Pronunciation in EFL Instruction: A Research-Based Approach

Preface

Due to the considerable impact of the concept of English as an International Language (EIL) or English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and its pronunciation teaching agenda, known as the Lingua Franca Core (Jenkins, 2000), the last decade has witnessed a major change of paradigms in pronunciation teaching. As a result, as argued by Levis (2005), pronunciation theory, research and practice are in transition and many widely accepted assumptions such as the supremacy of inner-circle models, the primacy of suprasegmentals and the need for native instructors have been challenged.

While most specialists agree that, in view of these facts, some modifications in English pronunciation instruction are unavoidable, it is by no means clear what they should be like in specific cases. Thus, although much attention has been given to pronunciation teaching to ESL learners (English as a Second Language, when English is acquired in an English-speaking country, e.g. Celce-Murcia et al., 1996), as well as to ELF students (e.g. Walker, 2011), an important and highly controversial issue concerns selecting appropriate phonetic model(s) and pronunciation priorities for the largest group of learners, from the Expanding Circle, for whom English is a foreign language (EFL) and whose number is often estimated to be around 1.5 billion. The debate over this problem has been very heated (e.g. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk & Przedlacka, 2005) and is far from being settled, with many opposing views being expressed and different arguments presented.

This book is meant as a contribution to this discussion. It addresses the major theoretical issues relevant to contemporary English phonodidactics¹ approached from an EFL perspective and offers a novel approach to several fundamental problems such as, for instance, the choice of a pronunciation model for foreign learners, establishing teaching priorities for them and the ‘segments versus suprasegmentals’ debate concerning the salience of these two aspects of pronunciation for effective communication.

Moreover, it deals with numerous practical aspects of phonetic instruction and attempts to provide answers to many questions facing EFL teachers. For example, having a limited time at their disposal, how much attention should teachers devote to pronunciation? What realistic goals should be aimed at? Which aspects of English phonetics should be taught to foreign learners and which can be neglected with little loss to successful communication? How can pronunciation be taught in an interesting, effective and both teacher-friendly and learner-friendly way, in accordance with the latest scholarly and technological achievements? How should appropriate teaching materials be selected? These and many other practical issues are raised and addressed in this book with many new solutions offered within a holistic motor-cognitive multimodal approach to English phonodidactics, particularly suitable for EFL learners.

The present author is convinced that informed and non-arbitrary decisions concerning both theoretical issues as well as various details of pronunciation teaching can only be made on the basis of extensive empirical research which examines, on the one hand, the pronunciation problems of specific L1 learner groups and their acquisition of L2 phonetics, but also, on the other hand, the perception of foreign-accented English by native and non-native listeners. In other words, there is agreement with Derwing and Munro (2005: 379) that ‘empirical studies are essential in improving our understanding of the relationship between foreign accent and pronunciation teaching’.

This book, with its meaningful subtitle, ‘A Research-Based Approach’, attempts to bridge the gap between relevant phonetic research and pronunciation teaching by drawing on the results of the author’s and other scholars’ empirical studies on EFL learners’ acquisition of English pronunciation, its perception and production, as well as the efficacy of various instructional procedures and the usefulness of teaching materials. Since such research can only be carried out with specific participants, the discussion is supported by extensive experimental evidence provided mostly by Polish learners of English.

It should be added that within the last decade in Poland much empirical research has been done on various aspects of English pronunciation pedagogy (for a summary, see Szpyra-Kozłowska, 2008). Moreover, Poles appear to represent typical EFL students acquiring this language in a characteristic EFL context, i.e. in an instructed setting, in which language classes are monolingual and consist of the same L1 speakers who have a limited exposure to spoken English outside the classes, but a considerable exposure to written English and who are usually taught by non-native teachers trained to teach various aspects of English, including pronunciation. As English is taught and learnt in similar conditions all over the world, not only in Poland, empirical studies carried out in an EFL context appear to have broader didactic implications.²

To make the book both general and specific, global and local, as well as interesting to various readers and certainly not only to Polish readers, each chapter consists of two parts (Part A and Part B), the first of which provides a general theoretical discussion of a given issue while Part B contains a presentation of several experimental studies carried out by the author and meant to examine the problems raised in Part A empirically and to verify various theoretical claims. Thus, Pronunciation in EFL Instruction attempts to combine all the necessary ingredients for successful pronunciation instruction to EFL learners: phonetic theory, research and practice, all considered from both global as well as local perspectives.

