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Experienced teachers' perspectives on priorities for improved intelligible pronunciation: The case of J apanese learners of E nglish
Author(s) -
Saito Kazuya
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of applied linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.712
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1473-4192
pISSN - 0802-6106
DOI - 10.1111/ijal.12026
Subject(s) - pronunciation , syllabus , psychology , exploratory research , point (geometry) , construct (python library) , scale (ratio) , mathematics education , ranking (information retrieval) , pedagogy , linguistics , computer science , sociology , artificial intelligence , mathematics , philosophy , physics , geometry , quantum mechanics , anthropology , programming language
The current study was designed as an exploratory investigation of the usefulness of experienced teachers' perspectives as a means to identify teaching and learning priorities for a particular group of L2 learners (i.e. native speakers of J apanese ( NJs ) learning E nglish in EFL settings) to acquire intelligible pronunciation. A total of 120 experienced teachers (61 native speakers of E nglish ( NEs ) and 59 NJs ) rated 25 problematic features on a 5‐point scale ranging from “very important to teach ” to “ not very important to teach.” The ordered ranking suggests the teachers' opinion is that the syllabus needs to include not only (a) pronunciation problems which are generally problematic in other ESL / EFL classrooms but also (b) sound features which are highly specific to NJs . The construct validity of the experienced teachers' judgment will be discussed in light of relevant findings in L2 pronunciation research.