İngiltere Sussex Üniversitesi ve Türkiye Abant İzzzet Baysal Üniversitesi hazırlık sınıfı öğrencilerinin İngilizce derslerinde yürütülen telaffuz çalışmalarına karşı tutumları

The key role of acquiring English pronounciation in a proper way to keep the communication more effective is underestimated in most of the schools; providing EFL/ESL education in countries where English is the non-native language, also in English-speaking countries where students from other countries gather to acquire English proficiency in specially organized language classrooms. There are some prejudicial beliefs underlying this problem, one of which is that pronounciation is often simplified to mean the articulation of phonetic/phonemic sounds of English. As Madden-Moore concluded, both teachers and students assume that mastering pronounciation is simply a matter of perfecting the production of an inventory of consonants and vowels. Moreover, so few teachers have the necessary capability of handling pronounciation activities in class, which proves that pronounciation is still of little account in language proficiency.This study aims at investigating English learners? beliefs about the acquisition of the phonetic component of English by focusing on their awareness of the difficulty and value of English pronunciation as well as their beliefs about influential factors in the acquisition of pronunciation and their attitudes towards English accents. It also aims at examining the differences in phonetic awareness, beliefs, and attitudes between learners of English with various first languages. All the subjects were asked to complete several questionnaires, including a background questionnaire and a specific questionnaire on awareness, beliefs and attitudes. The study found slight differences across groups of students, but found in general that students attached importance to pronounciation as a very important part of instruction; they asked more correction to their pronounciation in and out of the classroom.