Anastasia Georgountzou & Natasha Tsantila
The present study attempts to explore whether and to which extent the recent theoretical standpoints towards pronunciation teaching have been incorporated in two popular English textbooks given the current status of English as an international / global language. In this respect, we firstly established specific criteria upon which we engaged in an analysis of several pronunciation tasks of two main textbook series, Think Teen and On Course 4. Findings indicate that there are few pronunciation tasks that accompany the listening and speaking components of the two textbooks. Additionally, most pronunciation tasks of the aforementioned textbooks demonstrate an over-reliance on ‘speak-to learn’ patterns in which the British Standard accent (RP/near RP) is offered as the only valid pronunciation model to be followed. Secondly, drawing upon ELF awareness, we recommend adaptations of the specific pronunciation tasks of the two textbooks so that the global aspect of English is represented and learners’ awareness is raised on the context-related phonological features that cause intelligibility problems in English. Finally, we discuss pedagogical implications regarding practitioners’ norm-bound teaching practices concerning English pronunciation.
Key words: pronunciation, native/non-native English accent, ELF awareness, intelligibility, phonological features