The Teaching and Learning of Phonology: Motivational Handicaps

Buenos Aires

Jornada; I Jornadas Internacionales de la Fonética de las Lenguas Extranjeras; 2009

Universidad Nacional de San Martin

Countless studies on motivation have thrown light on the driving forces leading students to learn a language. Such forces seem to be visibly at play in all areas within language teaching and learning; however, the teaching of pronunciation has often been neglected, just as students have often seemed reluctant to acquire proficient pronunciation. Thus, pronunciation emerges as a historically peripheral field, attitudes to which have varied from taking good pronunciation for granted as naturally resulting from continuous exposure to the language and exhaustive oral practice to arguing for the need to systematically train students in the acquisition of proficient pronunciation. While the status of syntax and grammar and the need to teach them, for example, have seldom been questioned, the formal teaching of pronunciation has indeed been at times regarded as suspicious, time-consuming or even altogether unnecessary. Its ?Cinderella?-like status has been in turn fed by the apparent indifference on the part of students to learn, practise and ultimately acquire sound pronunciation. This lecture will look into the nature of motivation as the driving force which leads students to learn English with a special focus on motivation - or the seeming lack of it ? to teach and learn pronunciation.