DESCRIPTION OF TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION OF THEIR PREPARATION TO TEACH PRONUNCIATION IN THE CHILEAN CONTEXT.

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research addresses the perception teachers have of their preparation to teach pronunciation in the Chilean context. Literature indicates teachers do not feel confident to teach pronunciation, caused by the lack of training, insufficient knowledge of the language and inadequate preparation to teach. To measure the perception of teachers of English, two questionnaires were implemented. The first survey was addressed to the experts in the teaching of English phonetics and phonology and the second survey was addressed to English language teachers in Chile. The purpose was to gather information that could allow us to understand the perception and confidence of teachers of English to teach pronunciation. The results indicate that teachers of English from this study feel prepared to teach the segmental features of pronunciation instruction, they focus on teaching the isolated parts of phonetics rather than teaching suprasegmental features. The current study agrees with literature showing that teachers do not feel confident or at least not as they think they do.