The Status of English Pronunciation Instruction from the Prospective of Iraqi EFL Secondary School Teachers

Rasheed Ali, Eman; Sadiq Mahmood, Nasreen

	The Status of English Pronunciation Instruction from the Prospective of Iraqi EFL Secondary School Teachers
Al-Adab Journal
Article 1, Volume 0, Issue 121, 2018, Pages 35-60
Authors
Eman Rasheed Ali; Nasreen Sadiq Mahmood
Abstract
English has become a global language and teaching it as a second or foreign language for the purpose of international communication has increasingly become a universal demand. With the current trend, teaching and learning pronunciation process is one of the most significant features of language instruction since good pronunciation is a key of effective communication, whereas poor pronunciation can lead to a great hindrance in language learning. Like other ESL/EFL countries, it is a matter of great concern that the performance of Iraqi students in English pronunciation is unsatisfied. That is because teaching pronunciation involves a variety of challenges, namely contextual factors. Knowledge about these problematic factors contributes to understanding of how to manage suitable classroom environment for foreign language learning. To this aim, the main concern of this study is to scrutinize the current status of teaching pronunciation at public secondary schools in Iraq and to determine the possible problems that teachers might face in teaching pronunciation and to outline feasible solutions as well. For the study purpose, questionnaire survey was conducted to elicit views held by a group of sixty Iraqi EFL teachers who work at public secondary schools distributed in Baghdad - Al-Resafa 2 district. Simple percentage was used as a statistical test for analysis of data. Conclusions were drawn in the light of the objectives of the study. Recommendations were given on the basis of the findings in hope to provide insights into the common recurring problems of teaching pronunciation and to raise the awareness of all concerned officials to the need to address these challenges to assist EFL teachers to reduce future problems regarding students’ performance in pronunciation of English language.

Statistics Article View: 56 PDF Download: 4