PronSIG webinar: The Role Teacher’s Manuals Play in Pronunciation – Sinem Sonsaat

A PronSIG recorded webinar

In this webinar, I will share the findings of my research exploring native and non-native Englishspeaking teachers' cognitions about (i) pronunciation teaching, (ii) pronunciation teaching materials, (iii) their expectations of a teacher's manual accompanying a pronunciation teaching book, and (iv) their attitudes towards a printed and online teacher's manual which were developed for the same pronunciation teaching material. Based on the findings of my research, most of the teachers use a textbook to teach pronunciation, but all teachers supplement their teaching with online materials. Both NESTs and NNESTs expect a teacher's manual to provide additional guidance on what pronunciation features to teach and how to present them most efficiently. Additionally, they expect technology to be integrated into the teacher's manuals. The online teacher's manual was preferred over the printed one by most of the teachers in this study, and the biggest reason for their preferences had to do with the design features that were achieved due to technology. In this webinar, I will also present how teachers can be supported for their pronunciation teaching practices through the use of an online teacher’s manual. Teachers will have a chance to take a detailed look at the online manual and brainstorm about how they can make use of it in their own context.

Sinem Sonsaat is a doctoral student in the Applied Linguistics and Technology Program at Iowa State University, where she supervised the ESL listening/reading classes. She is currently teaching 'Introduction to Linguistics' to undergraduate students majoring in elementary education and psychology. She is the editorial assistant of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. Her research interests include pronunciation instruction, materials evaluation and development, and computer-assisted language learning.