Focus on teaching pronunciation at primary schools in Slovakia

Abstract

Teaching and practicing correct pronunciation is often neglected in English language lessons.The importance of correct pronunciation is unquestionable as it is a fundamental feature of successfulcommunication. For this reason, it needs to be taught and practiced right from the beginning of Englishlanguage teaching, because young learners are the best recipients and often can achieve flawless-likepronunciation. This study investigates how teachers perceive teaching pronunciation at several primaryschools in Slovakia, focusing on teaching techniques and materials used for teaching pronunciation, andaspects of pronunciation. Methods for collecting research data were observation and interview. Findingsshow that the most used teaching techniques are corrections, drills and songs, and that the most usedmaterials are pictures and textbook CDs. Segmental aspects were practiced when learning new words, butwithout any particular attention to segmental features and supra-segmental aspects of rhythm werepracticed by rhymes, chants and songs and no attention was paid to word stress. The study indicates thatteachers pay attention to teaching pronunciation, but without particular focus on different features ofpronunciation and using limited teaching techniques and materials.