to improvement in accuracy (Lee et al., 2015; Thomson & Derwing, 2015), especially in the short term, but we have little knowledge of how different ways of teaching pronunciation result in different outcomes. This is especially true in documenting the effects of approaches that integrate pronunciation into the classroom, both for specific features (e.g., Levis & Muller Levis, 2018) and for more general approaches that prioritize pronunciation as part of global speaking and listening skills (Derwing et al., 1998; Zhang & Yuan, 2020). Effectively integrating pronunciation with other areas of language instruction may serve as a “value-added” factor in language instruction (Pennington & Rogerson-Revell, 2019); that is, it may serve to show learners that other L2 language skills improve more when integrated with improved pronunciation skills. This section will describe possible ways to research the integration of pronunciation so that we better understand how integrating pronunciation affects teacher confidence, student communicative success, and effective materials development. Such research may show that pronunciation integration leads to better comprehensibility and intelligibility, that it leads to equal or greater improvement than teaching pronunciation alone, and it may demonstrate the best ways to integrate pronunciation.
There are few studies on the effectiveness of integrating pronunciation with other aspects of language teaching. This means that this is a largely unexplored area with great importance for the overall effectiveness of classroom language teaching. Like all instructional studies, ensuring that instructional contexts are as similar as possible is a challenging task. The ideas in Table 2.2 all have in common two (or more) classes in which the instructional focus differs in how pronunciation is addressed. Details of effective research practices are not addressed, but they can be found in Munro and Derwing (2020).
Table 2.2 Ideas for researching pronunciation integration.
| Research Goals | Class 1 | Class 2 |
|---|---|---|
| What happens when teaching the same pronunciation features in different ways? | Pronunciation features (PF) taught as stand-alone features in parallel to Listening/Speaking (L/S) instruction | Same PFs integrated so the features are explicitly connected to L/S instruction |
| Is there a difference between reactive and proactive pronunciation instruction? | No focus on PF outside of what teachers normally do (with particular features targeted) | PFs proactively integrated into L/S instruction (with particular features targeted) |
| Does the type of integration result in different outcomes? | Integration of PFs is done as an add-on, with work on particular PFs as another activity among many (as in integrated skills textbooks). | Integration of particular PFs is fully integrated into other parts of teaching. |
| Is the teaching of PFs relevant to the overall topic more effective than teaching irrelevant PFs? | Teach PFs that are largely irrelevant for topic (e.g., vowels for spoken fluency) | Teach PFs that are relevant to topic (e.g., thought groups for spoken fluency) |
| Does the integration of PFs into a reading class lead to better reading outcomes (e.g., for phonemic awareness)? | Teach reading without addressing PFs | Teach reading while addressing PFs |
| Does the intensity of integration make a difference in outcomes? | Integrate a modest amount each day during the term. | Integrate intensively during the first several weeks, then as needed. |
| What is the effect of explanation vs. practice? | Integrate with explanation only in class. Practice via optional homework. (Variant: Explain with optional homework) | Integrate with explanations and with class practice. (Variant: Explain with required homework) |
| What is the effect of integrating different PFs into instruction? | Integrate one or more PFs or aspects of PFs (e.g., Prominence signaling New information) | Integrate other PFs (e.g., Prominence signaling contrasts) |
Pedagogical Implications – Vignettes and Textbook Connections
In this section, we examine two ways of integrating pronunciation into classes focused primarily on other skills. We do this first through the use of vignettes, in which teachers create their own non-textbook focused plan and second, through examples of how to connect pronunciation skills to published textbook materials. These two approaches provide distinct challenges. In the vignettes, teachers have tremendous flexibility about what is included in a lesson, but when following the pedagogy provided by textbooks (which an instructor often has not chosen), pronunciation connections often must be made by teachers without assistance from the textbook or teacher’s guide. In our examples, we have developed two vignettes showing how pronunciation can be integrated into different types of ABE classes. In the first vignette, we look at a literacy-level class, where basic literacy skills and vocabulary lessons are taught with a workplace focus. Vignette 2 involves a pre-CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) class with high intermediate and advanced English learners. In addition, we look at two examples of published materials (one for lower-level classes and one for higher level) to show where pronunciation can be relevant to other skills even when it is not included by the textbook authors.
Vignette 1
In this workplace-focused literacy-level class, the learners are newly arrived refugees from Southeast Asia, with native speakers of Burmese, Karen, Karenni, and Nepali. Approximately half are literate in their native languages that use non-Roman alphabets, and the other half have limited or no literacy skills. All learners have limited speaking and listening skills in English.
To determine the most prominent pronunciation challenges for this group of learners, the teacher carried out a simple diagnostic to analyze the pronunciation of various features in English, and to prioritize them in order of importance. After completing the diagnostic, the teacher determines that many learners do not produce consonant sounds at the ends of words, and that many speak very softly with minimal articulation of word and sentence stress. Therefore, the teacher incorporates activities focusing on these areas into the lesson planning (Table 2.3), using the predetermined lesson content: developing vocabulary to report a workplace injury.
Table 2.3 Lesson plan for final sounds, spelling-pronunciation correspondence and sentence stress in Vignette 1.
| Activity with Integrated Pronunciation | Literacy Skills | Pronunciation Element |
|---|---|---|
| The teacher says each word as learners count the sounds on their fingers, segmenting each word into individual phonemes so that learners can clearly hear and count them (e.g., back has three sounds). The teacher distributes cards divided in three sections. Learners place a marker on the section where they hear the target sound (e.g., for Where is the /p/ in hip? the marker is placed on the final section. Where is the /h/ in hip? the marker is placed on the first section. Where is the /ɪ/ in hip? the marker is placed in the middle section). |
Phonemic Awareness: Phoneme Segmentation
Phonemic Awareness:
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