The last ten years have witnessed an explosion of activity in second language (L2) pronunciation research, and many signs of increased interest on the part of L2 teachers to include pronunciation in their classes. However, most surveys of language teachers (e.g., [1], [2]) indicate that instructors feel they have received insufficient training to teach pronunciation and consequently do not know where to start; despite their feelings of inadequacy, they realize that some of their students would benefit from pronunciation instruction (PI). Moreover, many of the questions that teachers and students have about L2 pronunciation are not yet fully answered. Nonetheless, research has suggested several aspects of English that are ‘more important’ to teach than others. Identifying these requires consideration of functional load and stress, among others. A brief history of L2 pronunciation teaching is followed by definitions of key terms. Appropriate goals for the field of L2 pronunciation research and instruction will be outlined, and the findings of several studies that address instructors’ questions will be discussed, as will possible future directions for research and teaching alike.
Cite as: Derwing, T.M. (2018) Putting an accent on the positive: New directions for L2 pronunciation and instruction. Proc. International Symposium on Applied Phonetics (ISAPh 2018), 12-18, doi: 10.21437/ISAPh.2018-3
@inproceedings{derwing18_isaph,
author={Tracey M. Derwing},
title={{Putting an accent on the positive: New directions for L2 pronunciation and instruction}},
year=2018,
booktitle={Proc. International Symposium on Applied Phonetics (ISAPh 2018)},
pages={12--18},
doi={10.21437/ISAPh.2018-3}
}