Student Teacher Perceptions of Pronunciation Tasks in Andalusia

Abstract

Within the development of the key competence of oral communication and spoken interaction in a foreign language, correct and intelligible pronunciation is a key concern. It is perhaps the case, however, that the time spent on enabling students to enhance this aspect of their communicative capacity has been given less systematic treatment than in other activities in the foreign language classroom. This paper discusses a number of key questions involved in the acquisition of accurate pronunciation in formal instructional settings and reports on the perceived effectiveness of activities aimed directly or indirectly at developing pronunciation. The study involves the retrospective assessment by 189 student teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Andalusia, to identify which classroom activities helped most to increase their pronunciation attainment and to examine why students in this context often fail to improve in this area.