ELT in Ireland

The teaching of English as a foreign language in Ireland takes place mainly within two distinct environments: mainstream and private education. Within the first system, ELT takes the form of language support provided for young people from non-English-speaking countries at primary (4–12 years) and post-primary (12–18 years) level. In mainstream education, apart from scheduled extra-curricular English language support classes, learners receiving English language support are fully integrated into the standard curriculum. Within the second environment, the private sector, English is taught to adults as an independent subject, or in conjunction with other subjects as part of a more general qualification (in e.g. business or childcare), in private schools and colleges. A third, less commonplace scenario is one in which English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is taught to groups with very particular language requirements, e.g. pre-sessional and in-sessional courses in English for Academic Purposes taught in higher education institutions to supplement learners' further studies, or courses in Business English provided within corporations to facilitate the communicative skills of international employees.

As previously mentioned, at present there is a dearth of extensive research into existing practices of English language teaching in Irish contexts, though some progress has been made more recently with a report on English instruction in post-primary schools, published by the Trinity Immigration Initiative (TII) (Lyons & Little, 2009). The report was critical of the system, particularly of the fact that most English language support in this environment was provided not by language specialists, but by mainstream subject teachers who took on the role of language support in addition to the teaching of their own specialised subject. The language support system has since been drastically reduced as part of a government initiative to lessen public spending (e.g. The Irish Times, 2010, 2011; Radió Teilifís Éireann, 2011).

However, the study outlined in this paper was carried out not in a mainstream education environment, but in the private sector, across a number of private schools that provide EFL tuition to adult learners. Private sector EFL schools are regulated by the Advisory Council for English Language Schools (ACELS), an independent body charged by the Irish Department of Education with monitoring the EFL sector (Citizens Information Board, 2010). Teachers of English in these institutions must have obtained a primary university degree followed by a TEFL qualification from an ACELS-recognised training programme.

The study described in this paper deals with the specific context of teaching pronunciation to adult EFL learners in the private sector in Ireland. The findings show that while some of the major concerns expressed by EFL teachers are context-specific, others may also apply more broadly to the case of English language teaching in other contexts in Ireland or elsewhere.

The questionnaire

The findings presented in this paper come from a short survey carried out in 2009 amongst a sample of EFL teachers in Ireland to get their feedback on the practice of English pronunciation teaching (Murphy, Reference Murphy2009). This study had three broad aims:

1. 1. To establish a preliminary overview of the practice of EFL pronunciation teaching in an Irish context;

2. 2. To highlight potentially problematic issues in English pronunciation teaching, both unique to the specific case of the Irish private sector, and in ELT more generally;

3. 3. To serve as a foundation for later contribution to a wider, more in-depth investigation of English pronunciation instruction around Europe.

The third of these aims relates to the EPTiES project mentioned in the introduction. EPTiES is short for English Pronunciation Teaching in Europe Survey. It is a collaborative project, led by Alice Henderson of the Université de Savoie, Chambéry and featuring contributions from ten English language teachers and researchers from around Europe. EPTiES was established to obtain information on the status quo of English pronunciation teaching in Europe. It is currently in the data gathering stage, and data analysis is due to commence in September 2011 (Henderson, in progress).

The study presented in this paper was a preliminary investigation that was carried out with the intention of establishing an overview of English pronunciation teaching in Ireland. It consisted of a 10-point questionnaire, distributed to the teachers in four different private sector EFL schools in the Dublin area (this questionnaire may be viewed in the attached appendix). The questions aimed to establish a general overview of the challenges posed and the opportunities provided by the practice of teaching pronunciation in the EFL classroom in Ireland. The responses of 36 teachers were received and analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The results of the survey described in this paper were originally presented at the EPIP conference (English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices) in Chambéry in 2009.

Results and discussion

The first two questions aimed to establish the relative importance placed by teachers on pronunciation relative to other skills in English. 97.2% of all teachers claimed to teach pronunciation at least once per month, with 75.0% claiming to teach it more than once a week. When asked to rate on a four-point scale how important they felt it was to teach pronunciation, 72.2% of respondents selected the most positive response of ‘Very important’, while a further 19.4% selected ‘Important’. These responses suggest that, at least among this particular sample of EFL teachers, pronunciation was still held in some regard – or perhaps to be more precise, pronunciation was still considered as a topic which ought to be held in some regard.

