Can pronunciation be taught? A review of research and implications for teaching

Abstract

Pronunciation teaching has often been relegated to a subsidiary role of broader language performance skills such as speaking and listening, but in the past few years instruction on specific features of the spoken language have been reassessed and consequently fostered in many programs. Many teachers, nonetheless, remain skeptical about the teachability of pronunciation, and in consequence continue to consider explicit pronunciation instruction of relatively little importance in their practice. This paper offers a comprehensive review of twenty five empirical studies that explore the effect of pronunciation instruction, and their implications for teaching, in a reasoned attempt to reconsider the role of this area of the spoken language in the teaching practice.