Rationale: Motivations for Researching Pronunciation

“Escuchen y Repitan” is perhaps the most commonly uttered instruction in my classroom. Though a non-native language instructor, I am often the most accessible pronunciation model for my Spanish 1 and 2 students. I currently teach pronunciation following an intuitive-imitative, “I Do, We Do, You Do” approach at the beginning of vocabulary lessons, not because I know that it is methodologically sound, but because it simply feels right. As I’ve come to learn, however, drilling new sounds through teacher-led, choral repetition is a dated yet still intuitive and common teaching practice among Spanish teachers and traditional textbooks alike, reminiscent of the 1950’s era of Audiolingualism.^[1] Importantly, this type of “listen and repeat” instruction is neither aligned with how I honed my intelligible pronunciation nor the contemporary applied linguistics research I explore in this rationale.

By the time I began my formal classroom study of Spanish in sixth grade, I was already familiar with the phonological systems of both Amharic, my first language and the one mostly spoken at home, and American English. Curious to learn “real-world” Spanish outside of class, I imitated dialogue in Spanish-subtitled TV shows and sang along to countless hours of reggaeton, pop, rap, salsa, bachata, and cumbia. I developed my ear for the different dialectical varieties of Spanish in my study abroad in Nicaragua and Spain in high school and Chile and Argentina in college. Whether by choice or through repeated exposure, I also learned to produce the different “accents,” or, rather, phonological variations (e.g., /θ/ in Spain and /ʃ/ in Argentina), of Spanish. Therefore, my exposure to the phonological systems of my L1 and L2 languages, age, positive attitude towards long-term Spanish language formal and informal education, immersive study, and desire to acquire a “native” accent both shaped the way I speak and inspired my attitudes towards language learning and teaching. If instructed Spanish pronunciation played a role in the development of my Spanish, its impact was not memorable.

However, the learning conditions and motivations of my students and I could not be any more different, which makes it difficult to know how best to approach Spanish pronunciation instruction. Most Central High School students placed into Spanish 1 are ninth-graders with no prior exposure to the language, have limited exposure to different dialects and pronunciation models, are only taking the language for the state-wide graduation requirement of two years, and bring a wide range of language backgrounds, learning needs, and motivations to the classroom. Given these constraints, I put pronunciation on the back-burner in my first and second years of teaching. But upon reflection of my sophomore year of teaching, I’ve noticed that I’ve grown to care about my students’ pronunciation.

First, I found myself frustrated when a handful of my Spanish 2 students mispronounced words (e.g., saying “lay-var” instead of llevar) despite the fact that vowel pronunciation and the /ll/ sound had been explicitly taught in Spanish 1 and reviewed in the beginning weeks of Spanish 2. Secondly, I assessed pronunciation in oral presentation rubrics, even though I did not teach pronunciation explicitly or consistently. Third, I provided reactive, individualized corrective feedback during activities, homework, and presentations when I heard a student make a “pronunciation mistake,” but I rarely followed up with meaningful, whole-class pronunciation lessons.

Since I do not currently incorporate evidence-based, year-round pronunciation instruction, pronunciation is fossilized in a majority of my students. This misalignment between my current practices and instructional goals has led me to turn to second language acquisition and applied linguistics research to explore in my:

Rationale:        (a) whether explicit teaching of pronunciation is worthwhile,
Research:        (b) how to teach it using modern, evidence-based methods, and
Lesson Plans:  (c) how pronunciation instruction can incorporate different Spanish
dialects and varieties.

Pronunciation: What and Why

Pronunciation is the way a certain sound is produced by the speaker and perceived by the hearer.^[2] From a structuralist linguistic standpoint, pronunciation is learned through the practice of the sound system of a language by the speaker, and therefore can be divided up into two categories: segmental and suprasegmental features. Segmentals are vowel and consonant sounds, while suprasegmentals include intonation, rhythm, and word stress.^[3] With respect to perception and communicative competence, pronunciation can be evaluated by the listener’s ear for accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility. Accentedness describes the perceived deviation of the speaker’s second language (L2) pronunciation from a listener’s expectation of standardized first language (L1) speech,^[4] comprehensibility is the listener’s perceived ease of understanding,^[5] and intelligibility is the listener’s actual understanding of speech at the word and utterance level.^[6] From a sociolinguistic perspective, pronunciation varies by factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and geographical region. For example, dialects and accents can reflect regional patterns of speech that differ in pronunciation.^[7] Additionally, socio-psychological factors such as attitude, identity, and motivation play a role in the speed and ease of pronunciation acquisition. Therefore, a well-rounded approach to pronunciation instruction should include both teaching about how sounds are articulated, as well how and why they vary in real-world contexts.

L2 students, teachers, and linguists have different views on why and to what degree pronunciation instruction is important. Adult and immigrant students of English as a second or other language (ESOL) are the subcategories of beginner L2 learners who self-report their pronunciation difficulties to most negatively impact their interactions with L1 speakers.^[8] Edents and stigmatization,^[9] and to access educational and professional opportunities.^[10] Without adequate instruction, learners may feel reticent to speak, prompting a negative feedback loop wherein decreased conversational engagement leads to pronunciation fossilization, further lowering their confidence to interact in spoken English.^[11] While real-time communication breakdowns may occur for adult migrants, the social penalties for non-native pronunciation are likely not as frequently experienced by L2 learners of Spanish in my classroom. With already limited expectations for their language education, the typical two-year Spanish student may not care much for developing their pronunciation beyond the standards set by their instructor.

The role of pronunciation in a teacher’s language curriculum greatly depends on their knowledge, attitudes, and confidence surrounding pronunciation. For example, one 2020 study of 100 Spanish instructors found that those who completed more coursework in language teaching and phonology were more likely to perceive pronunciation as useful and feel confident about their instruction of it.^[12] While L2 teachers vary in their motivations to teach pronunciation—from increasing intelligibility in communication^[13] to improving listening comprehension^[14]—most agree that pronunciation instruction is important but often struggle to execute it well. Research on teacher cognition of pronunciation instruction in English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts has found that teachers struggle with pronunciation teaching because of the lack of instructional time,^[15] formal curricula,^[16] knowledge of pronunciation,^[17] training in pre-service development programs,^[18] their pronunciation pedagogical content knowledge,^[19] confidence in their L2 accent, teaching materials,^[20] and specific and clear assessment frameworks.^[21] Given these constraints, teachers have come to increasingly view pronunciation as an add-on and through a deficit model.

In a 2002 Australian study of eight ESL instructors who mostly self-identified as infrequent teachers of pronunciation due to their low confidence or dislike of it, one teacher remarked, “As long as it’s OK, we tend to ignore it … I mean if it’s not holding them back in communication, we don’t fuss over it.”^[22] Thus, unless pronunciation was unintelligible to the teacher, it was ignored. The problem with this approach is that teachers, by virtue of their experience working with L2 speakers, likely find a wider range of pronunciations acceptable than do generic speakers of the instructed language. Thus, when teachers accept mispronunciation because it is intelligible to them, they risk sending into the world L2 speakers who will not be understood by the average L1 speaker. Given the variety of motivations for the learning and teaching of intelligible pronunciation, it is important to turn to empirical data to confirm its benefits as intuited by some students and teachers.

Various meta-analyses of empirical studies published in the last decade, particularly that of Lee, Jang, and Plonsky,^[23] show that pronunciation instruction leads to improvements of the target language form(s). Interestingly, pronunciation instruction proved more effective in high schools and beginner learners compared to their university or intermediate counterparts.^[24] In particular, explicit instruction of phonological forms has been shown to have a significant impact on students’ pronunciation.^[25] These findings have also been confirmed for English speakers learning Spanish.^[26] Given its significant potential for overall language acquisition, an L2 teacher can, with effective instructional methods, show their students that learning pronunciation is worthwhile.

A History of Pronunciation Teaching

Attention to pronunciation instruction in the world language classroom peaked in the mid-1950s and 1960s with the Audio-Lingual Method (ALM). Audiolingualism arose as a reaction to the shortcomings of the Grammar-Translation Method, budding interest in foreign language teaching in the U.S., and behaviorist and structuralist theories of language learning in the emergent field of applied linguistics. Interest in pronunciation instruction would later decline with the rise of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and subsequent learner-centered movements of the 1970s and 1980s, but it  re-surged in popularity in the 1990s and 2000s in frameworks such as Celce-Murcia et al.’s (2010) Communicative Framework for Teaching Pronunciation.

20th Century Precursors to Audiolingualism: The Grammar-Translation Method

In the early 20th century, teachers in the U.S. approached world language instruction akin to the traditional ways of teaching Ancient Greek and Classical Latin. Teachers used the students’ native language to introduce a passage from a literary text, then deductively taught new grammar rules and prompted students to translate the text in order to learn vocabulary.^[27] While students were able to read, write, understand, memorize, and translate Greek and Latin, they didn’t need to listen or speak it; they were taught about the language, but not how to use it.^[28] Consequently, communicative language in world language classrooms was seldom taught and pronunciation “largely irrelevant.”^[29] However, when demand for communication arose, a shift in pedagogy was needed. As reading-based instruction proved ineffective to quickly teach conversational fluency to US military and intelligence personnel seeking to learn German, Italian, and Japanese during the height of World War II, the U.S. government commissioned linguists at American universities to develop the “Army Method.”^[30] In order to successfully fulfill and survive their missions, these personnel likely needed a native or near-native accent to pass as an L1 speaker.

