ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ НАУКА И ИННОВАЦИОННЫЕ ИДЕИ В МИРЕ
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PRONUNCIATION MATERIALS
Yusupova Mubina
O'zbekiston tuman 2-son politexnikumi
Ingliz tili fani o’qituvchisi
INTRODUCTION
Pronunciation is increasingly popular in professional conferences where sessions are
often filled to overflowing. Similarly, pronunciation materials today show up in a wide
variety of sources. Baker and Murphy (2011) tell us that “the past decade has witnessed
an explosion in the number of … classroom textbooks; teacher’s manuals; classroom-
based research reports; teacher-training books; book chapters; journal articles; CD-
ROMs; videos, computer software; Internet resources, most of which are geared
directly toward ESL/EFL teachers” (p. 37). This explosion means that research into
pronunciation materials needs to be based on sound research and best practices. Grant
(1995) provided an early look at pronunciation materials development, but little
attention has been paid to this area until recently. This chapter presents principles that
should underlie pronunciation materials and then examines how four skills books
follow those principles.
Chapter I. Materials and Teachers
Contextual factor needs of learners and teachers
An important contextual factor is the needs of learners and teachers.Although the
needs of learners have been widely studied, the needs of teachers have not captured the
same attention . This is surprising because in school environments, teachers are the first
users of materials and make decisions about what to cover and what to leave
out.However, not all teachers have the same amount of experience, training, or
confidence. This may increase the influence of materials. Tomlinson (2005) even says
ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ НАУКА И ИННОВАЦИОННЫЕ ИДЕИ В МИРЕ
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Выпуск журнала №-69
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that coursebooks often control what is actually done in the classroom especially for
less experienced teachers that are more dependent on their coursebooks, while
experienced teachers like being flexible and selective in their choices of what to teach
(Tsui, 2003). Similarly, finds that many teachers did not “have the confidences to
challenge the authority of the coursebook” (p. 7). As a result, it should not be assumed
that adapting or changing course materials is easy for all teachers.When it comes to
teaching pronunciation, teachers’ use of, expectations of and dependency on the course
materials may be stronger compared to their experience with general English books.
There is evidence that all teachers are more reluctant to teach pronunciation since
mostly they do not have sufficient training or confidence to teach it .The lack of
confidence might also be related to native speaker status. If native teachers show
reluctance to teach pronunciation, nonnative teachers show even more. Spoken
language and pronunciation are much more elusive than grammar and vocabulary, and
more subject to uncertainty for teachers. If pronunciation materials are to be truly
useful, they must be useful to nonnative teachers.
Chapter II. Pronunciation in English language teaching materials
To see whether current ELT materials meet our three principles, we looked at twelve
intermediate level four-skills (integrated skills) books1 (4SB) from three
well-known publication houses: Cambridge University Press, Oxford, University Press
and Pearson-Longman. All the books sell well in EFL contexts, specifically in the
Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Iran, and Kuwait. Exploring how
pronunciation is taught in Listening-Speaking and stand-alone pronunciation books
also requires attention; however, our inquiry will only look at 4SBs because of space
and time issues.
Integrate Pronunciation with Other Skills
A quick glance at the table of contents (TOCs) (see Appendix) of the 4SBs shows that
pronunciation is a sub-skill that most books include. English Unlimited, Touchstone,
New Headway, and New Cutting Edge grouped pronunciation with grammar and
vocabulary under the category of language input, while they grouped listening,
ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ НАУКА И ИННОВАЦИОННЫЕ ИДЕИ В МИРЕ
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113speaking, reading and writing under language skills. Others such as face to face,
New Total English, and English in Common put pronunciation under speaking skills,
while Interchange and Top Notch grouped pronunciation with listening. Only three
books, English File, English Result and Speak Out placed pronunciation in a separate
category.Almost all the books’ brochures or webpages claimed that they integrated
pronunciation into their materials. By looking at the TOCs (see Appendix) and unit
layouts, it is clear that they include pronunciation without isolating it from the other
skills. For instance, some books create connections between grammar, vocabulary, and
pronunciation topics whenever possible (Table 1). Surprisingly, pronunciation tasks
were not necessarily linked to the speaking tasks in 4SBs.
CONCLUSION
The increasing interest in second language pronunciation and the growing number of
pronunciation instruction materials motivated us to investigate the pronunciation
teaching practices in twelve intermediate level 4SBs. We examined them in regard to
three materials development principles. First, pronunciation materials should prioritize
intelligibility; second, pronunciation should be integrated into the teaching of other
skills; and third, pronunciation materials should provide sufficient support for teachers,
specifically for NNESTs, untrained or inexperienced teachers.Our analysis revealed
that all 4SBs focus on pronunciation features thought to contribute to speakers’
intelligibility. Integration of pronunciation into 4SBs is
partially achieved but it is
mostly integrated into grammar and vocabulary tasks but not strongly into speaking
and listening. Additionally, the time (in terms of activities) and space (in terms of visual
appearance) devoted to pronunciation in the 4SBs make it seem expendable. Thus,
materials developers should also integrate pronunciation into skills other than grammar
and vocabulary, and should visually present pronunciation tasks as being essential
rather than optional.Last but not least, our analysis showed that many TMs assume that
all teachers are well-trained, experienced, or confident in pronunciation teaching, and
they do not usually need anything other than the answers to the activities. However,
research shows it’s opposite; thus TMs should be more informative, taking the role of
ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ НАУКА И ИННОВАЦИОННЫЕ ИДЕИ В МИРЕ
https://scientific-jl.org/obr
Выпуск журнала №-69
Часть–6_ Мая –2025
302
2181-3187
being a resource book for pronunciation teaching and teaching the teachers. To
conclude, pronunciation is reasonably well-integrated into 4SBs. However, there is still
a need for careful design to meet the criteria that will make pronunciation an essential
part of language teaching materials.
REFERENCES
Baker, A., & Murphy, J. (2011). Knowledge base of pronunciation teaching: Staking
out the territory.TESL Canada Journal, 28(2), 29–50.
Burgess, J., & Spencer, S. (2000). Phonology and pronunciation in integrated language
teaching and teacher education. System, 28(2), 191–215.
Canniveng, C., & Martinez, M. (2003). Materials development and teacher training. In
B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Developing materials for language teaching (pp. 479–489). New
York, NY: Cromwell Press.
