Exploring the Utility of Instructional Resources to Address Pronunciation in

Pre-Service English Teachers

Rodrigo Guerrero Segura1 Universidad de Guayaquil Guayaquil, Ecuador rodrigo.guerreros@ug.edu.ec

Karina Moreno Rodríguez2 Universidad de Guayaquil Guayaquil, Ecuador karina.morenor@ug.edu.ec

An appropriate selection of resources supports the presentation of contents and strengthens the learning of knowledge. For these reasons, print, audiovisual and electronic resources were selected to answer these research questions: Could these three types of resources, printed, audiovisual and electronic, be useful for pre-service English teach-

How exactly were these resources useful to these pre-service teachers? least relevant resources were English songs, pronunciation sheets, and the board, an additional category that emerged from data analysis. Another unexpected result was the instructor was considered a resource to raise the quality of education. These results could have implications - cal limitations of this institution, it is suggested to explore other resources, use a control group, a larger sample, and for a longer time.

Keywords: Explicit instruction, pronunciation resources, phonetics, phonology, ELT

Introduction

People who have decided to be English teachers should bear in mind that an acceptable pronunciation is a necessary component of context where Spanish is the mother tongue, the instructors are non-native speakers, and students are pre-teachers?, is a challenge that im- ments for educational training, especially for students learning a foreign need to create new articulatory habits through oral training and develop can only do one of these two things, it is necessary to apply explicit forresources play a fundamental role. Depending on their type they can spread visual and sound messages that can cover these gaps, facilitate setting, they can help learners develop their language skills. However, when it comes to pre-service teachers, their language acquisition process involves two other purposes: good communication and teaching -

Then, these resources should be used to explain the linguistic dimensions of the English language, especially those related to phonetic and

Gap in Research

Didactic resources are materials that serve as mediators for the development and enrichment of students, favoring the teaching and - and studies that have been carried out on resources for improving pronunciation, few have focused on ELT contexts where the participants are pre-service teachers. Besides, in the Ecuadorian context, research has been mainly focused on EFL students at the primary and secondary level, addressing strategies and techniques for English classes. Therefore, it was considered necessary to focus the research on thirty-nine English pre-service teachers enrolled in the eighth semester of a public university in Guayaquil since they require other types of resources to improve their educational practices and address the phonetic-phonological aspects of the English language.

Researchers and educators should consider that education is subject to quality educational standards. Consistent with the Ecuadorianknowledge of these interrelated aspects of language to help studentsimprove their educational practices and ensure compliance with these standards. For that reason, three types of easily accessible resources resources be useful for pre-service English teachers? teachers?

Findings could have implications for the selection of materials, ases for ELT contexts.

Literature Review

Explicit instruction is a direct approach to teaching where students are guided through the learning process. In explicit instruction, students are exposed to the learning objectives, explanations of the purpose and reasons for learning new skills. They also receive support during the practice stage and feedback until independent skills are mastered

The Explicit Instruction Process

sequenced steps: Modeling, guided or directed practice, and independent practice.

Modeling. At this stage, content and examples are introduced to promote understanding of the learning objectives. Instructors describe what they are doing as they do it.

Guided practice. This stage allows for achieving the desired learning objectives with adequate resources. Collaborative work is essential at this stage.

Independent Practice learning situations, testing understanding, applying what was learned in

They are a wide range of materials that are used to facilitate instruction and promote learning activities. They also make learning more

Types of Instructional Resources

Instructional resources are all those physical materials and means that instructors use to implement instruction and facilitate the achievement of learning objectives. They can be printed with audio and images,infographics, and pronunciation sheets, are the most common in class-eo, and multimedia elements develop listening comprehension, traintablets, smartphones, and applications. They integrate all the above re-

Criteria for the Selection of Resources

Resources should promote the development of competencies language teachers should consider the following aspects: For Printed Resources. The information in these materials must be related to the topic. The sources must be reliable, updated, and contrasted with the literature. It must have adequate spelling and vocab-

For Audiovisual Resources. The information in these materials must be related to the topic. The recording of the material must be clear so that its reproduction can be observed and heard without interference. The contents must arise interest and have an adequate length.