20st Century Precursors to Audiolingualism: The Army Method and the Oral Approach

From 1942 to 1944, small groups of highly-motivated students of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) participated in guided conversations where a facilitating linguist elicited the target language from a native speaker–or “informant.”^[31] Through various repetitive drilling techniques developed by linguists like Leonard Bloomfield, students listened to, imitated, and memorized colloquial, task-based sentence patterns and dialogue from the native speaker in order to later produce automatic responses in conversational contexts.^[32] In order to be understood by native speakers, emphasis was placed on developing, “the ability to speak the language fluently, accurately, and with an acceptable approximation to a native pronunciation.”^[33] Therefore, repetitive aural training proved essential to developing oral competency, and accurate pronunciation began to gain instructional importance. Given its tremendous success, many universities adapted the ASTP to teach English as a second or other language (ESOL) to the post-WWII influx of international students.

By the mid-1950s, U.S. structural linguists such as Charles Fries and Robert Lado at the University of Michigan had developed influential ESOL instructional materials that applied the intensive oral drilling techniques of the Army Method to the teaching of grammar and pronunciation in what became known as the Oral Approach, Aural-Oral Approach, or Structural Approach. Fries believed that learning a new language began by mastering the understanding and production of its sound system. In Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language (1945), Fries declared pronunciation an important foundation of language learning:

Accuracy of sound, of rhythm, of intonation, of structural forms, and of arrangement, within a limited range of expression, must come first and become automatic habit before the student is ready to devote his chief attention to expanding his vocabulary … In learning English one must attempt to imitate exactly the forms, the structures, and the mode of utterance of the native speakers of the particular kind of English he wishes to learn.^[34]

Fries’ emphasis on precise imitation and habit formation laid the groundwork for the Oral Approach’s systematic focus on explicit phonological instruction and the development of students’ metalinguistic awareness.

Before developing an Oral Approach curriculum, the teacher must first undergo a systematic study of the segmental and suprasegmental features of the native and target language. Next, the pronunciation-focused teacher will create Oral Approach lessons^[35] in which they: (1) develop their students’ segmental and suprasegmental sound recognition skills by prompting students to mimic the exact pronunciation of the native speaker; (2) identify and describe which phonemes exist in the target language that are difficult to produce and/or do not exist in the speakers’ language (contrastive analysis); (3) teach students to use their articulatory anatomy to produce the target phoneme(s); (4) practice the production of the different phoneme(s) in real-life speech contexts; (5) drill the target phoneme(s) with minimal pair activities (e.g., teaching the difference between /iː/ and /ɪ/ with “sheep” and “ship”); and (6) correct students’ pronunciation mistakes. Therefore, early intuitive-imitative lessons^[36] utilized mimicry and contrastive analysis to sharpen one’s listening while later analytic-linguistic lessons employed a descriptive analysis of one’s articulatory features and then rehearsed suprasegmental speech patterns to automate one’s speaking. Importantly, the instructional methods matched desired language outcomes, or as Lado and Fries phrased it, “completely oral presentation…proved its value for oral mastery.”^[37] These assumptions about the process of pronunciation acquisition continued to influence pronunciation teaching such that language became identified with speech and teaching speech was prioritized, eventually becoming formalized as Audiolingualism.^[38]

Audiolingualism and its Theoretical Foundations: Behaviorism and Structuralism

The reasons for the popularity of Audiolingualism—its reliance on behavioristic psychology and the linguistic theory of structuralism coupled with the intriguing successes of the Army Method and Oral Approach—also became the reasons for its downfall and, ironically, its lingering presence in contemporary classrooms.

Skinnerian Behaviorism is a theory of learning that claims that human behavior is conditioned through a stimulus-response-reinforcement cycle in a process called operant conditioning. In the ALM classroom, the teacher presents a linguistic stimulus for students to imitate, such as a native-like pronunciation model in a dialogue, then applies behaviorist strategies: positive reinforcement (verbal encouragement) and negative reinforcement (reduced drilling) following correct responses, and positive punishment (increased correction and drilling) or negative punishment (removal of engaging activities) following incorrect ones. Let’s observe how this behaviorist model of instruction plays out in a sample Audiolingual lesson from a beginning level English class in Mali:^[39]

The class begins with the pronunciation model, the teacher, voicing a dialogue between two English speakers. Students repeat each line multiple times before proceeding to the next line, and the teacher uses drills like expansion drills to isolate and troubleshoot difficult sections. When providing instruction, the teacher mostly speaks in the target language. Then, students take turns role-playing one speaker while the teacher voices the other one. After several rounds of choral repetition, students practice lines individually while the teacher circulates the room to correct pronunciation errors. Next, a handful of selected students perform the dialogue in front of the class. For the second half of the lesson, students practice increasingly complex drills, such as chain, substitution, and transformation drills, based on the language structures introduced in the dialogue. Throughout, the teacher provides positive reinforcement and punishment in the form of encouraging cues (e.g., “Very good!”) and corrective drilling techniques. Finally, the teacher repeats the full dialogue, assigns half of the class one speaker and the other half the second, and concludes by having them switch roles.

As illustrated in this sample lesson, language learning is seen as a process of good habit formation, and the purpose of pronunciation instruction is to curtail learner mistakes that could lead to bad habit formation, or “bad pronunciation.”^[40] Here, extensive drilling is used to “drill out” any potential for student error, and the teacher’s monitoring of independent students is to prevent the fossilization of their mistakes. Such a behaviorist attitude is further evidenced in the use of contrastive analysis in subsequent lessons.

Later in the week, this audiolingual teacher may use contrastive analysis to anticipate “that the students will have special trouble with the pronunciation of words such as ‘little,’ which contain /ɪ/. The students do indeed say the word as if it contained /iy/. As a result, the teacher works on the contrast between /iy/ and /ɪ/ several times during the week.”^[41] By using minimal pair pronunciation drills (e.g., “sheep” and “ship”), the teacher conditioned students to overcome the “bad” pronunciation habits inherited from their L1. In such a way, the teacher used contrastive analysis to not only predict areas of learner difficulty, but to predict and prevent interlanguage errors due to L1 interference.^[42] Over time, as pronunciation difficulty became equated with error such that any deviation from native norms was seen as a failure to be corrected, pronunciation instruction in Audiolingualism adopted a prescriptivist attitude later coined by linguist and academic John M. Levis as the Nativeness Principle (see page 19 of this unit).

Just as behaviorism influenced the theory of learning for the ALM, so too did structuralism influence its theory of language.This structuralist theory of language lent to Audiolingualism a bottom-up instructional approach to phonetic training. By the 1930s, American linguists had shifted toward a more empirical approach to language study, particularly of non-European languages. Instead of studying language according to categories of Latin grammar, they collected speech data and analyzed it according to structural levels—phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences—and their relationships to one another in order to describe its properties.^[43] Therefore, language became viewed as a hierarchical system of discrete, interrelated elements. Consequently, ALM teachers designed their syllabi around these linguistic categories such that they began the academic year by teaching the accurate pronunciation of phonemes and gradually built towards the accurate pronunciation of full sentences.

This bottom-up approach was also echoed in the organization of the four language domains in the Audiolingualism syllabus. Just as children learn to listen and speak before they learn to read and write in their first language, so too did proponents of Audiolingualism believe that second language learners should follow the same natural progression.^[44] Influenced by the empirical study of spoken language in the field, wherein the analysis of actual speech utterances (“parole”) revealed insights into the deeper structures of language (“langue”),^[45] structuralists emphasized the importance of speech for language learning while maintaining that it was too irregular and subjective to form the basis of the pure study of language. As such, the study of language in the second language classroom was thought to begin with spoken language. In the Audiolingual classroom, instruction followed a bottom-up approach: students first developed listening and speaking skills through repeated exposure to native-like speech patterns and instruction almost purely in the target language, and only later were introduced to reading and writing.^[46] Grammatical rules were not explicitly taught but instead expected to be inferred and internalized by students through the repeated practice of phonology, morphology, and syntax in meaningful contexts such as dialogues and perfected through reactive corrective drilling.^[47]

Within this behaviorist and structuralist framework, pronunciation was central to the Audio-Lingual Method: accurate speech habits could only be formed through repeated oral practice in drilling and dialogue, not through exposure to the written word, and were best acquired at the segmental level before moving to suprasegmental features of speech.

The Decline of Audiolingualism: New Theories of Language Learning, Language, and Teaching

By the mid-1960s, Audiolingualism fell out of fashion among linguists and educators as new theories of language learning, language, and teaching emerged. Perhaps most remarkable in challenging the behaviorist foundations of Audiolingualism was American linguist Noam Chomsky. Coining the term “poverty of the stimulus” in 1980 as a cornerstone to his 1960s theory of Universal Grammar, Chomsky described how young children, prior to formal education and with partial language input, can still acquire language.^[48] While children may occasionally receive parental correction and imitate adult speech, they produce and interpret creative, novel, and grammatically correct sentences they have never been explicitly corrected for nor heard before.^[49] Their innate linguistic competence thus suggests that operant conditioning and external stimuli alone, as behaviorism proposed, are insufficient to describe language learning. Rather, their ability to learn language so efficiently and naturally, particularly its syntactic rules and even across different languages, arises from their biological predisposition (their internal “Language Acquisition Device”) to acquire certain grammars and not others. These predispositions are theorized to give rise to the restricted variation among all the world’s languages.