Subsequent questions moved on to the issue of pronunciation teaching practice. Question 3 asked teachers which model of English pronunciation they presented as the target for their learners to approximate. Given the choice between Irish, British and American English, an option stating ‘I do not teach a specific model of pronunciation’, and ‘Other (please specify)’, 19.4% chose British English alone, 11.1% chose Irish English alone, and a further 11.1% claimed not to choose a particular model. However, respondents were not instructed to choose one answer only, with the result that by far the most popular response was a selection of both British and Irish models, which was returned by almost half (47.2%) of all respondents. A summary of the responses to this question can be seen in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1.

Model of English pronunciation taught

This response may be partially explained by the results of the next question, which pertained to the use of specific pronunciation materials. Teachers were asked in Question 4 on which model of pronunciation the majority of their pronunciation learning materials were based. Again, respondents were given a choice between Irish, British or American English, or ‘Other’. This time, the response was overwhelmingly in favour of British English only, with 88.9% of respondents opting for materials based on British English, and 2.8% – only one respondent out of 36 – claiming to use Irish English materials.

Despite the apparent discrepancy between the target pronunciation model and that on which their materials were based, however, teachers were reluctant to be overtly critical of the resources available to them when asked to rate their appropriateness. In Question 5, given a four-point scale with 1 equalling ‘Very appropriate’ and 4 equalling ‘Inappropriate’, the overall mean rating of pronunciation materials was 2.5, with the most frequently-cited response being ‘Appropriate’ (2).

Perhaps a more telling insight, however, came from the individual responses from each teacher, who were asked to follow up their answer with a response to the open-ended question, ‘Please explain why you think these materials are appropriate or not.’ The 23 elaborated responses were overwhelmingly critical in nature, with only two unreservedly positive comments about the pronunciation materials available. Comments included references to the prevalence of British English in the materials, e.g. ‘A major problem is Irish pronunciation often differs from British and American so it can cause confusion. It can be difficult to teach pronunciation that you don't use yourself (being a native Irish speaker).’ Another teacher wrote, ‘The materials are very good but unfortunately are all British.’ A number of other teachers commented on the shortage of useful pronunciation materials for learners at higher levels of proficiency. One teacher, who evaluated her pronunciation materials as ‘Inappropriate’, wrote, ‘There aren't many good materials on pronunciation for higher level learners. The course book doesn't focus on this aspect of English either.’ Another teacher – who also rated his or her pronunciation materials as ‘Inappropriate’ – wrote, ‘They are appropriate for lower levels but not good enough for building learners’ consciousness of pronunciation.'

In Question 6, teachers were asked to describe the effectiveness of techniques used to teach pronunciation. Six teaching approaches and activities, drawn from the author's experiences as a teacher and researcher, were listed as possibilities, along with one simply titled ‘Other’, giving respondents the option of describing any other activities that did not fit into one of the preceding six categories. The responses to this question were interesting in that those activities selected as the most frequently used conflicted with those rated as the most effective. The most frequently-selected activity was ‘You speak and learners repeat what you say’, with 97.2% of respondents claiming to have used this technique within the past three months. (This activity was originally labelled ‘Audiolingualism’, and changed prior to distribution of the survey, bearing in mind that the term ‘Audiolingualism’ may not be a term recognised by those teachers who do not have a research background in Linguistics.) The second most popular activity was ‘You correct learners’ pronunciation as they read out loud', chosen by 91.7% of the sample.

However, the most effective teaching methods and approaches, as rated by the teachers, were those that involved practising intonation (79.3%) and encouraging learners to think of their pronunciation goals (76.2%). Additionally, only 8 of the 36 respondents listed alternative teaching techniques in the ‘Other’ column. Alternative approaches varied widely, and included the use of rhymes, minimal pairs, homophones and drama, focusing on specific recurring pronunciation errors and connected speech, and introducing the IPA chart. The responses to this question were particularly insightful; they suggested a noticeable lack of innovation and diversity in pronunciation teaching, and yet indicated that it may well be those methods that are less frequently used that bring about the greatest success.