For Electronic and Interactive Resources. The information in these materials must be related to the topic. They must have a clear and ordered structure in their components and a design that facilitates the orientation of the students throughout their use. They must facilitate educational and interactive activities with reliable, updated, and recog- must also contain appropriate language, with a good combination of colors, sizes and fonts, backgrounds, and illustrations, allowing reading

Pronunciation is the act of producing speech sounds to commu- teaching pronunciation in the classroom with their students, they analyze the way of speaking, the sounds that intervene in human commu- for future English teachers, is essential to understand the aspects of oral

Instructional Resources for Teaching Pronunciation

guage, especially those that are not common in the students’ mother tongue, they need to create new articulatory habits through oral training

Then, instructors should evaluate and select the strategies and resourc- nouns because in the Spanish language, both consonants sound the tion cards with phonetic information of every consonant. A second resource would be the use of phonetic transcription, which is the visual representation of speech sounds by means of symbols. The most comsound discrimination. A fourth resource would include audio and video material to observe and listen to the production of these sounds in

Pronunciation for EFL and ELT Students

When it comes to teaching pronunciation, instructors should determine the context, the age of the participants, and their previous experiences with the language, to select the strategies, mechanisms and resources that contribute to the development of genuine, and spon-

EFL and ELT students have already had experiences studying the English language and acquiring lexical and grammatical knowledge from previous experiences allow these learners to establish and maintain pronunciation rules when they speak spontaneously or when they read they must have knowledge of phonetics and phonology and demonstrate linguistic competence in the language that they are teaching adequate linguistic competence, enables language instructors to diagnose pronunciation errors, develop the ability to teach aspects of oral communication, and use the right techniques and resources to addressclear and acceptable pronunciation.

Analyzing Resources, Strategies, and Approaches in EFL Contexts

the learner’s ability to listen to and imitate the rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of explicit instructions - tions, tables of the vowel apparatus, and contrastive information, to This explicitly helps students focus their attention on the sounds and the analytical-linguistic approach as a reference, a brief chronological below:text, the use of the PPS changed the role of the instructors from distribreducing fear and embarrassment when pronouncing English words. In pronunciation of EFL students. Through voice and text messages, the integration of images, and short videos on rules, and other procedures,er-assisted pronunciation instruction. This tool facilitated training and feedback. It also motivated students to participate in more pronunciation practices than traditional paper-based and classroom exercises in adult learners. Findings revealed that carefully selected themes were useful for improving pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary and grammar acquisition, and learning about the culture.ies for practicing and improving pronunciation. In this context, monolinused to verify the pronunciation of a word by reading phonetic symbolsview strategy to improve English pronunciation. This learning modelgated the impact of theoretical-practical pronunciation instruction us- ing minimal pairs, isolated words, and long sentences. With this type of instruction, participants achieved a more accurate pronunciation andnunciation. After application, participants demonstrated improvement in their pronunciation skills compared to participants who did not use it. The platform also provided immediate feedback and contributed to the production of English-speaking sounds that did not exist in their nativeence of written phonetic transcription on English pronunciation. After an intense period of using transcriptions to pronounce words, phrases, and

Analyzing Resources, Strategies, and Approaches in ESL, ELT, and ESP Contexts

promote the learning of English as a second language. In this context,tive English teachers about printed skill books, and online pronunciation teaching books. Participants expressed preferences for texts with basic information on the characteristics and functions of English pronunciation. Furthermore, they preferred online texts and manuals for their de-of classroom pronunciation teaching. In this context, study circles succeeded in raising awareness among teachers to integrate pronunciation instruction into their study plans. Also, an improvement was achieved in diagnosing and prioritizing instructional problems to focus not only on segmental characteristics but also to address suprasegmental el- evaluated the use of an online resource guide for teachers of English as a second language to improve pronunciation instruction. Participants indicated that the contents and design of the guide were clear and easy to use. The website met the needs of most users, and it worked as it was expected. - with the curriculum, the objectives of the students, requirements, and - mary needs and characteristics that required improvement, such as the textbook is limitations or in the ability to address pronunciation suprasegmental characteristics so that students would identify, understand, and produce language, using modeling, guided practice, strategies, and explicit feedback on their level of precision. Stage 5 promoted the autonomy of learning and the self-regulation of the stu- suprasegmental features of spoken English in pre-service teachers. Findings revealed a moderate improvement in the four suprasegmental features of spoken English.

