Hi everyone!
The latest edition of TESOL Quarterly has a focus on the role of theory in TESOL
in
general. I find that pronunciation is the area with the most extreme division
between
theory and practice. Would it be fair so say that the majority of TESOL teachers
have never
read a phonetics or phonology textbook? Would it be fair to say that the
majority of
people who call themselves phonologists or phoneticians have never taught
languages or
at least haven't done so for a considerable number of years?
Phonology has been the driving force behind linguistic theory, starting with the
likes of
Sweet, Vietor and Jespersen of the Reform Movement. Then Generative Linguistics
began
with Chomsky and Halle's analysis. Audio-lingual methods, at their most refined,
were
careful phonetic approaches to teaching language. Optimality theory began with
analysis
of sound, Labov's starting point was word pronunciation, and most recently views
of
language have asked us to take into account varieties of English with
significant variation
in their phonological make-up.
And yet, what does any of that mean to the 'front line' teacher? It takes a lot
of time to get
to grips with all the theory behind pronunciation. Actually, it's more than
that. You have to
specialize. I've taken a fairly long trek into the field, but a fair amount of
phonetics and
phonology literature is still a blur of enigmatic graphs and weird notation to
be honest.
But then I see practical and simple exercises like using elastic bands to show
long and
short sounds and think they are nonsense.
So, I was wondering what you all think. Can theory help teachers? Which theories
can
make a difference? Should teachers bother?

Alex.