Résumé:
Despite the late focus put on teaching pronunciation through intensive practice of both
segmentals production and spelling exercises and drills in Algerian middle schools’ textbooks
and the implementation of phonetic transcription into the current curricula, pronunciation
teaching still seems to be granted the least attention in FL classrooms and contexts. First year
pupils in Algerian middle schools cannot pronounce English alphabet letters properly and
cannot distinguish between different sounds or phonemes that affect the meaning of the
words, such as, /t/ and /θ/. Not to mention that fourth year pupils still cannot make the
difference between silent and pronounced sounds. In this case neither pupils, instructors, or
syllabus designers, nor parents could take the blame without proper analysis of the problem of
low emphasis put on pronunciation instruction and phonetic transcription or the lack of
phonological awareness which should be acquired by the end of middle schooling.
Results of the present study are obtained from the collected data where pupils of
Belhamri Mohamed middle school in Mostaganem are taken as samples for this investigation
into pronunciation and phonetic transcription and instruction. Four different questionnaires
are distributed among four types of informants. Two different types of questionnaires are
submitted to thirty pupils from four classes of first year and thirty two pupils from three
classes of fourth year. The questionnaires for first year pupils are translated to Arabic to suit
their primal level of familiarity with English, in Belhamri middle school. In addition, teachers
of first and fourth years from three different middle schools in Mostaganem are chosen to
undergo the investigation, Belhamri Mohammed, Touahria Mohammed, and Benzerdjeb
Benaouda middle schools. Additionally, twelve copybooks from first year classes are selected
to be analyzed and compared to their textbooks’ activities in terms of compatibility with the
textbooks’ programme, and performing the planned activities concerning pronunciation as
well. For further data and results, some pupils of both levels are put under test through an oral
examination and recordings as a tool of research to back up the findings and hypotheses
