Read more
Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: bestanden, University of Freiburg (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: When it comes to teaching English Pronunciation in the classroom a lot of teachers feel reluctant. The reasons might be a lack of instruction during their own studies of English or even a personal struggle with the topic because of its complexity and the fact that they are non-native speakers of English. Finding a good introductory lesson that evolves around one of the topics of pronunciation seems to be rather challenging. That might be because although a lot of the textbooks for learners of English offer some small exercises on pronunciation they do provide teachers with enough material to add-on to the units or to create a whole lesson. So even nowadays to find an English learner's classroom where pronunciation is taught in on a regular basis is a wishful thinking. Teachers have be aware of the fact that exercises on sounds, word and sentence stress, intonation and connected speech (elision and liaison) need to be part of the English lesson in order to prepare their students for the actual use of the target language in the real world without the protecting walls of the classroom. The fact that pronunciation is a part of language acquisition has long been neglected. It was seen as the finishing touch of learning English and therefore stood at the far end of the line. If students were highly motivated they went abroad or looked for a tandem partner to learn how to speak good English. But as prospective teachers me know of the importance of pronunciation and that students of the English language need to be introduced to its rules right from the beginning of the learning process. To speak an understandable and fluent English is a great part of mastering the language and therefore must not be neglected. Therefore, pronunciation is a highly important aspect of teaching English not just since it is part of the basic criteria needed to successfully communicate with native speakers of the but also to round off the skill of knowing English.