The book does not provide a description of English phonetics; many other sources are available which supply the necessary information. Nor is it a pronunciation manual which contains sets of exercises to practise particular aspects of English phonetics although it does contain numerous practical hints and suggestions how to deal with specific problems.

The first two chapters are concerned with the issue of what should be taught to foreign learners pronunciation-wise: Chapter 1 deals with selecting an appropriate pronunciation model for instruction and Chapter 2 focuses on pronunciation priorities.

Chapter 1 starts with some necessary preliminaries, i.e. justifying the need to teach and learn the pronunciation of a foreign language, specifying the major reasons why L2 phonetic instruction often tends to be neglected and discussing various goals of pronunciation learning. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to the contentious and hotly debated issue of choosing an appropriate pronunciation model for foreign learners of English. Two approaches, traditional EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and a recent proposal known as ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) are examined and critically evaluated. Next put forward and developed is the concept of NELF (Native English as a Lingua Franca), meant to reconcile the previous two views by accepting the linguistic, but not the sociocultural aspects of native English and adopting native English pronunciation as a model, but not the goal of instruction, the latter being easy, intelligible communication with both native and non-native speakers. The major features of the three approaches to pronunciation teaching, i.e. EFL, ELF and NELF are juxtaposed and compared, with the superiority of NELF being argued in favour of. Subsequently, another important but frequently neglected distinction between EFL and ESL (English as a Second Language) is re-examined. It is claimed that regarding them as one phenomenon, as is currently the case, is detrimental to pronunciation instruction in EFL contexts and it is demonstrated that they differ too much to deserve a separate phonodidactic treatment. Finally, the major factors relevant to diagnosing the local educational context of EFL phonetic instruction are considered, as well as learner-dependent and teacher-dependent determinants of pronunciation teaching and learning.

Chapter 2 is devoted to the complex and controversial issue of establishing pronunciation priorities for EFL learners. First the major problems involved in this task are discussed with the focus on factors relevant for achieving comfortably intelligible pronunciation. Then we present and evaluate several recent proposals concerning pronunciation priorities, i.e. Jenkins’ (2000) Lingua Franca Core, Cruttenden’s (2008) Amalgam English and International English, and Collins and Mees’ (2003) pronunciation Error Ranking. An attempt is made to draw some generalizations from these concepts in order to formulate a set of general guidelines for foreign students of English. Next, a new suggestion, aimed specifically at EFL learners, is put forward, according to which phonetic instruction should focus on words prone to be notoriously mispronounced by foreign learners. It is argued and proved empirically that such lexical items hinder achieving comfortable intelligibility more than inaccurately produced sounds and prosodies, and should therefore be prioritized in EFL phonodidactics. The nature of phonetically problematic words and the major sources of their pronunciation difficulty are looked into. It is also demonstrated that, in view of the considerable impact of the written form of English on EFL learners’ pronunciation, this issue ought to be placed among the top priorities in phonetic instruction.

In the remaining parts of this chapter the question, undertaken in the ‘segmentals versus suprasegmentals’ debate, whether these are sounds or prosodies that should be viewed as pronunciation priorities in EFL settings is addressed. It is shown that the answer cannot be universal, but must be provided for each L1 learner group by considering the phonetic distance between the L1 and L2, and evaluating the impact of specific segmental and prosodic departures from the L2 on intelligibility, established in the course of empirical research. This proposal is elaborated and exemplified with a set of pronunciation priorities formulated for Polish learners.

