Speaking of speech: Developing metalanguage for effective communication about pronunciation between English language teachers and learners

Abstract

The idea of the pronunciation teacher acting, not merely as a giver of information, but as a coach, is welcomed by many teachers. However, difficulty can be experienced with one of the key responsibilities of a coach, that of offering 'cues, suggestions and constructive feedback about performance' (Morley, 1991). It can be frustrating for both parties when learners find it hard to act on teachers' feedback to improve their pronunciation. This paper explores one factor in this difficulty: lack of shared metalanguage with which teachers and students can communicate about pronunciation. The term 'metalanguage' is often assumed to refer only to technical terminology for the phonetic description of speech. However, such technical metalanguage can be difficult to master - even for teachers, let alone second language learners - so is not always ideal for effective communication. This paper suggests a broader use of the term 'metalanguage', to refer to any way of speaking about speech and pronunciation, and advocates development of communicative metalanguage - consistent with, but complementary to, the technical metalanguage of phonetics and phonology - to suit the communication needs of different teaching contexts. The paper starts by reviewing some widely accepted insights about language and communication (Taylor, 2002), then shows how applying these same insights to pronunciation can enable teachers to provide feedback learners can understand and act upon easily. An important focus is the need for teachers to overcome the 'literacy bias', and recognise that teaching pronunciation involves helping learners with concept formation.