The effects of explicit pronunciation teaching at University of Quintana Roo.

Abstract

During my studies in the English Language Program at Universidad de Quintana Roo (UQROO), I witnessed many cases of pronunciation mistakes and poor oral proficiency on behalf of my classmates even when we were students of the final semesters. It is important to bear in mind that the English Language Program at UQROO is training students to become future English language teachers and, as a consequence, these students must graduate from the program with a really high proficiency in all the language skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening). The limited number of techniques which are used, the reluctance to teach pronunciation, and to acknowledge pronunciation as a sub-skill can be affecting the oral proficiency of the students, as is suggested by Dalton (2000), and it seems to happen in the English Language Program at UQROO. Most of the English teachers in the English Language Program at UQROO lack of techniques to teach this sub-skill and do not consider pronunciation as a very important part in their classes, as Hernandez (2009) shows. As a result we can observe students’ poor performances during the major and after graduating.