Teaching Pronunciation in Foreign / Second Language Textbooks and Training Courses from a Comparative Didactics Perspective

Since the presentation Teaching Pronunciation in French as a Foreign Language (FFL) Textbooks: a Sample Analysis in New Sounds 2013 has been of interest to teachers not only of French but also of other languages, it has been decided to draw cross‐language comparisons from a Comparative Didactics perspective based on the findings of this presentation. Indeed, this paper reviews an issue that concerns specialists in teaching English, French and Spanish pronunciation: the little attention given to pronunciation practice in some foreign/second language textbooks and foreign/second language teacher training courses. It concludes that comparing the findings of Specific Language Didactics in relation to these two issues is not only research generating but also that the conclusive and specific recommendations proposed by some of these didactics to improve teaching pronunciation can be of use to teachers of other foreign/second languages as well. Teaching Pronunciation from a Comparative Perspective 479 It could be argued that the main goals of the discipline known as Comparative Didactics (Didactique Comparée) agree with those of the Association pour les Recherches Comparatistes en Didactique: “[. ] to group together disciplinary didacticians, whatever their discipline, to compare the concepts and the methods they use [. ]” as well as “[. ] to confront the research of disciplinary didactiques with social sciences such as anthropology and sociology (e.g. curricular sociology)” [. ]” (Caillot, 2007, p. 129). Caillot (2007) points out that the subsequent effect of these two goals should not be to build on the theoretical body of General Didactics and to undermine the importance of the research findings of Specific Didactics but to identify the generalities of all the Specific Didactics and, at the same time, their specificities1. Indeed, Mercier, Schubauer‐ Leoni and Sensevy (2002) explain that there are some general aspects of teachers’ and learners’ work that may be associated with the teaching‐ learning process in general and some others that are related to the teaching‐learning of a specific discipline. What is more, the authors suggest that generalities and specificities may be identified at different levels of the teaching‐learning of a specific discipline. The example they give is that of French as a First Language and of French as a Foreign Language (FFL). Even though they are both related to the same discipline, the French language, there are certain specificities that distinguish the former from the latter. A case in point would be the institutions in which they may be learnt: a family in the case of French as a First Language and a school in the case of FFL. Following this argument, it was thought that the study of the teaching‐ learning of specific foreign/second languages would be of interest to the field of Comparative Didactics. Conversely, it was also thought that Specific Foreign/Second Language Didactics would also profit from the findings of Comparative Didactics. To illustrate this mutual advantage, the following example will be given. English as a Foreign/Second Language Didactics (EFSLD), French as a Foreign/Second Language Didactics (FFSLD) and Spanish as a Foreign/Second Language Didactics (SFSLD) have certain specificities that differentiate them, e.g. the languages taught as disciplines themselves. This is reflected in the contents of FFSL, EFSL and SFSL teacher training programs: generally speaking, these programs focus on 1 In this paper, the term Specific Didactics is employed to refer to any discipline that looks into how the knowledge of a specific subject, e.g. English as a Foreign Language, is acquired and learnt by specific learners in specific teaching‐learning contexts and situations. Maximiliano Eduardo Orlando 480 the study of the target language and on the most effective ways of teaching‐learning it. This is understandable due to the fact that, as Caillot (2007) suggests, “A didactician should be a good connoisseur of his/her academic discipline of reference. For example, to do research in didactique of physics, it is better if you know physics well” (Caillot, 2007, p. 127). At the same time, EFSLD, FFSLD and SFSLD share a number of generalities, e.g. the fact that their target languages are taught‐learnt as foreign/second ones. Owing to these similarities, it could be inferred that the findings of any of these three disciplines may be beneficial to the other two. Consequently, it would not be mistaken to argue for the existence of a discipline that could be given the name of Comparative Foreign/Second Language Didactics. Comparative Foreign/Second Language Didactics would be considered a branch of Comparative Language Didactics, which, in turn, is a branch of Comparative Didactics. Comparative Foreign/Second Language Didactics will be defined as a discipline that compares the goals, methods and findings of individual