Practical Understandings: Teachers' Beliefs And Practices In Pronunciation Teaching

Abstract

Recent discussion regarding pronunciation teaching and the global expansion of English use have encouraged formal English education in the EFL/expanding circle countries.The present study involved three native English speaking teachers (NEST) and three non-native English speaking teachers (NNEST) in an elementary school of a EFL/Expanding Circle country. The study explores teachers' practices and beliefs of pronunciation teaching in terms of the teaching context (i.e. ESL, EFL or EIL), the teaching component: segmentals or suprasegmentals, their teaching approaches, and the differences between NESTs and NNESTs. The results revealed the teachers' EFL norm-bound beliefs and practices with little EIL inclination. Moreover, the NESTs and the NNESTs conceptualized pronunciation differently. They adopted different teaching approaches but both concentrated their teaching on the segmentals. Pedagogical reasons that account for this attitude were suggested. These results indicate gaps between the teachers and the academia and offer insights to in-service and pre-service teacher education.