Teaching the pronunciation of English throughProject-Based Language Learning to Spanish learnersof EFL

摘要

With the implementation of bilingualism and trilingualism in the Spanish educativesystem, English has become the most taught foreign language in Spanish schools.However, the teaching of its pronunciation is not given the same importance compared toother aspects of the language such as grammar or vocabulary, which often hampersfluency and intelligibility when communicating in English. This paper addresses the needto develop pronunciation teaching in Spain and making it a major priority of learners’education so students gain fluency and intelligibility and therefore, the communicativepurpose of language is accomplished. To this end, it proposes a path towards an effectivepronunciation teaching methodology that best serves the needs of Spanish learners. First,through the review of the literature about the historical development of teachingmethodology, which puts particular attention to the pronunciation teaching methodology,the historically increasing importance of the teaching of pronunciation is highlighted andthe basis to construct a proposal towards an effective pronunciation teachingmethodology is established. Then, by means of summarising the main differencesbetween the pronunciations of Spanish and English, focusing on those elements inEnglish that have been shown to be particularly challenging for Spanish speakers, theaspects on which the teaching should be focused are highlighted and described.According to the reviewed literature regarding the pronunciation methodology and thecomparative analysis of the Spanish and English pronunciation systems, the paperintroduces some ideas towards a pronunciation teaching methodology based on theProject-Based Learning approach that would make the teaching of pronunciation toSpanish learners of English as a Foreign Language more effective. Finally, in view of theabove, a lesson plan that applies the ideas developed in the methodology proposal andtakes into account the vowel differences between Spanish and English is presented.