If ALM students seemed to develop L2 abilities through drilling, memorization, and mimicry, then it was nothing more than the development of, at best, shallow and inflexible linguistic competence and, at worst, language-like behaviors that Chomsky terms “linguistic performance.” In practice, ALM students “were often found to be unable to transfer skills acquired through Audiolingualism to real communication outside the classroom.”^[50] This skill transfer issue may have also applied to pronunciation. In other words, students had developed the ability to literally use language (performance), but did not know the language rules subconsciously enough to generate or comprehend language in its organic, spontaneous forms (competence). While Chomsky concerned himself with describing L1 processes, his linguistic nativist theories infiltrated second language acquisition (SLA) research and pedagogy in at least three ways:

1. Immersive, contextualized input-rich and input-first comprehension approaches such as Total Physical Response (TPR) and The Natural Approach emerged in the 1970s in an attempt to simulate “natural” language acquisition conditions for adults and school-aged children. These approaches yielded three influential hypotheses: the Input Hypothesis (Krashen 1982), the Interaction Hypothesis (Long 1983) and the Comprehensible Output Hypothesis (Swain 1985). To these linguists, speaking and explicit pronunciation instruction in these settings would follow after a long “silent” period of comprehensible input internalization by the learner.^[51]
2. SLA researchers and theorists began to consider whether “differences in the
   phonology of children or adult native speakers and adult non-native speakers were
   thought to be due to the existence of a critical period for language acquisition,
   beyond which language learning would necessarily be incomplete.”^[52] Given this
   critical period hypothesis, explicit pronunciation instruction decreased for older
   L2 learners because they were considered too old.
3. American linguist Dell Hymes’ (1972) developed his theory of communicative competence, the ability to meaningfully use language in social contexts, by merging Chomsky’s understanding of competence and performance.^[53] Hymes’ theory went on to influence the Communicative Language Movement (CLM) by realigning the priorities of world language teaching from accuracy to communication.

Mounting empirical evidence also undermined confidence in Audiolingualism as a teaching method. In 1970, for example, Pennsylvania and the U.S. Office of Education established an influential three-year longitudinal study of French and German language students to compare the effectiveness of three teaching methodologies: grammar-translation, audiolingual (which they called functional skills), and functional skills plus grammar programs. They found that across different years and tests, the “traditional” grammar-translation students consistently outperformed ALM students.^[54] At this point, the culmination of theoretical and methodological attacks on Audiolingualism created a pedagogical crisis. In the absence of an authoritative alternative, eclectic methods cropped up in the 1970s at the fringes of mainstream language teaching, such as Cognitive Code, Community Language Learning (CLL), the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, and Total Physical Response (TPR). Experimental in pedagogy but elusive in their empirical substance, most were short-lived. Yet redeemable was their instructional alignment with learners’ affective, cognitive, and social needs.^[55] Additionally, though varying greatly in their tolerance for pronunciation errors and approaches to pronunciation teaching—from the color-coded pronunciation wall charts used in the Silent Way, to the delayed pronunciation instruction in TPR—with each new method came a softening attitude towards pronunciation and accuracy across all language domains more generally. The incoming Communicative Approach mostly eliminated both imitative-intuitive and analytic-linguistic pronunciation instruction from its curriculum, prioritizing intelligibility over accuracy in pronunciation.

Modern Trends in Pronunciation Teaching: The Origins of Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), or simply the Communicative Approach, responded to language educators disillusioned with the then-current teaching methods in both Britain and the United States. Just as American linguists questioned the linguistic theories underlying Audiolingualism, so too did British linguists in the 1970s challenge the theoretical assumptions of Situational Language Teaching (SLT), a behaviorist approach similar to the Aural-Oral method in the United States.^[56] Unlike Audiolingualism and its predecessor, SLT presented and practiced new language structures through “situations” (e.g., at the post office, buying a theater ticket) designed to recreate the real-life experiences in which students would go on to use their L2.^[57] However, British linguists began to question how effective SLT was in teaching authentic communication, since it relied on finite, scripted, sometimes idealized contexts that placed an outsized focus on grammatical structures to the detriment of realistic communication.^[58] As British linguist David A. Wilkins critiques:

It would be naive to think that the speaker is somehow linguistically at the mercy of the physical situation in which he finds himself. What the individual says is what he has chosen to say. It is a matter of his intentions and purposes…I may have gone into the post office, not to buy stamps, but to complain about the non-arrival of a parcel…The making of requests, the seeking of information, the expression of agreement and disagreement can take place in almost any situation.^[59]

The syllabi of ALM and SLT developed students’ grammatical competence such that they could, in the classroom setting, produce well-formed phrases and sentences, and then these methods expected students to meaningfully transfer their grammatical knowledge to communicative contexts. However, in most cases, students who imitated and memorized grammar structures were unable to use it to communicate in unexpected situations.^[60] It would seem that they developed their grammatical competence, or the knowledge of grammar to produce well-formed phrases and sentences, but not communicative competence. As communicative language demand increased with the postwar influx of immigrants to Europe, The Council of Europe in 1971 began to shoulder the task of finding a functional and relevant approach for its adult language learners.

Among the assembled team of expert British linguists was Wilkins, who in his influential 1976 book Notional Syllabuses laid the groundwork for Communicative Approach syllabi. Drawing on John L. Austin’s ideas about Speech Acts,^[61] Wilkins viewed language as a way to express meaning through two categories: notions (time, frequency, sequence, quantity, space) and communicative functions (e.g., judging, forgiving, disagreeing, persuading, requesting, suggesting).^[62] This approach became known as the Notional-Functional Approach, and it structured language teaching in terms of the content rather than the form of language in order to develop a learner’s comprehensive communicative capacities.^[63] The swift curricular adoption of Wilkins’s proposals, along with similar Council of Europe publications (see Van Ek and Alexander 1980), provided the theoretical basis of an approach generalizable to learners of all levels and backgrounds: Communicative Language Teaching.

Modern Trends in Pronunciation Teaching: Communicative Competence and CLT Activities

Taking hold in the 1970s and remaining the dominant choice for language teachers today, CLT is not a specific teaching method but rather a very broad approach to: (1) make communicative competence its goal, and (2) teach communication through communication. Communicative competence, as Hymes believed, is “knowing what to say, when, to whom, and how to say it, and with what intention.”^[64] In such a way, the primary function of language is to negotiate meaning and facilitate social interaction. While there have been attempts to more narrowly define communicative competence beyond Hymes’ original definition (see Canale and Swain, 1980, Canale 1983 for definitions of grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competencies; see ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2024 and Common European Framework of Reference for Languages 2001 for its pedagogical applications), the design and implementation of CLT is wide in scope, interpretation, and application. Thus, depending on their students’ communicative desires and needs, educators may utilize different types of CLT activities and techniques as they see fit, so long as they enable the learner to use communication to share information, negotiate meaning, and interact authentically. For an example CLT lesson, see chapter 9 of Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching by Larsen-Freemen and Anderson.^[65] Below is a brief summary of the most common features of Communicative Language Teaching, as described by Richards and Rodgers (2001) and Richards (2006):

Participation Structures: Pair and group work.

Learner Roles: The learner takes on the roles of cooperator and negotiator, expected to primarily act with other learners rather than the teacher.

Teacher Roles: The teacher acts as a facilitator of communication, not as an authority figure. They act as a participant in activities and discussions. They also act as a needs analyst, organizing content around learner-determined needs and desires.

Communicative Activities: Functional task-completion (puzzles, games, scavenger hunts), information-gathering (paired surveys and interviews), opinion-sharing (ranking tasks), information-transfer (drawing a map from written instructions), gap activities (reasoning-gap, information-gap like jigsaw), and role play (simulations, debates, improvization).

Materials: “Authentic” oral and written texts that are culturally-rich, relevant to learners are preferred. Examples include: audio recordings, videos, films, songs, podcasts, literature, news and magazine articles, advertisements, brochures, blog posts, social media posts, restaurant menus, maps, and more. Others may also supplement with comprehensible or TPRS texts.

Having now described CLT and its place as the dominant choice for language teachers today, it is perhaps worth clarifying the key differences between CLT and audiolingualism (ALM).

Audiolingualism vs. CLT: Differences in Approach to Pronunciation Instruction

The table below shows the objectives of the ALM on the left and those of CLT on the right. It highlights the points relevant to pronunciation teaching from Finocchiaro and Brumfit’s (1983, p. 91-93) contrast of the ALM and the Communicative Approach:

 Audiolingualism                         Communicative Language Teaching

Audiolingualism adheres to The Nativeness Principle, which asserts that “it is possible and desirable to achieve native-like pronunciation,”^[66] and it therefore positions any deviation from native-normed language as inherently deficient. Simply put, this view allowed for only one acceptable way of speaking—one “accent” to attain—and envisioned a singular native speaker identity. This emphasis on perfect mimicry and native-likeness can perhaps be traced back to the 1940’s wartime needs of military and intelligence officers to blend in linguistically with native speakers. Within behaviorist-influenced ALM instruction, this prescriptivist stance materialized through the systematic reduction or elimination of L1-accented features in L2 speech in the imitation and adoption of a native accent, repetitive and corrective drilling, and the use of reinforcements and punishments. Learners were expected to internalize native-like pronunciation by memorizing and repeating dialogues modeled by native speakers.^[67] Therefore, the ALM privileged nativist ideals, positioning accentedness as central to nativeness,^[68] while intelligibility and comprehensibility received comparatively less instructional emphasis.

