Mina Basirat & Dr. Mohammad Bavali
Department of Foreign Languages, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran
Native English speaking teachers (NESTs) and non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) have been studied by many researchers in the literature in regards to the similarities and differences between these two types of teachers, their perceptions of teaching English, as well as their language proficiency levels. Yet, there is still a lack of in-depth studies that solely focus on NNESTs’ teaching of a specific skill and their perceptions of their own language skills and the relationship between these two aspects. The aim of the present study was to determine the correlation between 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 two questionnaires (Pronunciation Practice Scale and Self-Perception Pronunciation Scale) among 95 non-native English speaking teachers who were selected using availability sampling from teachers who were working at four different institutes in Shiraz, Iran. 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 own 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. But, both groups’ results indicated that they paid attention to teaching pronunciation in their classes.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 2-3 February 2017, Ahwaz.
