Rogerson-Revell's 2011 book English Phonology and Pronunciation Teaching sets out to cover both the what and the how of pronunciation teaching, especially in English as an International Language (EIL) contexts. The book will be seen by some as a shorter, British English equivalent of Celce-Murcia et al.'s Reference Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin and Griner2010 tour de force Teaching Pronunciation: A Coursebook and Reference Guide. As such, it is an extremely useful addition to the ever-growing collection of reference books and textbooks in the field, and thus it is well suited to its target audience: both ‘newcomers and experienced practitioners’ in English Language Teaching, as well as Applied Linguistics students (back cover).

The book's 352 pages are organized into three parts. Two introductory chapters are followed by ten chapters covering core features of English phonology and their teaching implications. A further three chapters explore aspects of pronunciation teaching. Many chapters have a concise ‘Key points’ summary at the end, and all chapters include suggestions for further reading as well as activities. Graphically, the presentation is simple but effective, with no colour or superfluous decoration. The font, text spacing and wide margins make it easy on the eye and pleasant to use (e.g. pp. 166–168).

The last fifth of the book includes a list of references for each chapter; a list of useful web sites, CDRoms and books; 33 pages of answers to activities; an eight-page glossary of key terms; and a four-page index. A companion website offers downloadable resources, including audio files (of both native and non-native speakers) and activity answer keys for teachers. Almost 100 figures and tables illustrate key features, one of the best being the diagram showing the vowel chart inside the oral cavity (p. 68), which will surely help certain students understand how jaw and lip positions are a key part of articulating English vowels. The author has provided an appropriate amount of scholarly in-text citations, through which she integrates recent research on intelligibility without overburdening the text. An especially good example of this is the section on ‘Teaching implications’ in Chapter 5 (p. 87), which provides the most accessible summary I have seen of the issue of vowel quantity vs. quality in different varieties of English.

Most of my few criticisms concern the ‘newcomers’ section of the target audience and how easy they would find it to use the book. A second edition of the book or supplementary materials provided by the teacher could easily address these problems. First, although the text provides excellent charts for the book's chosen BBC Pronunciation model (page 49 for consonants, page 67 for vowels), a summary chart with symbols and key words would have been useful. Such a chart could be printed on one of the inside covers for easy reference.

Secondly, a less experienced reader might be frustrated by the index and by the glossary, as several terms are missing from either the index (such as lax, prominence/-nt and tense) or from both the index and the glossary (such as acquisition, American English, BBC pronunciation, content word, learning and weak forms). In addition, some concepts defined and discussed in the text, such as target, model and goal (pp. 6–8), are not included in the index or the glossary even though they are obviously essential in a book dealing with teaching pronunciation. Within the glossary the cross-referencing could be improved; for example, the nucleus entry mentions ‘nuclear or tonic syllable or focus’ (p. 343), but the focus entry does not mention ‘nucleus’ or ‘prominence’ (p. 342). On a positive note, I appreciated the fact that when nucleus was presented in the text (p. 155) synonyms were also given, making it easier for students to understand the terminology used in other books and approaches.

Thirdly, the book suffers from a lack of careful proofreading and editing. Most of these are minor mistakes, such as:

• • ‘Jenkins (2000) notion of ‘international’ (p. 9) – missing apostrophe and space: ‘Jenkins’ (2000) notion of “international”’

• • ‘allophonic, that is, non-meaningul’ (p. 97) – missing <f>: ‘. . . non-meaningful’

• • ‘most students do pick the idea of the syllable rapidly’ (p. 223) – missing ‘up’: ‘pick up’

• • ‘This results in words such as ‘pat’ or ‘king’ is that’ (p. 272) – wording: ‘The result is that in words . . .’

Another, potentially more confusing, error for students appears in the chapter on ‘Pronunciation problem areas’, where it is stated that ‘/b d g/ – voiceless plosives do not occur at the end of words’ (p. 272). There, ‘voiceless’ should of course read ‘voiced’. The most unfortunate error is that the URL on the back cover does not lead to the companion Website; however, it can be accessed on the publishers’ American website http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/english-phonology-and-pronunciation-teaching-9780826424037/.

Despite these criticisms, I am happy to include this book on Supplementary Reading lists for my university-level classes because of its up-to-date, accessible, and concise treatment of so many key aspects of English phonology and pronunciation teaching. The two chapters ‘The syllable’ and ‘Intonation’ are particularly welcome, because these two areas can be challenging for students and teachers alike. Because of the number and variety of activities it includes, students may find the ‘The syllable’ chapter easier to follow than Roach's (Reference Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin and Griner2009) treatment of the same content. Rogerson-Revell's chapter ends with a reminder that syllable simplification ‘is potentially more damaging to intelligibility than phoneme substitution or reduction’ and that two strategies may be deployed by learners (sound deletion or insertion, the latter potentially improving intelligibility) (p. 128).

The chapter ‘Intonation’ covers its topic in just twenty-five pages and, like so much of this book, hones in on the essential concepts. Rogerson-Revell provides an excellent summary of the generally accepted components of English intonation (p. 180). When she discusses tone choice, she acknowledges the existence of many ‘detailed and complex descriptions’ but limits her text to the five tones common to most studies (p. 186). Only cursory treatment is given to tails and heads but readers who want to know more can turn to the ‘Further reading’ section. The final section on teaching implications does not shy away from mentioning the teachable–learnable contrast and discusses current research findings which (should) influence teachers’ choices. Both undergraduate English majors and future English teachers will find Rogerson-Revell's treatment of intonation less intimidating than Roach's forty pages, but experienced practitioners would perhaps appreciate the latter's more in-depth treatment.

As its title suggests, the book addresses how pronunciation can be taught, but it also explores certain problems inherent to teaching pronunciation. One example of a teaching tip is the advice given in Chapter 4: ‘It might be best for morale to teach learners some of the “front” consonants first’ (p. 56). Of the three chapters on aspects of pronunciation teaching, an entire chapter (Chapter 13) is devoted to pronunciation in the classroom, looking at practicalities, techniques and activity types. Its short sections on voice quality and on articulation suggest some useful exercises for these two sometimes undervalued aspects of pronunciation. My trainee teachers found Chapter 14's examination of the common myths, in the section ‘Teaching pronunciation: Some key questions’, extremely engaging and enjoyed discussing each point. However, I had to provide additional content about pronunciation and assessment, as this crucial issue receives scant attention. Chapter 15 is an interesting combination of teaching tips and ‘Language-specific pronunciation difficulties’. The latter greatly resemble Swan & Smith's (Reference Swan and Smith2001) Learner English, for which the full reference is included in further reading. The teaching tips seem more effective and less culturally specific than many of Kelly's ‘ideas to help students articulate sounds’ (Kelly Reference Kelly2000: 38–39, 56) but Rogerson-Revell's concise treatment includes fewer example exercises (see pp. 267–268) than Celce-Murcia et al.'s (Reference Kelly2010) much longer book.

To conclude, this succinct book presents the essentials in an accessible format and via a selection of thought-provoking exercises. As such, it is a refreshing addition to the existing literature. Rogerson-Revell states quite rightly that ‘[t]he main thing is for the teacher to instil concern and a sense of enthusiasm for pronunciation in learners’ (p. 235). Her book will inform and inspire readers, and may even encourage them to explore English pronunciation further.