How well English as a foreign language teacher education prepares teachers to teach pronunciation: A case study in Vietnam

Abstract

Pronunciation research has within the past three decades made a significant comeback with different strands focused on the effectiveness of explicit, systematic phonetic instruction on second language learners’ pronunciation accuracy. This line of research also sought to understand how well commercially available textbooks address pronunciation and how pronunciation activities are formatted and presented in such publications, how ESL/EFL teachers teach pronunciation in their English classes, and what pedagogical beliefs teachers hold about pronunciation instruction. In recent years, research has also started to examine learners’ perceptions about pronunciation teaching and learning in a range of educational settings. However, teachers learning to teach English pronunciation has received much less research attention. The current study extends this line of enquiry by investigating how well English as a foreign language teacher education prepares teachers to teach pronunciation through Vietnamese secondary EFL teachers’ narratives of their training experiences and how the teachers teach pronunciation in their English classes. The data set was obtained from three different sources, namely a questionnaire, academic transcripts, and individual semi-structured interviews with the teachers. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze qualitative data. The findings show that the teachers received insufficient training in pronunciation pedagogy but demonstrated a high level of confidence in teaching English pronunciation. Despite their confidence, the teachers’ pronunciation teaching centered on listenand-repeat activities and/or error correction due largely to the nature of testing and assessment practices at their schools. The results further reveal the teachers’ articulated beliefs about how teacher education in Vietnam could prepare EFL teachers, such that it needs to include courses focused on pronunciation practice and pronunciation pedagogy to prepare future secondary EFL teachers to teach English pronunciation competently after graduation. Important implications for practitioners, L2 teacher educators, language curriculum designers, L2 teacher education, and professional development will be discussed with reference to pronunciation pedagogy.