Presentation at the 45th TESOL Convention in New Orleans, March 19, 2011

1. What can we do to improve learners’ pronunciation when we can’t teach pronunciation? Paul Sze Faculty of Education The Chinese University of Hong Kong Presentation at 45 th TESOL Convention in New Orleans, March 19, 2011

2. To teach or not to teach pronunciation: Questions that have been bothering me: Why should we bother so much about pronunciation? Can we afford not to bother about pronunciation? What can be done?

3. The Hong Kong EFL teacher at the crossroads

7. Parents: … We want our children to be taught by native speakers, or at least teachers with native-like proficiency.

10. Curriculum Officials … Teach English communicatively No place for pronunciation in the official English Language curriculum

11. Exam Officials … We assess pronunciation in speaking, too.

12. What should teachers do?

13. A study of Hong Kong students’ awareness of code-mixed pronunciation of English Should we just settle for a Hong Kong accent?

19. Questions to think about 1. Are the percentages alarming or not? 2. If students continue to use these pronunciations in communicating with L1 speakers and L2 speakers from other places, does that matter?

20. What can we do to improve learners’ pronunciation when we can’t teach pronunciation?

21. A study I conducted: Synthetic Phonics for ESL Children in Hong Kong: An Exploratory Study

22. The background

24. Synthetic Phonics An approach which has been widely promoted in the UK in recent years and found to be highly effective.

28. Will Synthetic Phonics work in an EFL context? ???

32. What can we do to improve learners’ pronunciation when we can’t teach pronunciation?

33. If we don’t teach pronunciation systematically any more, and if we are still concerned about pronunciation, what about teaching synthetic phonics since it has the capacity for improving students’ pronunciation too?