In contrast, Communicative Language Teaching fulfills The Intelligibility Principle, which maintains that, “learners simply need to be understandable.”^[69] Linguists and CLT educators increasingly began to subscribe to this principle by the late 1980s, and it gained popularity and empirical substance from Pamela Munro and Tracery Derwig’s 1995 landmark study in which they questioned the utility and popularity of accent reduction in L2 curriculum design and instruction given the critical period hypothesis. In their observation of the L2 speech of ESOL graduate students, Munro and Derwing concluded that, although accented speech was correlated with lower perceived comprehensibility and intelligibility, it was still largely intelligible and comprehensible to native speakers.^[70] Given this finding, they continue, instructors should not conflate the three components of pronunciation (accentedness, intelligibility, and comprehensibility) nor design assessments that set as a desirable goal native-like accentedness. Rather, they should design instructional outcomes aligned with comprehensibility and intelligibility such that, “the degree to which a particular speaker’s speech is accented should be of minor concern, and instruction should not focus on global accent reduction, but only on those aspects of the learner’s speech that appear to interfere with listeners’ understanding.”^[71]

This shift to intelligibility-based pronunciation instruction in the later era of CLT reframed accented speech not as a deficiency, but as a natural variation to be expected and accepted in language learners. Consequently, L2 students could be risk-takers, focusing their attention on learning how to speak fluidly, naturally, and with confidence without worry of making a mistake that would warrant a teacher’s correction. When explicit correction is provided, it is done at the discretion of the teacher and primarily when related to fluency rather than accuracy.^[72] Pronunciation instruction, when included, typically targeted suprasegmental features that most impact comprehensibility, such as stress, rhythm, and intonation, over drilling isolated segmental for accuracy.^[73] And when a level of pronunciation accuracy is desired, teachers can prepare materials around the core phonological features in the L2 essential for mutual intelligibility.^[74] Thus, CLT supports a more inclusive and practical view of pronunciation and remains attractive to many of its followers. Though implemented with varying styles, success, and fidelity, and not without its criticisms (e.g., students modeling pronunciation from peers may risk fossilization), CLT continues to be the international standard for L2 instruction.

Communicative Language Teaching in Practice: Pronunciation Abandoned and Re-visited

Unfortunately, in practice, many early CLT practitioners abandoned the teaching of pronunciation. In the 1970s and 80s, proponents of CLT had a wide variety of reasons for believing there was no longer a need for explicit pronunciation teaching nor its prominence in CLT curriculum and instruction. Some believed the adoption of CLT stipulated the wholesale rejection of The Nativeness Principle, some believed that L2 speakers would be unlikely to acquire native-like speech after a certain critical period of language development,^[75] and still others believed that, conversely, accurate L2 pronunciation would develop naturally with sufficient input.^[76] These views left CLT-informed pronunciation instruction as an aspiration for few teachers and scholars. With the exception of a handful of linguists advocating for the teaching of and further research into suprasegmental features in CLT in the mid-1980s (see Pennington and Richards 1986), “applied research on L2 learners’ phonological development became scarce.”^[77]

Despite the widespread adoption of CLT, the resulting lack of native-like pronunciation and linguistic competence among students were still intuitively perceived as shortcomings by teachers, and this led, ironically, to some increases in pronunciation instruction in the later era of CLT. While some practitioners, influenced by their bias for the Nativeness Principle, adopted an accent reductionist stance in their renewed focus on pronunciation instruction, others followed the guidance of emerging pronunciation experts of the mid-1980s and prioritized teaching comprehensible pronunciation for communicative competence. Thus, as “a marginalized role for pronunciation teaching grew out of research that pointed out the unlikelihood of native-like pronunciation attainment,” so too did CLT pronunciation materials begin to emerge in an attempt to methodize intelligibility-oriented pronunciation instruction within an otherwise broad communicative approach that had, by that time, largely sidelined pronunciation instruction.^[78]

Efforts to methodologically integrate pronunciation into CLT, as proposed by Pennington and Richards (1986), have finally garnered attention, including Marianne Celce‐Murcia’s Communicative Framework for Teaching Pronunciation. Though her work to create CLT-focused principles and activities for ESOL pronunciation began as early as 1983, she is most recently well-known for her 1996 book Teaching Pronunciation: A Course Book and Reference Guide. Here, she outlines a five-step communicative framework that successfully integrates imitative-intuitive, analytic-linguistic, and communicative methodologies: (1) Description and Analysis, (2) Listening Discrimination, (3) Controlled Practice, (4) Guided Practice, and (5) Communicative Practice.^[79] (For further descriptions of each step, see Teaching Strategies on page 29). Teachers wishing to go beyond their knowledge base of imitative-intuitive approaches such as repetition, drilling, and oral reading can apply this framework to teaching segmental and suprasegmental features. Whether utilized within one lesson or interspersed across lessons, the five steps “facilitate learners’ movement from controlled to automatic processing/production of L2 phonology”^[80] and finally to communicative production. The reach and impact of this approach in everyday classrooms is difficult to measure, although it has inspired the development of instructional guides for teachers (e.g., Beyond Repeat After Me: Teaching Pronunciation to English Learners) that I have read and plan to implement in the upcoming school year. With pronunciation now afforded a curricular priority, Celce‐Murcia and other pronunciation specialists of the 1980s and 1990s who published pronunciation-centered ESOL instructional materials, textbooks, and teacher preparation texts set the stage for more empirically-sound pedagogy.^[81]

The Current State of Pronunciation Teaching: An Examination of Research Findings

Surprisingly, many pronunciation specialists of the 1980s–1990s, “for the most part, [based] their recommendations for pronunciation teaching on (a) their own familiarity with relevant literatures (i.e., they were reading widely and synthesizing well), (b) their experiences as teachers of pronunciation, and (c) their intuitions.”^[82] While some linked their prescribed approaches and methods to theories of second language acquisition, its overall theoretical foundation was still weaker when compared to their predecessors. Applied linguists who recognized this gap and sought to empirically answer their own questions about pronunciation took to creating and publishing roughly 55 peer-reviewed research studies in international journals during the 10-year period of 2008–2017, more than doubling the 22 articles published in the 1982–2007 period prior.^[83] Ranging from mixed-methods, experimental, and quasi-experimental studies, their research concerned topics in three macro-level areas of focus: (1) what features of L2 phonology are necessary to teach; (2) how to effectively teach them; and (3) what teachers and students believe and know about pronunciation instruction.^[84] Given that pages 4–6 of this unit covered the third focus, I will only attend here to the first two foci. The culmination of their findings are summarized below, but note that this list is not exhaustive. Additionally, while the majority of recommendations were drawn from ESOL pronunciation literature due to its greater volume and accessibility, I expect that most are also applicable to teaching Spanish pronunciation.

(1) What features of L2 phonology are necessary to teach?

1.1.1) Core Topics of Phonology (listed in recommended order of priority
regarding English phonology, but can be generalizable to L2 phonology)^[85]

1. The process of thought grouping
   2. Prominence
   3. Word stress
   4. Consonant phonemes (voice, place, and manner of articulation)
   5. Vowel phonemes (e.g., in relation to each other within the larger
   vowel field)
   6. Sound-spelling correspondences
   7. Variability (e.g., allophonic variation, dialect variation)
   8. Consonant phonetics (i.e., more detailed analysis)
   9. Vowel phonetics
   10. Connected speech phenomena (e.g., linking, assimilation, the
   intervocalic flap, vowel reduction, palatalization)
   11. Construction stress
   12. Rhythm
   13. Intonation
   14. Discourse meaning

            1.1.2) Additional Topics^[86]

1. Prosodic features (e.g., tone choice)
   2. Speech rate
   3. Sound segments within strongly stressed syllables
   4. Specific consonant and vowel sounds that most impact
   intelligibility
   5. Word-final consonants

            1.1.3) Common errors of English-speaking students in a beginning level
Spanish class^[87]

1. Retroflexion of /r/ and /rr/
   2. Lengthening (and sometimes diphthongization) of most vowels,
   especially in stressed position
   3. Velarized /l/ in syllable-final and word-final positions
   4. Aspiration of voiceless stops /p, t, k/, especially in stressed
   syllables
   5. Stops instead of continuant allophones of /b, d, g/ in all positions
   6. Labiodental fricative for orthographic v
   7. Schwa for /a/ (and sometimes /e/) in unstressed syllables

(2) How can we effectively teach them?

