The Relationship between Non-native English Speaking Teachers’ Perception of their English Pronunciation and Their Self-Reported Pronunciation Teaching Practices

The aim of the present study was to determine the correlation between Non-Native English Speaking Teachers’ (NNESTs’) self-perception of their own pronunciation and their pronunciation teaching practices in an environment which did not include native English speaking colleagues. It also examined the effect of NNESTs’ teaching experience, having native English speaking teachers, and time spent in English speaking countries on their pronunciation and pronunciation practices. The data were collected through administering three questionnaires (Demographic questionnaire, Pronunciation Practice Scale, and Self-Perception Pronunciation Scale) among 95 non-native English speaking teachers who were selected following availability sampling procedure from teachers who were working at four different well-established institutes in Shiraz. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between NNESTs’ self-perceived pronunciation and their pronunciation practices. Besides, it was found that the teaching experience did not play a significant role in NNESTs’ assessment of their pronunciation skills. Similarly, the access or the lack of access to native English speaking teachers didn’t play a significant role in the NNESTs’ perceptions of their pronunciation skills and also their pronunciation practices. It was also shown that there were no significant differences in the self-perceived pronunciation scores among the NNESTs who had travelled to English speaking countries and those who had not. Likewise, spending time in an English speaking country had not significant impact on the NNESTs’ assessments of their pronunciation practices. Both groups’ results indicated that they paid attention to teaching pronunciation in their classes

Keywords:

self-perceived pronunciation , self-reported pronunciation teaching practices , non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs)