Bridging the Gap between Phonemic Transcription Skills and Oral Performance: Pedagogical Proposal based on Different Learning Styles

Villa María

Jornada; IV Jornadas Nacionales de ELT Mixed-ability groups: Teaching and Learning in the ELT Classroom; 2017

Learning a foreign language at higher educational contexts has always posed a series of challenges, especially considering the acquisition of some linguistic aspects such as pronunciation. The importance of pronunciation teaching in an ESL class is undeniable,as, following Kelly (2000), some pronunciation errors may inhibit successful understanding between interlocutors. In fact, the first-year learners of the EFL programs at the School of Languages, National University of Córdoba, seem to encounter various difficulties as regards the acquisition of phonetics, particularly, in relation to the transition from acquiring transcription skills to identifying the corresponding phonemes in English, and producing them correctly in oral work. This great disparity is evidenced in their performance in the respective forms of formal assessment: a written exam (which entails transcription skills)and an oral exam (which involves reading aloud and retelling a story). These difficulties seem to arise when students move from written production to oral work. Based on the theory proposed by Gimson and Cruttenden (1994), students should use phonemic transcription to represent what is said in spoken language, that is to say, they need to find the correspondence between the sound that is pronounced and its corresponding phoneme, which entails a great challenge for them. For this reason, from the Chair English Pronunciation Practice, a pedagogical proposal has been suggested based on different learning styles, understood as the ways in which individuals acquire, retain and retrieve information input (Felder & Henriques, 1995). It is expected that, by employing this comprehensive approach, students can count on alternatives to improve their oral and written performance and instruction can be oriented in a more effective way.