            2.2.1) General Research Findings

1. Teach to beginners (Munro and Derwig 2008; Zielinski and Yates 2014) by taking advantage of their “Window of Maximal Opportunity” (Munro and Derwig 2015)
2. Prioritize intelligibility and communicative effectiveness as goals rather than correctness or accuracy (Munro and Derwig 1995)
3. Simultaneously teach segmental and suprasegmental features (Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998; Derwing and Rossiter (2003); Derwing and Munro 2015) and blend top-down and bottom-up approaches
4. Provide explicit instruction on L2 segmental and suprasegmental features (Lee, Jang, and Plonsky 2015; Thomson and Derwing 2015; Kissling 2013)
5. Incorporate corrective feedback (Lyster, Saito, Sato 2013; Saito 2021) and peer-to-peer feedback Martin & Sippel 2021)
6. Effective pronunciation assessment (Isaacs & Trofimovich, 2016)
7. Use technology via computer-assisted pronunciation teaching (Ding et al 2019; Garcia et al 2020) or incorporate audio or audiovisual materials that include a range of voices and dialects (Harding 2011)

2.2.2) Evidence-Based Design Principles for Spanish Pronunciation
Teaching^[88]

1. Perception-Focused Instruction (e.g., High Variability Phonetic Training)
2. Focus on Prosody
3. Use Contextualized Speech
4. Focus on Features with High Functional Load
5. Target Features And Segments Shared By The Majority of The Varieties of The Target Language

                        2.2.3) Instructional Planning and Implementation^[89]

1. Conduct Needs Analyses
2. Teach prosody via shadowing and mirroring
3. Teach perception via dictation cloze and short dictation
4. Encourage students to use sound-editing software and audio/video recordings for self-monitoring and assessment
5. Supplement instruction with a small to moderate (~10 minutes daily) amount of homework (e.g., assign phonetics exercises or shadowing activities using applications like Audacity)

The Current State of Pronunciation Teaching: Theory vs. Practice

Despite renewed interest in pronunciation instruction and the contemporary shift towards Communicative Language Teaching, many teachers, textbooks, and researchers still re-produce outdated imitative-intuitive, bottom-up methods from the Audiolingualism era. For instance, a 2020 survey of 100 Spanish teachers revealed that they considered the knowledge of sounds, a segmental feature, to be of greater importance than the suprasegmental features of stress and intonation.^[90] While they rated pronunciation-embedded communicative activities as useful, they valued familiarity with research on L2 pronunciation development to a lesser degree. These beliefs were reflected in their classroom practice: most reported a high confidence in using controlled techniques like repetition drills and a focus on segmentals, and low confidence in familiarity with L2 pronunciation and a focus on suprasegmentals. As the authors note, although more experienced pronunciation teachers tended to value higher the knowledge of suprasegmentals, the consensus on segmentals highlights a lack of Spanish suprasegmental-focused instruction in contemporary classrooms.^[91]

This preference for teaching segmentals is found even among veteran educators. In Baker (2014)’s study of five experienced ESOL teachers, controlled techniques dominated while guided and free techniques were limited in use.^[92] An examination of the types of unanimously-used controlled activities—explanation and examples, production practice, repetition drills, visual identification, teacher correction, review—reveals an unsettling, yet perhaps unsurprising, conclusion: teachers often default to teach what they know about pronunciation rather than what empirical research supports, and what they do know often contradicts CLT principles.

Similar findings have also been corroborated among pre-service ESOL teachers. In a longitudinal study examining the pronunciation-related cognitions of 33 undergraduate Canadian TESL students, 17 participants took part in a 13-week pronunciation training course that included an integrated teaching practicum component.^[93] By the end of the course, most in the treatment group reported a more favorable view of explicit pronunciation than their control group counterparts. However, many also expressed uncertainty in their ability to teach pronunciation communicatively. Despite receiving instruction in the use of communicative activities, participants seemed to need more examples on how to use them. One participant commented on the course materials: “when you look at the course pack, it’s a lot of drillings and repetitions.”^[94] So, while they may find a Communicative Approach to pronunciation teaching interesting and worthwhile, L2 teachers do not follow it in practice due to a lack of specialized training and instructional modeling.

In her report on the current state pronunciation instruction, Martha C. Pennington, an expert scholar of pronunciation instruction, lists the ways in which mainstream research studies fall short of expectations, noting that they typically:

• Focus on a specific pronunciation feature or contrasting set of features that impacts lexical or clause-level meaning;
• Teach the focal pronunciation feature(s) as an ‘add-on’ to an existing language learning curriculum;
• Apply traditional explicit instructional methodology, moving from form-focused input and controlled practice to freer communicative practice; and
• Are carried out with relatively advanced students or late-stage learners, aiming to remediate pronunciation problems that interfere with communication.^[95]

What is missing from contemporary research, she continues, are studies which:

• Focus on pronunciation in a global or comprehensive way;
• Teach pronunciation as a central aspect of a language learning curriculum;
• Apply non-traditional instructional methodology, especially lesson designs that diverge significantly from the sequence of form-focused input and controlled practice followed by communicative practice; and
• Are carried out not only with relatively advanced students or late-stage learners, aiming to remediate pronunciation problems that interfere with communication, but with beginning students and early-stage learners, aiming to limit or avoid pronunciation problems that interfere with communication.^[96]

With even mainstream pronunciation instruction and scholarship missing the mark, it can feel difficult for pronunciation-focused L2 educators to know how to best proceed.

Conclusions, Reflections, and My Approaches to Pronunciation in this Unit

This gap between theories in Communicative Language Teaching, pronunciation research, and current instructional practice is troubling. In an L2 educational landscape that prioritizes the teaching listening, speaking, reading, and writing above pronunciation; whose textbooks either underrepresent phonetics^[97] or follow an Audiolingual sequence of didactic instruction, drills, and repetition; and whose teachers mostly adopt a “focus-on-forms” approach, it’s no wonder that research-informed pronunciation teaching remains limited and truly communicative-based classroom practices is underresearched.

While I began this unit-writing journey with the ambitions of writing Spanish 1 lesson plans informed by cutting edge research and my Communicative Approach-informed teaching beliefs, I’ve found my lessons to be limited by contradictions that exist within the pronunciation instruction scholarship. For example, though I rely on Celce-Murcia et al.’s (2010) Communicative Framework for Teaching Pronunciation throughout my lessons, I am aware of its shortcomings (see Pennington 2021) and that my tendency to design activities for segmentals over suprasegmentals results a my lack of knowledge–one still present even after all this research!

For me, the value of completing this unit relies less on the innovation of my lesson plans than on the information I’ve gained through research and will apply in the near future. Throughout this process, I’ve deepened my understanding of the range of different methods and approaches to language teaching, challenged my bias for The Nativeness Principle, broadened my knowledge of pronunciation teaching techniques, and developed a list of future action items. Given my research, in this unit I hope to:

1. Develop students’ implicit and explicit knowledge/awareness of language production (e.g., phonological awareness);
2. Design lesson plans and assess students informed by the Functional Load Principle
3. Teach the segmental features of Spanish most important for intelligibility / most; commonly mistaken by English speakers via High-Varability Phonetic Training;
4. Prioritize the teaching of dialectical variation and expose my students to a range of pronunciation models;
5. Experiment with the technique of shadowing and the use of audio recordings;
6. Begin to make pronunciation more of a central feature of my classroom; and
7. Develop my students’ interactional competence.

Although they may not be fully reflected in my current lessons, I hope that my future pronunciation-focused lessons will incorporate the following principles:

1. Make pronunciation instruction fun and relevant to my students’ interests
2. Begin with a contextualized “top-down” approach
3. Teach suprasegmental aspects (particularly thought grouping, linking, rhythm, prosody, and discourse meaning), through the use of songs, mirroring, and other effective strategies
4. Incorporate teaching techniques such as González-Buenos (2021)’s SPACE (Structured Presentation, Attention, Co-construction, and Extension)
5. Assign activities and homework that teach students how to practice shadowing and learn how to interpret their own recordings via Audacity (Olson 2014)
6. Teach students via a communicative method that leads to intelligible pronunciation transfer in spontaneous language production
7. Use L2 users as sources of information for pronunciation learning rather than relying solely on native speakers (Cook 1999)
8. Give useful, timely feedback
9. Measure and have self-measurements for students’ long-term pronunciation progress

Twenty-five years ago, Arteaga (2000) recommended that first-year Spanish students, “be exposed to Spanish dialectal variation, while being encouraged to maintain consistency in their own pronunciation,” and that “it is imperative that instructors explain to students which features characterize a given dialect.” To improve communication with a variety of Spanish-speakers, she outlined three phonological features teachers should pay attention to: (1) Aspiration/Deletion of Syllable Final Consonants, (2) Distinción/Seseo, and (3) Yeísmo/zeísmo/lleísmo. Given her recommendations, I developed a Spanish 1 unit whose goal is to deepen students’ knowledge about the different dialectical variations of Spanish, including the ones Arteaga outlined (see Lesson 7 of this unit). I hope that by exposing my students to different types of dialects, they can begin to develop “an ear” for pronunciation, an appreciation for the varieties of Spanish, the ability to navigate different communicative contexts, and the agency to choose which parts of that dialect they want to independently explore or use in their speech. Hopefully, then will students ultimately learn why learning pronunciation is worthwhile and will continue to work on it independently. The potential to engage my students in conversations about how accentedness and language varieties are related to identity and social positioning is within grasp, and although perhaps too ambitious for this unit, I am excited for its realization in the years ahead. For now, I hope to use this unit to develop a multicompetent, multilingual, and empathetic Spanish language learner.

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^[2] Jack Richards and Richard Schmidt, “Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics,” 2010, https://bayanebartar.org/file-dl/library/IELTS3/Longman_Dictionary4th_Edition.pdf, 469.

^[3] John M Levis, “Basics of Teaching Pronunciation,” Pressbooks.pub (Iowa State University Digital Press, September 10, 2024), https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/teachingpronunciation/chapter/chapter-1-basics/.

^[4]  Ron Thomson, “Measurement of Accentedness, Intelligibility, and Comprehensibility,” Assessment in Second Language Pronunciation, July 14, 2017, 11–29, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315170756-2, 16.

^[5] Ron Thomson, “Measurement of Accentedness, Intelligibility, and Comprehensibility,” 14.

^[6] Ron Thomson, “Measurement of Accentedness, Intelligibility, and Comprehensibility,” 15.

^[7] Kim Crowley and Linda Houts-Smith, “Sociolinguistics Part 2,” web.mnstate.edu, n.d., http://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/Socio/page2.htm.

