Exploring EFL teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding pronunciation teaching at state schools in Hatay

Pronunciation is a very important language skill for communication. Pronunciation is about how the language is spoken and how the sounds get together to form vocabulary. Clear pronunciation enables us to speak more confidently and understand what we hear. In case of bad pronunciation, understanding the speaker becomes a real challenge since communication cannot be achieved without intelligible pronunciation. This study aims to explore the English teachers' beliefs and practices regarding pronunciation teaching at state schools in Hatay, Turkey. In this study both quantitative and qualitative instruments is used to obtain deeper understanding of the EFL teachers' beliefs and practices regarding pronunciation. The teaching pronunciation questionnaire is applied to 155 English teachers who are working at Turkish Ministry of Education state schools in Hatay, Turkey. In addition to the questionnaire, an interview is applied to eighteen teachers. For the analysis of the quantitative data, descriptive statistics, independent t-test and One-Way ANOVA were employed; while, the interviews were interpreted through content analysis. As a result of descriptive statistics, the EFL teachers were found neutral towards pronunciation. However, the qualitative data revealed positive stance towards pronunciation. Unlike the quantitative results, the teachers were on the side of intelligible pronunciation rather than native-like accent. Also, all of the teachers were in agreement that they need more training in pronunciation. Furthermore, the teachers were in consistency towards teaching pronunciation implicitly. Finally, the teachers were not specific about how much time they allocate for teaching pronunciation in both quantitative and qualitative results of the study.