KOTESOL International Conference 2016
(Concurrent Session)
Sanghee Kang, Georgia State University
Preference of Korean Learners in English Pronunciation
Abstract
Although intelligibility has been the central notion in pronunciation instruction (Field, 2005), many Korean learners seem to want to eliminate their Korean accent from their English. This study examines the preference of Korean learners in English pronunciation between intelligible pronunciation and native-like pronunciation, the factors that have influenced their preference, and the factors that have affected change of their preference. The data were collected from a total 36 Korean learners of English and four English teachers through a questionnaire and a survey-unstructured interview. The results indicate that two thirds of learners preferred native-like pronunciation to intelligible pronunciation. The findings of the study and its pedagogical implications are discussed in terms of the importance of awareness-raising of intelligibility and setting a realistic goal in English pronunciation
Biographicals
Sanghee Kang is currently an MA student in Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at Georgia State University. She is originally an English teacher at a public school in Gyeonggi province but she took a professional leave to pursue her MA degree in the United States. She has worked as an English teacher for over six years at secondary school contexts in South Korea. She has presented at several conferences on the topics of second language writing, the use of technology in teaching English, and phraseologism in classroom discourse. Her research interests include Second Language Acquisition, Task-based Language Teaching, Corpus Linguistics, Technology in language teaching, L2 writing and Teacher Education.
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