is accent linked to his identity?
• What is her attitude towards the English language?
• How old is he?
  
  

Questions About the Context

• Are we in an inner circle, outer circle, or expanding circle country?
• What power does the English language hold in my context?
• Does a particular English variation or accent give people access to more or less power and opportunity?
• What is the ratio of native speakers to nonnative speakers of English in this context (or is this even definable)?
• How does my institution want me to teach pronunciation?
  
  

Teachers who know why they teach pronunciation the way that they do in a particular time and place can also discuss their rationales with students, inviting students into the process of making decisions about teaching and learning. There is much to explore not only about phonemes, stress, and intonation, but also about the situated power of the English language and how students can best take ownership of the language for their own success.

References

Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Walker, R. (2010). Teaching the pronunciation of English as a lingua franca. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Jennifer Guterman has an MA in TESOL from SIT Graduate Institute and an MA in English literature from Boston College. She is currently an adjunct professor at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, Massachusetts and in the University Preparation Program at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, USA.