^[8] Beth Zielinski, “‘The Social Impact of Pronunciation Difficulties: Confidence and Willingness to Speak.’ ,” Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 3, no. 1 (2012). ; Tracey M. Derwing and Marian J. Rossiter, “ESL Learners’ Perceptions of Their Pronunciation Needs and Strategies,” System 30, no. 2 (June 2002): 155–66, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0346-251x(02)00012-x.

^[9] Tracey Derwing, “What Do ESL Students Say about Their Accents?,” Canadian Modern Language Review 59, no. 4 (June 2003): 547–67, https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.59.4.547.

^[10]Helen Fraser, “Coordinating Improvements in Pronunciation Teaching for Adult Learners of English as a Second Language” (DETYA (ANTA Innovative project), 2000), https://www.helenfraser.com.au/wp-content/uploads/ANTA-REPORT-FINAL.pdf.

^[11] Linda Grant, Donna M Brinton, and Michigan Press, Pronunciation Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching (Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan Press, Cop, 2014).

^[12]Charles Nagle, Rebecca Sachs, and Germán Zárate-Sández, “Spanish Teachers’ Beliefs on the Usefulness of Pronunciation Knowledge, Skills, and Activities and Their Confidence in Implementing Them,” Language Teaching Research 27, no. 3 (September 22, 2020): 136216882095703, https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820957037

^[13]Jenkins, Jennifer. The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford university press, 2000.

^[14] Elizabeth M. Kissling, “Pronunciation Instruction Can Improve L2 Learners’ Bottom-up Processing for Listening,” The Modern Language Journal 102, no. 4 (October 9, 2018): 653–75, https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12512.

^[15]Isabelle Darcy, “Powerful and Effective Pronunciation Instruction: How Can We Achieve It?,” The CATESOL Journal 30, no. 1 (January 1, 2018), https://doi.org/10.5070/B5.35963.

^[16]Shem Macdonald, “Pronunciation: Views and Practices of Reluctant Teachers,” Prospect 17, no. 3 (2025): 1-, https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1370848660459805570.

^[17] Macdonald, “Pronunciation.”

^[18] Grant and Brinton, “Pronunciation Myths,” 202.

^[19] Amanda Baker and John Murphy, “Knowledge Base of Pronunciation Teaching: Staking out the Territory,” TESL Canada Journal 28, no. 2 (June 21, 2011): 29, https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v28i2.1071.

^[20] Macdonald, “Pronunciation.”

^[21] Macdonald, “Pronunciation.”

^[22] Macdonald, “Pronunciation.” 7-8

^[23] Junkyu Lee, Juhyun Jang, and Luke Plonsky, “The Effectiveness of Second Language Pronunciation Instruction: A Meta-Analysis,” Applied Linguistics 36, no. 3 (July 25, 2014): 345–66, https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amu040.

^[24] Lee, Jang, and Plonsky, “The Effectiveness of Second Language Pronunciation Instruction.”

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^[26] Elizabeth M. Kissling, “Teaching Pronunciation: Is Explicit Phonetics Instruction Beneficial for FL Learners?,” The Modern Language Journal 97, no. 3 (August 22, 2013): 720–44, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.12029.x.

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^[29] Marianne Celce-Murcia et al., Teaching Pronunciation: A Course Book and Reference Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 3.

^[30]Jack C Richards and Theodore S Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 50.

^[31] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 51.

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^[33] Schueler, “Foreign Language Teaching,” 183.

^[34] Charles C. Fries, Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language, ERIC (University of Michigan Press, 1945), https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED071477, 3, 5.

^[35] Fries, Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language, 24-26.

^[36] Celce-Murcia et al., Teaching Pronunciation, 2.

^[37] Robert and Fries, English Sentence Patterns, 14.

^[38] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 53.

^[39] Larsen-Freeman and Anderson, Techniques and Principles, 35-41.

^[40] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 57.

^[41] Larsen-Freeman and Anderson, Techniques and Principles, 41.

^[42] Paul Lennon, “Contrastive Analysis, Error Analysis, Interlanguage,” in Bielefeld Introduction to Applied Linguistics: A Course Book (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2008), 53.

^[43] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 54.

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^[46] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 54.

^[47] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 54.

^[48] Vivian Cook and Mark Newsom, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An Introduction (New Delhi: Wiley-India, 2008), 55-58.

^[49] Cook and Newson, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. 189-203.

^[50] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 65.

^[51] BYU, “The Natural Approach,” Methods of Language Teaching, n.d., https://methodsoflanguageteaching.byu.edu/the-natural-approach.

^[52] Jose A Mompean and Jonás Fouz-González, Investigating English Pronunciation, Palgrave Macmillan UK EBooks (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137509437, 153.

^[53]Gerdi Quist, “Social and Cultural Views of Language,” in Reading with My Eyes Open: Embracing the Critical and Personal in Language Peedagogy (Ubiquity Press, 2013), https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Education_and_Professional_Development/Reading_With_My_Eyes_Open%3A_Embracing_the_Critical_and_the_Personal_in_Language_Pedagogy_(Quist).

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^[55] Mompean and Fouz-González, Investigating English, 153.

^[56] BYU, “Communicative Language Teaching,” Methods of Language Teaching, 2015, https://methodsoflanguageteaching.byu.edu/communicative-language-teaching.

^[57] Richards and Rodgers, Approaches and Methods, 153.

^[58] D. A. Wilkins, “Grammatical, Situational and Notional Syllabuses,” in International Congress of Applied Linguistics (3rd, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 1972), 1972, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED136549.pdf., 255.

^[59]D. A. Wilkins, Notional Syllabuses: A Taxonomy and Its Relevance to Foreign Language Curriculum Development (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 17.

^[60] Wilkins, “Grammatical, Situational and Notional Syllabuses,” 255.

^[61] Mitchell Green, “Speech Acts (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy),” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/.

^[62] Wilkins, Notional Syllabuses, 4.

^[63] Wilkins, Notional Syllabuses, 18.

^[64] Quist, “Social and Cultural Views of Language.”

^[65] Larsen-Freeman and Anderson in Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.

^[66] John M. Levis, “Changing Contexts and Shifting Paradigms in Pronunciation Teaching,” TESOL Quarterly 39, no. 3 (September 1, 2005): 369, https://doi.org/10.2307/3588485, 370.

^[67] Larsen-Freeman and Anderson, Techniques and Principles, 35-51.

^[68] John Levis, “Revisiting the Intelligibility and Nativeness Principles,” Journal of Second Language Pronunciation 6, no. 3 (November 2020): 310–28, https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.20050.lev, 3.

^[69] Levis, “Changing Contexts and Shifting Paradigms,” 370.

^[70]Murray Munro and Tracy Derwing, “Foreign Accent, Comprehensibility, and Intelligibility in the Speech of Second Language Learners,” Language Learning 45, no. 1 (March 1995): 73–97, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0023-8333.49.s1.8, 90.

^[71] Munro and Derwing, “Foreign Accent, Comprehensibility, and Intelligibility,” 93.

^[72] Larsen-Freeman and Anderson, “Communicative Language Teaching,” in Techniques and Principles.

^[73] Levis, “Changing Context and Shifting Paradigms,” 371.

^[74] Jennifer Jenkins, The Phonology of English as an International Language: New Models, New Norms, New Goals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

^[75] James Emil Flege, Murray J. Munro, and Ian R. A. MacKay, “Factors Affecting Strength of Perceived Foreign Accent in a Second Language,” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97, no. 5 (May 1995): 3125–34, https://doi.org/10.1121/1.413041.

^[76] Stephen D. Krashen, “Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition,” The Modern Language Journal 67, no. 2 (1982), https://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf.

^[77] Tracey M Derwing, Murray J Munro, and Ron I Thomson, The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Speaking (New York: Routledge, 2022), 148.

^[78] John Levis and Sinem Sonsaat, “Pronunciation Teaching in the Early CLT Era,” Routledge EBooks, November 8, 2017, 267–83, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315145006-17.

^[79] Celce-Murcia et al., Teaching Pronunciation, 44-48.

^[80] Celce-Murcia et al., Teaching Pronunciation, 45.

^[81] Marnie Reed and John M Levis, The Handbook of English Pronunciation (Hoboken, Nj: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 52-54.

^[82] Marine and Levis, The Handbook of English Pronunciation, 56.

^[83] Kazuya Saito and Luke Plonsky, “Effects of Second Language Pronunciation Teaching Revisited: A Proposed Measurement Framework and Meta‐Analysis,” Language Learning 69, no. 3 (April 30, 2019): 652–708, https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12345.

^[84] Reed and Levis, The Handbook of English Pronunciation, 56.

^[85] John Murphy, Teaching the Pronunciation of English: Focus on Whole Courses (Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan Press, 2017), 20.

^[86] John Murphy, Teaching the Pronunciation of English, 14.

^[87] Bjarkman and Hamond, American Spanish Pronunciation, 198.

^[88] Laura Colantoni et al., “Evidence-Based Design Principles for Spanish Pronunciation Teaching,” Frontiers in Communication 6 (April 14, 2021), https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.639889.

^[89] Derwing and Munro, Pronunciation Fundamentals, 105-106.

^[90] Nagle, Sachs, and Zárate-Sández, “Spanish Teachers’ Beliefs.”

^[91] Nagle, Sachs, and Zárate-Sández, “Spanish Teachers’ Beliefs.”

