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Articles

Vol. 28 No. 3 (2025): Second language pronunciation: Current issues and developments

The implementation of a pronunciation task: What do teachers think?

DOI
https://doi.org/10.37213/cjal.2025.35818
Submitted
November 13, 2025
Published
2025-12-15

Abstract

To support language learners in engaging in interaction, language instruction must prioritize the development of oral communication skills.  Research has consistently shown that pronunciation instruction enhances both comprehensibility and intelligibility (Chau & Huensch, 2025; Kennedy et al., 2015; Levis, 2024; Saito & Plonsky, 2019).  In recent years, there has been a shift towards the use of communicative tasks for the development of oral skills, including pronunciation (Gurzynski-Weiss et al., 2017; Mora-Plaza et al., 2024; Xu et al., 2024); however, we have a limited understanding of the impact of pedagogical tasks on suprasegmental dimensions from the teacher’s perspective. The objective of this research is to describe the cognitions of three teachers of French for newcomers (francisation) regarding the implementation of a decision-making task that included explicit teaching of French prosody during task completion. Through a qualitative analysis of interview data, findings indicate that the participants had a positive outlook towards the use of tasks for targeting learners’ oral skills.  The focus on suprasegmental features, however, tended to be perceived differently based on the participants’ training and language repertoire.  Finally, the participants questioned the timing of prosody instruction.  These findings are discussed in light of previous work at the intersection of pronunciation, task-based language teaching and teacher cognition. 

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