EFL Teachers’ Subjective Theories about Pronunciation Training (Supported by Internet Sources)

Slovakia, ID Výzvy2016-402;          English pronunciation instruction is a vital part of English as a foreign language education. However, teachers of English often struggle with their classroom pronunciation practice due to unrealistic (if any) goals, non-existent (or non-adequate) teacher preparation, fragmented methodology, overwhelming amount of sources, or limited web skills. In order to get an insight into high school language teachers’ own pronunciation work, this article explores their views, attitudes, perceptions, practices, or suggestions (subjective theories) related to (Internet-supported) pronunciation training. A semi-structured interview was designed by the author to reconstruct these subjective theories. Qualitative content analysis was used to process the gathered data. The results of the interview can be valuable for language teachers who decide to implement web tools into their English pronunciation training (e.g. when creating a set of online resources suitable for English pronunciation activities at the secondary level of formal education in Slovakia).

Key words: Internet, English pronunciation training, semi-structured interview, EFL teacher (teacher of English as a foreign language), subjective theories