An intelligibility-based approach to English pronunciation teaching: evidence from [r] production

Abstract

This work was to support the intelligibility-based approach to teaching English pronunciation through the experimental tests. In this study, both production and perception experiments were conducted for thirty three-levelled Korean learners of English and five native English speakers. The results showed that native English raters marked good /r/ sound of Korean speech of English which showed a comparatively wide range of F3 between 2,150 and 2,550 Hz. Considering that native English speakers produced a comparatively narrow F3 range with low mean value between 1,700 and 1,800 Hz, we came to understand that they were tolerant of foreigners wide range of F3 for [r] signals with comparatively high mean value. Overall, this experiment clearly showed that we should rely more on the intelligibility principle, not on the native-like accurate pronunciation features, for the teaching of English pronunciation. It implies that pronunciation teaching should adopt the intelligibility-based approach.