Essay About Teaching English Pronunciation

When teaching a foreign language, a teacher usually encounters many problems and difficulties, but when we find ourselves in the position of teaching English as a second or a foreign language, one of the most problematic skills we must face is speaking. Teaching speaking can become a very complex task and sets out many dilemmas like whether to teach or not to teach pronunciation to English learners. First of all, we should take into account that pronunciation is a fundamental aspect in an effective oral production of English and it is essential for an effective communication, which is the final goal while teaching and learning a language. As Peter Watkins writes in Learning to teach English, “…poor pronunciation can impede communication very quickly” (50). Thus, the dilemma seems to be very clear; the question is not whether to teach pronunciation, but rather how to teach it. English is one of the most difficult languages to pronounce as its pronunciation involves extremely difficult and

When teaching pronunciation, we should bear in mind what kind of students we are dealing with and we should consider mainly two factors in this field: their age and their background. Our teaching of English pronunciation will differ depending on whether we are dealing with children or older students as, as Simona Šebestová puts it in “Some aspects of assessing pronunciation in EFL classes”, “(f)rom the teacher‘s point of view, we assume, that for learning pronunciation the age of primary and lower-secondary level pupils is more convenient, as they are less shy and often more willing to do activities” (13). This means that when we work with children or younger students, they will tend to learn in a more unconscious way pronunciation through games or activities and they will usually be less influenced by their mother