Teaching English Pronunciation at the Tertiary Level in Bangladesh

Abstract

Pronunciation no doubt is one of the most significant and inevitable parts of teaching English in particular and any other languages in general (Hayati, 2008). Notwithstanding, pronunciation hardly receives sufficient importance in teaching as well as learning English at any level in Bangladesh (Maniruzzaman, 2008). As a consequence, students get little opportunity to practice English pronunciation, and hence have problems with it. The purpose of this study was to take account of the extent to which English pronunciation is taught, and while teaching/learning pronunciation what types of problems teachers and learners face at the undergraduate level of English departments in private and public universities in Bangladesh. The data was collected from 30 teachers and 160 students through interviews and questionnaire from two public and eight private universities. Dalton and Sheildhofer’s (1994) Bottom-up and Top-down approaches were used to analyze the data. Findings suggest that there is no specific course on English pronunciation offered at the tertiary level in the English departments at the universities in Bangladesh. Based on the findings it seems that most of the English departments offer courses in ‘English Phonetics & Phonology’, which usually cover the theoretical aspects of pronunciation. As a result, students do not get sufficient opportunities to practice English pronunciation. Besides, the teachers suffer from lack of materials, courses and infrastructural facilities for teaching English pronunciation. Similarly, the students also suffer from the same problems to practice this skill.