The next question, Question 7, was asked with the sole purpose of establishing whether teachers felt they understood their learners' motivation to learn English pronunciation. This question asked teachers what level of pronunciation the majority of their learners would like to achieve. Respondents were presented with seven options: to approximate the standard Irish, British or American model of English; ‘To sound like a native speaker of any variety of English’; or simply ‘To sound clear enough to be understood’ by other non-native speakers or by native speakers. The two most frequently-chosen responses by teachers were ‘To sound clear enough to be understood by native speakers’ and ‘To sound like a native speaker of any variety of English’. As the learners being taught by the participating teachers at the time the survey was taken were not asked to state their goals, the accuracy of teachers' responses could not be precisely ascertained.

However, in a separate survey carried out over the previous four months by the researcher (Murphy, submitted), 147 learners of English as a foreign language were asked the same question that was put to the teachers completing this survey in Question 7. In the learner survey, the top two responses were the same as those given by the teachers: ‘To sound clear enough to be understood by native speakers’ and ‘To sound like a native speaker of any variety of English’. While this is far from conclusive evidence that EFL teachers have a clear insight into what motivates English learners in their study of pronunciation, it does suggest that these teachers may at least have some awareness of what their learners were hoping to achieve.

The next section of the teachers' survey aimed to establish some of the difficulties facing them in their regular English pronunciation teaching tasks. In Question 8, teachers were presented with six groups of learners, and asked to rate how challenging they found each group on a four-point scale of ‘Not challenging’ to ‘Very challenging’. One of the realities of teaching EFL in a native English-speaking country is that English language teaching must take place with groups of learners from a variety of L1 backgrounds, a potentially problematic situation for the instruction of a range of English pronunciation issues. However, no particular group of learners appeared to be highlighted by teachers as more challenging than any other. ‘Group of learners from a particular language background’, ‘Group of young learners’, ‘Group of learners from a variety of language backgrounds’ and ‘Group of learners who work full-time’ were each rated as ‘Somewhat challenging’, ‘Challenging’ or ‘Very challenging’ by over 80% of the teachers who selected them. The least challenging groups were ‘Group of adult learners’ and ‘Group of learners who wish to stay in Ireland long-term’, which were cited as posing some level of challenge by only 69.23% and 59.09% of participating teachers respectively. This suggests that learner motivation may have a role to play in the level of difficulty presented to the teacher, with more motivated learners posing less of a challenge.

Some further insight into why these particular groups might have been cited as more or less challenging was provided with teachers' answers to the follow-up open-ended question; for example:

• • ‘One of the examples could be Chinese or Japanese speakers whose mother tongues are completely different from any Indo-European language’;

• • ‘Those who work full-time are quite exhausted and I find them to be less responsive’;

• • ‘Adults find it harder to speak without an accent. Young learners pick up pronunciation more naturally. It is easier to help learners from a particular language background on a particular pronunciation area. With a group from different L1s, having them mix and work together forces them to pronounce more clearly’;

• • ‘Challenges are very local, often individual and do not concern the group’;

• • ‘It depends on the individuals.’

These results indicate a wide array of opinions on what constitutes a challenge for an EFL pronunciation teacher, suggesting that there may be some validity in the final two comments listed above – that pronunciation difficulties may be more idiosyncratic in nature, and may be more directly attributable to the individual learner than to entire groups.

The following question was the final closed-ended one on the survey. It asked teachers if they were familiar with two commonly-used terms from EFL pronunciation research, in an effort to explore the degree to which teachers in the EFL private sector were familiar with research currently taking place into EFL pronunciation. The terms cited were ‘English as an International Language’ and ‘English as a Lingua Franca’. The responses were roughly divided between those who said they recognised the terms (44%) and those who said they did not (56%), failing to give a clear indication as to whether teachers were familiar with EFL research terminology or not. A more detailed question or set of questions would be required to establish teachers' understanding of related research content, and more specifically, whether a barrier exists between EFL research and practice.