In-service Teachers’ Intelligibility and Pronunciation Adjustment Strategies in English Language Classrooms

A realistic goal of pronunciation teaching in the second language context is to acquire comfortably intelligible rather than native-like pronunciation. To establish a set of teaching and learning priorities necessary for English teachers and students whose first language is Chinese, the purposes of this study are three fold- (1) Identify the pronunciation aspects that are crucial for intelligible pronunciation in actual second language (L2) Hong Kong (HK) and foreign language mainland (ML) China classrooms from in-service teachers’ points of view; (2) Investigate how teachers help their students successfully understand English classroom input through teachers’ self-reflection on which aspects of their own pronunciation they modify and adapt to make classroom discourse intelligible to students; and (3) explore the most frequently taught pronunciation aspects and the most frequently used pronunciation teaching strategies used by teachers to teach pronunciation in English classrooms. Forty-seven questionnaires were collected and analysed from in-service teachers in primary schools. Four teachers were invited to attend follow-up interviews. In order to further investigate the application of adaptation strategies and pronunciation teaching strategies in real classroom settings, eight classroom videos were collected. The data were triangulated allowing for cross checking. The findings will not only help frontline teachers become self-aware of their own pronunciation, rectify students’ recurrent difficulties in using phonological features, and improve mutual intelligibility in English language classrooms but also help explore the ways to integrate phonology courses and pronunciation teaching in second/foreign language teaching and teacher education.