^[92] Baker, “Exploring Teachers’ Knowledge of Second Language Pronunciation Techniques.”

^[93] Larissa Buss, “The Role of Training in Shaping Teacher Cognition Related to L2 Pronunciation,” Ilha Do Desterro a Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies 70, no. 3 (September 22, 2017): 201–26, https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2017v70n3p201.

^[94] Buss, “The Role of Training in Spanish Teacher Cognition,” 216

^[95] Martha C Pennington, “Teaching Pronunciation: The State of the Art 2021,” RELC Journal 52, no. 1 (April 2021): 3–21, https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882211002283.

^[96] Pennington, “Teaching Pronunciation: The State of the Art 2021.”

^[97] Deborah L. Arteaga, “Articulatory Phonetics in the First-Year Spanish Classroom,” The Modern Language Journal 84, no. 3 (September 2000): 339–54, https://doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00073.

Unit Overview and Rationale for Teaching Strategies

While pronunciation will be taught year-round, this four-week unit will introduce Spanish 1 students to the foundational concepts of Spanish phonetics while simultaneously teaching them the standard grammar and vocabulary of an introductory high school Spanish course. Lessons 1, 2, and 7 are pronunciation-focused lessons which broadly follow a three-step sequence: phonological awareness-raising, perception tasks, and production tasks. They focus on the segmental features of Spanish. Lessons 3-6 blend segmental and suprasegmental features with the vocabulary of greetings, introductions, and expressions of courtesy to contextualize pronunciation practice. However, these lessons are abbreviated and subject to modification and extension according to the teacher. Throughout this unit, students will be introduced to articulatory phonetics and train their ears through listening discrimination tasks, controlled speaking practice, and structured communicative activities.

In the first week, students will focus on the Spanish vowel system, learning how to perceive and produce Spanish vowels without the influence of the English schwa. Students will complete a shadowing activity in order to internalize accurate and intelligible vowel articulation. In the second and third weeks, students will study the Spanish consonants. Given that the voiceless stops /p, t, k/ and voiced stops /b, d, g/ are high functional load sounds that are often mispronounced by English speakers, lessons have been designed to prioritize the learning of these sounds. Lessons from week 1 and 2 draw on the principles of Communicative Language teaching and will therefore utilize Celcie-Murcia’s Communicative Teaching Framework for Teaching Pronunciation. In the final week, students will explore dialectical variation across the Spanish-speaking world, particularly in Spain, Puerto Rico, and Argentina. This lesson exemplifies the use of High Variability Phonetic Training and dialectical awareness-raising to teach pronunciation in a way that is culturally-informed.

This unit assumes that the students have had no prior formal pronunciation instruction and have very limited knowledge of Spanish. The first lesson of this unit, Lesson 1, is intended to be taught during the first week of a Spanish 1 course. In my classroom, I will utilize it on the third instructional day (Day 1 will be used for procedures, ice-breakers, and bonding; Day 2 will be used for procedures and teaching the alphabet). Therefore, students only need a prior understanding of the Spanish alphabet before beginning this unit. Because students may be hesitant to speak because they are “worried they’ll mess up” or “are too shy,” teachers should support students by encouraging them to try their best, telling them that more practice will lead to better pronunciation, modeling pronunciation, gently providing corrective feedback only when relevant to the lesson’s language objectives, and incorporating opportunities for repetition, reflection, and self-assessment. Lastly, there are two assessments: a formative assessment at the end of Week 2 (recording of comic strip dialogue) and an end-of-unit summative assessment (1-minute dialogue presentation in pairs) at the end of Week 4.

To me, this unit is still a work in progress. Many activity ideas (e.g., end-of-unit karaoke assessment, mirroring activities, improvization) and instructional aspirations (teach suprasegmentals first) did not make the final cut. Though, given that these Spanish 1 students do not have a foundation in Spanish phonetics, I believe it is appropriate to teach the segmental features of Spanish at the beginning of the school year, even if more integration of suprasegmentals would’ve been beneficial here. Finally, this unit is informed by the sequence of phonetic instruction modeled by the Tal Como Suena modules from the University of Florida and the I’m All Ears Spanish pronunciation course by the University of Washington.

Teaching Strategies

Used in all lessons, particularly in Lessons 1 and 2:

• Communicative Framework for Teaching Pronunciation (Celcie-Murcia et al. 2010) – This five-step approach is a form-focused communicative language teaching approach to pronunciation. In the early phases, students learn how to accurately perceive and produce Spanish phonemes, practice their pronunciation of target phonemes in controlled tasks, and apply this phonemic and phonological awareness to contextualized, spontaneous communicative activities.
  • Description and Analysis: Teacher explains and models the sounds of the Spanish language using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) charts, phonemic symbols, pictures and videos of mouth movements, and recordings of native speakers. A contrastive analysis compares the similarities and differences of speech production in Spanish to the students’ native language(s) to raise students’ metalinguistic awareness and prevent L1 interference. Activities include: “Same or different,” “Odd one out,” listening using minimal pairs, cloze listening, and dictation.
  • Listening Discrimination: Students learn how to hear and perceive differences in the pronunciation of Spanish versus English. By developing this awareness and receiving corrective feedback on their ability to correctly discriminate a target sound, students learn to self-correct for their pronunciation for the production phase.
  • Controlled Practice: Students repeat target sounds in isolation, syllables, words, or short phrases through activities such as repetition, tongue twisters, and oral reading of minimal-pair sentences, short dialogues, skits, and stories. These tasks help build muscle memory. At this stage, students should receive feedback to improve the accuracy of their pronunciation.
  • Guided Practice: Students use target sounds in structured communication exercises such as information-gap activities and structured dialogues where students may be given language structures but need to assemble complete sentences themselves. Attention to pronunciation during these tasks is still important.
  • Communicative Practice: Students apply the target sounds in spontaneous speech during communicative activities such as role plays, storytelling, short skits, and even improvisation. The learner must attend to both the content and form of the language in order to use language as intelligibly and naturally as possible.

Used in most lessons, particularly in Lesson 7:

• High Variability Perception Training (Thomson, 2018) – A type of perception training Given varied input from diverse speakers and corrective feedback, students learn to more effectively identify, discriminate, and produce L2 sounds. Proponents of this technique believe that perception precedes production, and that students need to be exposed to a variety of pronunciations of the same sounds and words before they can produce them. There are three stages:
  • Pre-test (optional in classroom settings): Completion of identification task to establish baseline accuracy.
  • Training: Identification task (e.g., forced choice; discrimination) with exposure to multiple voices and corrective feedback.
  • Post-test: Completion of the same pre-test identification task to measure learning gains.

Used most in Lesson 1:

• Shadowing (Foote and McDonough 2017; Maristen, Montgomery, and Willardson 2017) – A technique where students listen to and imitate as closely and quickly as possible the audio or video recording of a native speaker. It is typically performed with short segments of authentic or semi-authentic speech, with students repeating the dialogue simultaneously or with a small delay. Interestingly, shadowing has its origins in cognitive psychology, speech-language pathology, and in Japan where it is a popular yet controversial technique for training interpreters. Though a historically popular method for independent study via instructor- and learner-oriented websites, it is now being studied by L2 researchers to affirm its effectiveness for improving segmental and suprasegmental features. This technique is particularly effective when paired with feedback and self-monitoring technological tools such as recordings.

Essential Questions:

• Why is pronunciation important for intelligible communication in Spanish?
• Which Spanish sounds are the most challenging for me (as an English learner) to learn, and why?
• How can learning how to “train my ear” improve my pronunciation of Spanish?
• What dialectical variations exist within the Spanish language? Which are most common? Which variations am I most interested in learning about, and why?

Semana 1: Introducción a la fonética y fonología en español

Semana 2: Saludos y Despedidos

Semana 3: Las conjugaciones de Ser (¿Quién soy? ¿Quiénes somos?) y los números

Semana 4: Las diversidad cultural y lingüística del mundo hispanohablante

RESOURCES FOR CLASSROOM USE

Instructional Materials for teaching segmentals and suprasegmentals of Spanish:

1. Modules:

• Tal Como Suena

1. Open Textbooks

• I’m All Ears
• Ventanas Abiertas
• Trayectos
• Lumen Introductory Spanish 1
• Basic Spanish Language & Culture
• Yo puedo: para empezar
• Beginning Spanish ¡Empecemos por aquí!

