What Role Does Pronunciation Play In Teaching Essay

Assignment 5
1. There are some teachers who think pronunciation should not be taught explicitly, that it is acquired naturally. What is your opinion?

In a context where students do not have an external input to listen to the language, as it is the case of a FL where students can only listen to English inside the classroom, I think it is necessary to teach pronunciation. In a non-English speaking country, the only environment and situation in which students can listen to and practice English is in class and they have a limited time for it as the teacher is forced to follow a curriculum and, in most of the cases, there is no room for practicing. I think that the curriculum should be more flexible, so that practicing and incorporating more time for developing pronunciation could be possible. On the other hand, in an English-speaking atmosphere, this might not be necessary as students would have enough input to acquire pronunciation naturally, although I think students should learn some basis in class and then develop their abilities by themselves.

2. What role does pronunciation play in your teaching?
Pronunciation plays a very important role in my teaching. I do not want my students to learn a single dialect or to have a native-like pronunciation,

In my opinion, in Spanish-speaking learners it is more effective to narrow the field of pronunciation and to focus on common errors that Spanish speakers make while speaking English. In my opinion, it is important to teach basic mistakes like that in English it is not necessary to add an e before an s in words like “story” or “Spain”; that there are many different vowel sounds and not just five like in Spanish; the correct use and pronunciation of schwa; /ŋ/ pronunciation; the differences between /b/ and /v/ sounds; how to correctly pronounce /sh/ sound in words like “she” or the use in English of unstressed syllables and weak