foreign/second language didactics with a view to building on existing theory of foreign/second language teaching and learning. This paper suggests, for instance, that the systematic comparison of research problems that concern teaching‐learning pronunciation in EFSLD, in FFSLD and in SFSLD may lead to the conclusion that some of these problems are not unique to the teaching‐learning of EFSL, FFSL or SFSL and that the suggestions and recommendations that any of these three Specific Foreign/Second Language Didactics could propose may be applied by the other two. The two research problems in question in this paper are the small amount of teaching‐learning pronunciation in some ESL, FFL and SFL textbooks and the absence of teaching‐learning pronunciation in some ESL, FFSL and SFL teacher training courses. Suggestions made so far within these two research areas to overcome these problems and, as a result, to improve teaching‐learning pronunciation in EFSL, FFSL and SFSL courses will be presented as well. TEACHING-LEARNING PRONUNCIATION IN TEXTBOOKS Loiseau (2008) analyses the amount of pronunciation taught in FFL textbooks produced in France. The author observes that, in general, these textbooks contain few sections devoted to teaching‐learning pronunciation and that they do mainly at level one, rarely at level two and Teaching Pronunciation from a Comparative Perspective 481 almost never at level three. What is more, the author observes that, in some cases, these sections are not integrated into the whole syllabus, i.e. they are placed at the back of the book or in the activity books that accompany the textbooks. Olsson (2011) targets a set of seven FFL textbooks made and used in Sweden between 1990 and 2008 and observes that these could be sorted out into two categories. The first one comprises textbooks that include a small amount of teaching‐learning pronunciation and ignores Swedish learners’ main difficulties when speaking and listening to French. The second group is composed of textbooks that include parts explicitly designed to teach‐learn pronunciation but in a limited fashion. Finally, Orlando (2013) analyses a sample of fifteen European FFL textbooks produced over the last thirty years, and finds out that there has been a generally gradual increase in the percentage of sections devoted to teaching‐learning pronunciation according to the findings in this sample. The author shows that it is since 2000 that the FFL textbooks under scrutiny have included these sections at level two, whereas only the textbook series published in 2009 and 2010 includes them at the three levels. What is more, the percentage of parts allotted to pronunciation in this series is statistically higher than that of the series published before, which, the author argues, may be either a consequence or even one of the defining features of the passage from the communicative approach to the task‐based approach to teaching foreign languages that has occurred over the last thirty years. The conflict between the fact that foreign/second language learners may find the pronunciation of their target language difficult and the little importance given to teaching‐learning pronunciation in foreign/second language textbooks has also been reported in studies that deal with teaching‐learning SFL and ESL. As for the former, a case in point is Molinié’s (2010) analyses of five SFL textbooks used in schools in Québec. These analyses lead the author to conclude that these textbooks lack pronunciation activities, that the few that they contain are not varied and that, as a general rule, teaching‐learning pronunciation does not occupy an important place in them. With respect to the latter, teaching pronunciation in ESL textbooks, it has been observed that an important part of the literature has focused on the analysis of Pronunciation Textbooks (Breitkreutz, Derwing & Rossiter, 2001; Gilbert, 2008; Torres Águila, 2007 & Foote, Holtby & Derwing, 2011). Nevertheless, teaching pronunciation in General ESL Textbooks has also been of interest in the field of ESL teaching‐learning. In a comparison of the resources used in Canada to teach pronunciation around 2001 with Maximiliano Eduardo Orlando 482 those employed in the same country about 2011, Foote et al (2011), for example, point out that “[. ] a survey of current teaching materials indicates that publishers now incorporate more pronunciation activities into their general‐skills textbooks than previously [. ]” (Foote et al, 2011, p. 2), which seems to match the findings presented by Orlando (2013) concerning FFL textbooks and introduced above. However, Derwing, Diepenbroek and Foote’s (2012) survey shows that, even though an average of five per cent of the pages of twelve ESL textbook series centre on teaching‐learning pronunciation, some of these series contain a good deal of pronunciation practice while others contain but a little. Also, as with the FFL textbooks, the authors point out that while some textbook authors incorporate pronunciation activities acr