Teaching Spanish Pronunciation
Research shows that pronunciation is active not only when speaking aloud, but when reading, listening, writing or remembering events or numbers (Underhill 2010). Pronunciation also has a strong impact on language learners’ self-esteem. In the field of Spanish language teaching, however, the persistence of certain myths related to the teaching of pronunciation has contributed to this feature not receiving much attention. Traditionally, there is the idea that Spanish is a phonetic language whose pronunciation does not need to be taught (Poch Olivé, 2004). Thus, pronunciation is not fully integrated into the course content of the OU Spanish modules either despite the fact that Spanish pronunciation is quite challenging for native speakers of English.
As Module Chair of L194 Beginners’ Spanish, via the monitoring of the feedback provided in speaking assignments, I have evidence that some tutors lack confidence on how to advise on the oral aspects of the learning, particularly, on how to tackle systematic pronunciation errors. This doesn’t mean that tutors are unable to answer queries related to pronunciation, but many of them find it hard to distinguish foreign accent form pronunciation errors, as well as to give systematic graded support in the acquisition of pronunciation. This project aims to better identify tutors’ professional development needs with regard to teaching Spanish pronunciation at any level, and in this way to contribute to changing our curriculum so that pronunciation is meaningfully integrated into the course content. This is very timely as the remake of the new level 3 Spanish module L336 has just started and the remake of the beginners’ Spanish module L106 is to start in 2020/21.
Cite items from this project
Funding
Praxis
Project lead(s)
Zsuzsanna Bárkányi
Team members
Pedro Barriuso-Algar ; Helena González-Ruiz
Authorship group
- Academic - Central
Project reference number
PRAXIS 2020/21 13 - ZB
Project start date
Project end date
Project status
Completed
Institutional priority category
- Achieving Study Goals
- Students Learning Experiences
Themes
- Inclusive Curriculum
- Student Academic Experience
Subject discipline
- Languages and Applied Linguistics
Project web site
Project findings and recommendations
Reviewers agreed that the course was thorough and well structured, the objectives were clear and convincing. It has a strong theoretical base and explains complex phonological topics in an accessible way which will allow practitioners to make better informed choices when designing pronunciation activities. Although there is a wide variety of materials (including charts, tables, links to relevant websites) and activities (including audio activities with sample answers, which will be of great usefulness for teachers of Spanish), it has been found to be a bit “too silent”, that is, practitioners would appreciate more audio-visual aids. The key points that were identified as potential extensions to the course were the following: • The course would benefit from more audio files – not only Spanish, but also English - to illustrate the problems and topics that are explained. A glossary might also be helpful. • Practitioners need more ideas for exercises, a “book” of levelled activities. They would benefit from a range of tried and tested pronunciation activities. (Note that this was not the aim of the present course.) • The phonological differences between Spanish and English are worth pointing out. However, attention should be paid to the fact that an increasing number of learners of Spanish are not native speakers of English. • Students should be exposed to a variety of accents, apart of course from that of their tutor or teacher. The course might put more emphasis on the varieties and their implications for pronunciation (and listening). The semi-structured interviews shed light on the following: • How to identify and correct pronunciation errors is a problem for many Spanish teachers. The course would benefit from a section on techniques for correcting pronunciation (on segmental and suprasegmental level). • A bank of resources with levelled activities (in accordance with the CEFR levels) would be a huge help for Spanish teachers. It would also be helpful for teachers if there were more ideas on how to integrate the teaching of pronunciation into the regular teaching, when to teach it and how to link it to the teaching of other skills and language content (grammar, vocabulary). • The link between the teaching of pronunciation and listening comprehension could be more explicit, and activities for the latter could be included as well. • A section on different pronunciation teaching methods would also be beneficial, as the course only focuses on the verbo-tonal method. Recommendations As the ultimate goal of the present project is to improve and enhance the learning experience of students and to enable them to achieve their study goals, several actions have already been taken as a result of the findings, and more will be implemented in future modules (see below). At the National Associate Lecturer Conference in January 2021 I held a workshop where a number of pronunciation teaching techniques were presented as well as criteria to consider when teaching pronunciation: e.g., whether to treat pronunciation as a separate or an integral language skill, whether the aim is to acquire an intelligible pronunciation or a native-like one what the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches are (intuitive-imitative approach, analytic-linguistic approach). This was followed by a sharing best practice session where we discussed how pronunciation teaching activities can be implemented in distance and online teaching. It became evident again that error correction is a sensitive issue in pronunciation teaching, on the one hand, because teachers might find it hard to identify pronunciation errors and, on the other, they would like to make corrections without provoking anxiety. As a response to this, I created a template for tutors on L194 that helps them identify systematic pronunciation difficulties at A1, A2 level. I also created screencasts for students on L194 to help them prepare their oral TMAs. As a result, the average scores on the oral TMAs (TMA01 and TMA03) were 3% higher than in 19J. I developed a detailed pronunciation syllabus for L106 (the new Beginners Spanish module) to help authors systematically integrate pronunciation teaching into the course. I recommend to organise a Teaching Forum where Module Teams could consider the following topics: • What the benefits of explicit pronunciation teaching are • Identify the barriers and possibilities of teaching pronunciation online • Address pronunciation teaching techniques • How to approach pronunciation errors
Keyword(s)
Online learning ; languages ; pronunciation ; teaching techniques ; linguistic approach ; academic achievement