1. Online Resources for Teachers
   1. Compiled List of Webpages
   2. Spanish Sound System
   3. Curso de pronunciación
   4. Ortografia española
   5. Introduction to Thought Groups and Rhythm
2. Online Resources for Students
   1. The Sounds of Spanish
   2. Spanish Vowels: Examples And Exercises To Improve Your Pronunciation
   3. StudySpanish Pronunciation Exercises
   4. Vowels Quiz
   5. Dictado palabras esdrújulas
   6. Spanish voiced consonants
   7. Spanish Spelling With B and V: Word List, Verbs, and Pronunciation
   8. The Spanish B/V Pronunciation: Master The Subtle Difference
   9. Spanish Consonants (b, v, ñ, rr, ll)
   10. A useful pronunciation guide to Spanish vowels and diphthongs
   11. World’s Most Complete Spanish Pronunciation Guide [+Audio]
3. Video Resources for Students
   1. Lesson 1: Spanish Pronunciation & Basic Translation
   2. European Spanish Pronunciation, Video 1: Spanish Phonetics and Spelling
   3. “If you want to sound less like a gringo”
   4. Ten Minute Spanish

FURTHER READING

History of (English) Pronunciation Teaching

• Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (Richards and Rodgers 2001)
• The Handbook of English Pronunciation (Reed and Levis 2015)
• Teaching the Pronunciation of English (Murphy 2017)

Pronunciation Teaching: Theories, Trends, and Practices

• Teaching Pronunciation with Confidence: A Resource for ESL/EFL Teachers and Learners (Guskaroska et al. 2024)
• Pronunciation Fundamentals: Evidence-based Perspectives for L2 Teaching and Research (Derwing and Munro 2015)
• Investigating English Pronunciation: Trends and Directions (Mompean and Fouz-González 2015)
• Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (Larsen-Freeman and Anderson 2011)
• The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Speaking (Derwing, Munro, and Thomson 2022)
• The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition (Malovrh and Benati 2018)
• Teaching Pronunciation: A Course Book and Reference Guide (Celce-Murcia et al. 2010)
• Key Concepts for Teachers of Pronunciation
• Speaking in a Second Language (Alonso 2018)
• Beyond Repeat After Me: Teaching Pronunciation to English Learners (Yoshida 2016)
• “Integrating Pronunciation Into the English Language Curriculum: A Framework for Teachers” (McGregor and Reed 2018)
• “The Mirroring Project: Improving suprasegmentals and intelligibility in ESL presentations” (Tarone and Meyers 2018)

Spanish Pronunciation Teaching

• Key Issues in the Teaching of Spanish Pronunciation: From Description to Pedagogy (Rao 2019)
• Teaching Dialectal Variation in the Spanish as a Foreign Language Classroom (Module)
• Catálogo de voces hispánicas | Voices of the Hispanic world
• The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Language Teaching (Muñoz-Basols et al. 2019)
• “Spanish as a Second Language and Teaching Methodologies” (Sanz 2012)
• Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: teoría y práctica (Taboada et al. 2016)
• Sonido y sentido: Teoría y práctica de la pronunciación del español con audio (Guitart 2004)
• Fonética y Fonología Españolas, 4th Edition (Schwegler et al. 2018)

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ACTFL World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages

1. Communication: Learners are able to communicate effectively in more than one language in order to function in a variety of situations and for multiple purposes.
   1. Interpersonal Communication: Learners interact and negotiate meaning in spoken, signed, or written conversations to share information, reactions, feelings, and opinions.
   2. Interpretive Communication: Learners understand, interpret, and analyze what is heard, read, or viewed on a variety of topics.
2. Cultures: Learners interact with cultural competence and understanding.
   1. Relating Cultural Practices to Perspectives: Learners use the language to investigate, explain, and reflect on the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the cultures studied
   2. Relating Cultural Products to Perspectives: Learners use the language to investigate, explain, and reflect on the relationship between the products and perspectives of the cultures studied.
3. Connections: Learners connect with other disciplines and acquire information and diverse perspectives in order to use the language to function in academic and career-related situations.
   1. Making Connections: Learners build, reinforce, and expand their knowledge of other disciplines while using the language to develop critical thinking and to solve problems creatively.
   2. Acquiring Information and Diverse Perspectives: Learners access and evaluate information and diverse perspectives that are available through the language and its cultures.
4. Comparison: Learners develop insight into the nature of language and culture in order to interact with cultural competence.
   1. Cultural Comparisons: Learners use the language to investigate, explain, and reflect on the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.
5. Communities: Communicate and interact with cultural competence in order to participate in multilingual communities at home and around the world.
   1. Lifelong Learning: Learners set goals and reflect on their progress in using languages for enjoyment, enrichment, and advancement.

LESSON 1: Spanish vowels (a, e, i, o, u)

1.1 — Table of Spanish cognates for English words that contain the schwa (/ə/) sound

Cognate: A word in another language (e.g., Spanish) that looks like and means the same thing as a word in another language (e.g., English). For example, “tomato” in English and “tomate” in Spanish are cognates. Even though they don’t look exactly the same, they sound mostly the same and have the same meaning.

Schwa: The sound (/ə/) is the “uh” sound that happens a lot in English, but NEVER in Spanish. For example, the second “a” in “animal” sounds like “uh” in English but will always sound like “a” in Spanish.

English Word                                                Spanish Cognate

1.2 – Listening Discrimination Assessment: Cloze Listening

Actividad 1: Fill in each gap with the missing vowel to complete the word.
The Spanish vowels may be used more than once.                Key: o, e, i, u, a, i, e, a, o, u

1. Caball___ 2. Serpi___nte 3. T___gre         4. G___sano     5. Cebr___
2. M___ 7. M___                   8. Cu___ndo      9. Buen___s    10. G___sto

(Adapted from: Spanish Vowels: Examples And Exercises To Improve Your Pronunciation)

LESSON 2:  /p, t, k/ sounds

2.1 – Listening Discrimination Assessment: “Odd One Out”

Instrucciones: You will listen to 15 different words. Each word will be repeated three times. One of the words will be pronounced differently: it will be pronounced using the English version of the /p, t, or k/ sound. After each set of three words, you will tell me which word you heard differently by saying “uno, dos, tres” after I silently count you down with my 3, 2, 1. Any questions? ¿Listos?

/p/ sound:

1. papá papá                             papá (diferente)
2. mapa mapa (diferente)          mapa
3. papel papel (diferente)          papel
4. ropa (diferente) ropa                             ropa
5. poco poco                            poco (diferente)

/t/ sound:

1. tengo (diferente) tengo                            taza
2. estoy tengo                            tengo (diferente)
3. tarea tarea                             tarea (diferente)
4. gato gato (diferente)            gato
5. té (diferente) té                                 té

/k/ sound:

1. clase (diferente) clase                            clase
2. sacar sacar                            sacar (diferente)
3. poco poco (diferente)                       poco
4. casa casa                             casa (diferente)
5. cuatro cuatro (diferente)         cuatro (diferente)

2.2 – Informal Greetings and Goodbyes Dialogue practice with /p, t, k/ sounds

Instrucciones: You will read aloud three informal dialogues with your partner. Each dialogue will practice either the /p, t, or k/ sounds, and will introduce you to “Saludos y Despedidos” (Greetings and Goodbyes) vocabulary. You will hear a recording of the first dialogue before you begin. Before you read aloud each dialogue, underline all words with the featured sound. Read each dialogue aloud at least two times, switching roles in between each attempt. When you read, make sure to hold up a piece of paper or your hand near your mouth to make sure you are not “breathing air” into the  /p, t, k/ sounds.

Dialogo 1 – /t/ sound: Esteban y Rebeca

— ¡Hola!

— ¡Hola!

— ¿Cómo te llamas?

— Me llamo Esteban,

¿y tú?

— Soy Rebeca.

— Encantado.

— Un placer.

— ¿Qué tal?

— Bien, gracias, ¿y tú?

— Muy bien.

— ¡Chao!

— ¡Hasta luego!

Dialogo 2 – /p/ sound: Pablo y Paola

— ¡Buenos días!

— ¡Buenos días!

— ¿Cómo te llamas?

— Me llamo Pablo, ¿y tú?

— Soy Paola.

— Un placer.

— ¿Qué pasa?

— No mucho. ¿Preparada        para el primer día de  clase?

— Sí. Tengo mi lápiz, mis papeles, y mis apuntes.

— Yo también.

— Perfecto. ¡Hasta pronto!

— ¡Hasta la próxima!

Dialogo 3 – /k/ sound: Carlos y Clara

— ¡Buenas!

— ¡Buenas!

— ¿Cómo te llamas?

— Me llamo Carlos, ¿y tú?

— Me llamo Clara.

— Qué bueno conocerte.

— Igualmente. ¿Qué tal?

— No estoy bien.

— ¿Por qué?

— Estoy cansado.

— Estoy cansada también, pero tengo que ir a clase.

— Sí, claro.

— ¡Chao!

— ¡Nos vemos

(Dialogue 1 and its audio from: Lumen Learning)

2.3 – Communicative Practice: Create your own informal dialogue

Instrucciones: Given the examples above, write a similar dialogue that uses each /p, t, k/ sound at least two times. Use the word bank below (some words are translated for you), in addition to your Spanish knowledge. Write only your lines. Underline all words with the featured sound. Then, read each dialogue aloud at least two times, switching roles in between each attempt. Be ready to “present” your dialogue to the pair of students in your table group. **Challenge**: Memorize as much of the dialogue as you can. Incorporate body movements / act it out while standing up!

Words and phrases with /t/: tú (you), te llamas (you are called), tarea (homework), tarde (afternoon / late), tal (used with “¿qué tal?” to mean “what’s up / how are you?”), también (also), hasta luego (see you later), estoy (I am feeling), estás (you are feeling), estudiante (student), tengo (I have), tienes (you have)

Words and phrases with /p/: papel (paper), perfecto, por favor (please), primer día (first day), un placer (a pleasure), preparado (prepared, male), preparada (prepared, female), apuntes (notes), lápiz (pencil)

Words and phrases with /k/ sound: clase (class), claro (of course), casa (house), cansado (tired, male), cansado (tired, female), ¿cómo? (how), ¿cuándo (when), ¿cuál? (which), conocerte (to know you)

List of Spanish names typically used for boys: Teo, Tomás, Pedro, Paulo, Cristian

List of Spanish names typically used for girls: Teresa, Paloma, Patricia, Carmen, Catalina

List of Spanish gender-neutral names/nicknames: Ale, Ángel, Dani, Fer, Fran, Mar