Prospective Freshman English Teachers’ Knowledge of the English Sound System

Abstract

Foreign language teachers use the spoken form of the target language when they teach. One of their professional responsibilities while teaching is to form a good model of pronunciation for their students. In Turkey, English is the primary foreign language taught in all educational institutions. Prospective English teachers in the English Teacher Education departments in Faculties of Education are the products of that system, and they come to their universities having been taught English for years. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge of the English sound system prospective teachers had acquired before they started their university studies. Statistical analyses showed that the students had serious problems with regard to the sound system of English and that a two-semester first year course would, by itself, not be able to compensate for the significant lack of knowledge the students had. Suggestions as to how to tackle with the problem are presented.

Keywords

• Pronunciation
• suprasegmental phonology
• segmental phonology
• English
• teacher education