Teaching Students to Pronounce English: A Motor Skill Approach in the Classroom

Just as forming letters is the motor skill component of writing, pronouncing—forming sounds and other features of the spoken language—is the motor skill component of pronunciation. The motor task for L2 (second language) learners is to invent for themselves the actions needed for pronouncing L2, either from matching a model they hear (goal emulation) or in some other way, and then to automatise their use of these actions. Many students—and their teachers—are dissatisfied with the results they achieve in learning to pronounce through current teaching practices. As an alternative, we argue for taking an Articulatory Approach, based on a motor skill coaching paradigm. However, learning to pronounce an L2 differs from the learning of other socially transmitted motor skills because the learners cannot see most of the significant actions that produce the results which they and others hear. This means that the coaching paradigm for pronunciation cannot be the same as that used for those motor skills where learners can watch a performance. We explain how an appropriate paradigm is implemented in the teaching techniques we describe.