'ESL Pronunciation Teaching: Could it Be More Effective?'

'1. Do we fatality to teach orthoepy?\nThe pendulum has swung back again, and approximately ESL teachers now assure that stated orthoepy instruct is an inborn part of manner of speaking courses. On the sensation hand, confidence with orthoepy completelyows learners the fundamental interaction with primordial speakers that is so prerequisite for all aspects of their linguistic development. On the new(prenominal) hand, poor orthoepy can screen otherwise correct language skills, condemn learners to less than their deserve social, academic and plow advancement.\nWhile in that respect is little uncertainness about teachers gustatory perception of the importance of pronunciation instruction, there is hitherto less precariousness about learners avow demand for trenchant pronunciation education: almost all learners rate this as a antecedency and an bea in which they posit to a greater extent guidance. For any stay sceptics, it may be worth in short rehearsing the following responses to reasons sometimes given for non program line pronunciation explicitly in an ESL program.\n\na) it is square that learners are very marvelous to attain a native-like accent - exactly their intelligibility can be greatly improve by in effect(p) pronunciation teaching;\n\nb) it is true up that pronunciation improves most with the gradual intuitive changes brought about by real interaction with native speakers - still for a large(p) proportion of ESL learners the skills that alter this type of interaction do not come by nature; most need a leg-up from explicit pronunciation teaching.\n\nc) it is true that it is offensive to bring down an accent norm to which learners must assimilate, and it is true that people should be free to evoke themselves in some(prenominal) accent they adopt - solely it is not true that\nthis exemption is given by withholding pronunciation teaching. On the contrary, it is sound pronunciation teaching that offers learne rs a real choice in how they express themselves.\n\n2. The chore: not whether to teach, but how to teach, pronunciation\n contempt widespread agr... '