Exploring Pronunciation-Related Problems in EFL Contexts

came from teachers who had not received enough pronunciation instruction. They had been transferring their errors to their students through incor- problems related to the teaching of pronunciation and speech, and focusing particularly on the role of accent on words to maintain intelligibility. stress placement of words. However, they suggested more exploration because they noticed that misplaced stress sometimes allows understanding. - tion in classrooms where English was taught as a foreign language and as a second language. The author concluded that pronunciation teaching should not only focus on perception but also encompass production and relevant parts of phonology. Furthermore, pronunciation teaching should be applied in functional and meaningful contexts and be part of communi-

Exploring Attitudes in ELT Contexts

Attitudes are evaluations or psychological tendencies that peopleimply being predisposed to face and solve problems, as well as seeing - titudes are unfavorable dispositions and behaviors that a human being shows temporarily or regularlyplored the attitudes of trainee teachers towards explicit pronunciationments. Attitudes towards these two aspects were positive. However, only the segmental elements were easy to pronounce. Suprasegmen- of pre-service teachers towards online video-based forums for the improvement of suprasegmentals were mostly positive. However, the researchers suggested a longer period for the practicing and avaluat- cal competence for teaching pronunciation in English teachers. Pronun- instruction and demonstration activities. Although the activities were practical simulations, instead of communicative and interactive tasks, participants showed little command of phonology.

Methodology

This was action research with a mixed method. Action research is a process in which participants examine their systematic educational research:

Identify the problem area and focus. At this stage, curricula, educational standards, teaching strategies, and especially instructional materials for teaching pronunciation were examined to identify strengths and weaknesses and understand how to address possible problems. Then, it was determined that the research approach would be mixed, and initial questions were generated around this approach.

Clarify theories. At this stage, an analysis of the theoretical bases and results of other researchers was carried out concerning the topic and approach. The scope of explicit instruction for teaching pronuncia-

Determine the research questions. After selecting a focus area generated, which were described at the beginning of the study.

Collect and organize data. This stage included the design, validation, and piloting of the three research instruments, to collect data to answer the research questions.

Analyze and present data. In this part, quantitative and qualitative - the research questions.

Take informed action. After reviewing the collected information and -

Evaluate the results were evaluated to determine if there was an improvement in teaching practice.

On the other hand, a mixed method uses numbers, verbal data, texts, graphics, and symbols to provide a better understanding of the Participantsly selected because instructional resources will be part of their teaching profession and will be used to improve their pronunciation and support their class explanations. Their average age was 25 years old. All of them

Context Description

The study was carried out in a career that has been training procareer belongs to a public university located in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In this context, the study of the English language is mandatory for eight semesters. The study modality is face-to-face. Depending on the semes- material is an English book with twelve units. Regarding the teachingal competence and included topics, such as individual vowel sounds, articulation of the schwa sound, stress on nouns, adjectives, complex sentences, intonation to show empathy and pronounce numbers in context. Students were also exposed to pronunciation instruction through

Description of the Procedure

The intervention process was conducted from April to September

The instructor used a laptop, a video projector, a Bluetooth sound system, a smartphone, headphones, and microphones. As this was a public university, it was prohibited to request students to purchase additional resources or materials. Therefore, for this study, three types of easily-

The instructional process was divided into the three phases pro- structor presented learning objectives, contents, methodology, as well as teaching resources and evaluation procedures. Guided Practice: - ticulation of vowels, consonants, and diphthongs, allophones, homo- bles, simple and compound words, sentences, rhythm, and intonation the resources used and the contents learned.

Instruments

For the quantitative phase, researchers designed an eight-item contained demographic data that was processed to describe the characteristics of the participants. The second section contained the purpose of the instrument and the instructions. The third section contained eight items intended to answer the question: Could these three types of resources, printed, audiovisual and electronic, be useful for pre-service English teachers?

For the qualitative phase, the researchers designed a questionsection of the questionnaire contained the same demographic data. The second section contained the purpose of the instrument and instructions. The third section contained eight open questions aimed at answering these two questions: Which resource would be the most - vations of the phenomenon that was being studied and contributed to answering all the questions. The researchers registered descriptive information on the time, date, state of the physical and social environment, descriptions of the subjects and their roles in the environment, possible impact of the observer on the environment, and subjective

Instrument Validation

The validity and reliability of the survey were obtained by consulting the opinions of seven experts who work in public and private uniwith masters’ degree in English language teaching, curriculum, and inwho were not part of this study. Cronbach’s alpha value of the scale reviewed the questionnaire. They only made observations on the order of the questions.