An Investigation of the Present Status of EFL Pronunciation Teaching (A case study: Faculties of Education&Arts-The Red Sea University)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the teaching of pronunciation in the EFL students’ courses at the Red Sea University. The researcher has adopted the descriptive analytic method. The data were collected through a questionnaire and an interview. The findings showed that the teaching of pronunciation is inadequate and bottom-up or structural in its approach. (i.e. it does not aim at intelligible pronunciation) . Moreover, they showed that students exhibited great desire for pronunciation, segmental features were given more priority than prosodic features. Exposure procedure was ignored and teachers adhere to the traditional attitude that pronunciation should be taught atomistically (structural approach). Finally, possible remedial measures such as teachers’ training, revising Phonetics Books used and similar investigations in other settings were recommended