English phonetic transcription and instruction in pronunciation teaching : the case of first and fourth year in belhamri mohammed middle school mostaganem

Abstract

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