After a discussion of the complex problem of English pronunciation models and phonetic priorities for EFL learners, in Chapter 3 the issue of effective phonetic instruction is dealt with and a holistic multimodal approach to it is proposed. It is holistic as it concerns both the learner’s body and mind. It is dubbed multimodal since it involves developing in learners appropriate motor habits needed in sound perception and production, employing cognitive mechanisms responsible for the formation of the L2 sound system in the learner’s mind and appealing to different kinds of multisensory reinforcement. It is argued that these four aspects should all be combined and integrated in successful pronunciation training and some effective techniques which can be employed in it are suggested. A large part of Chapter 3 is devoted to the presentation of selected types of phonetic activities that are particularly useful for EFL learners. The necessity of pronunciation learning outside the language classroom and developing students’ autonomy is also pointed to. The final section of Part A in Chapter 3 addresses an important, but frequently neglected issue of the critical assessment and appropriate choice of pronunciation teaching materials for EFL learners.

Finally, Chapter 4 sums up the major points made in the preceding parts of the book and highlights its most important claims.

The book is addressed to current and prospective EFL teachers and teacher trainers wishing to improve their teaching skills and pronunciation instruction in particular, in accordance with up-to-date theory and practice, as well as to pronunciation specialists, students of applied linguistics and anyone interested in English phonodidactics.

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission from the following to quote from copyright materials:

Peter Lang Verlag for the extracts from LFC, phonetic universals and the Polish context by Jolanta Szpyra-Kozłowska, [In:] Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, K. and J. Przedlacka (eds) English Pronunciation Models: A Changing Scene. 2005, pp.151–176.

Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, for the extracts from On the irrelevance of sounds and prosody in foreign-accented English by Jolanta Szpyra-Kozłowska, [In:] Waniek-Klimczak, E. and L. Shockey (eds) Teaching and Researching English Accents in Native and Non-native Speakers. Second Language Learning and Teaching 2013, pp. 15–29. With kind permission of Springer Science+Business Media.

This study is an outcome of the author’s several years of research as well as teaching experience which involved many people to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude. In particular I would like to thank very warmly Agnieszka Bryła-Cruz, Darek Bukowski, Iwona Czyżak, Wiktor Gonet, Marta Nowacka, Sławek Stasiak, Marek Radomski and Radek Święciński (listed here in alphabetical order) for being a great team of friends and colleagues whose contributions to this book are visible in many of its pages.

I dedicate this book to my daughter Iga.

Notes

  (1) The term phonodidactics is used in this book as synonymous with pronunciation pedagogy or pronunciation teaching. It is preferred by the author due to its brevity, semantic transparency and combining the concepts of phonetics and phonology in one word.

  (2) Furthermore, in recent years over 600,000 Poles have emigrated to the British Isles. This makes them a large and important group of learners and users of English.

1   English Pronunciation Teaching: Global Versus Local Contexts

This book starts with some necessary preliminaries. First a crucial question is posed concerning the need to teach and learn the pronunciation of a foreign language. It then proceeds to enquire why, in spite of the unquestionable importance of this aspect of language, it often tends to be neglected. Next the focus is on various goals of pronunciation teaching/learning and on a contentious and hotly debated issue of the choice of a model accent appropriate for foreign learners of English. The discussion centres around two approaches to ELT: the traditional idea of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and a recent proposal known either as EIL (English as an International Language) or ELF (English as a Lingua Franca). They are characterized in some detail, and a critical evaluation of each is carried out before putting forward the concept of NELF (Native English as a Lingua Franca) as an approach to pronunciation instruction for foreign learners of English, meant to reconcile the two opposing views. The major features of EFL, ELF and NELF are juxtaposed and compared, with arguments provided for the superiority of the latter. Subsequently, another important but frequently neglected distinction between EFL and ESL (English as a Second Language) is re-examined. It is argued that treating them jointly as cases of learning a second language (L2) in the process of second language acquisition (SLA) is detrimental to EFL pronunciation instruction and demonstrate that they differ substantially and therefore deserve a separate treatment. Finally, the major factors relevant for diagnosing the local educational context of EFL instruction as well as learner-dependent and teacher-dependent determinants of pronunciation teaching and learning are briefly examined.

In Part B three studies are presented which provide empirical support for some of the claims made in Part A. More specifically, in order to prove the importance of good pronunciation in another language, an experiment devoted to foreign accent perception is related, demonstrating how accented speech affects listeners’ judgements of personal characteristics ascribed to its users. Next, typical EFL learners’ (i.e. Polish students’) preferences concerning English pronunciation models are examined in a questionnaire study. Finally, an analysis of a cultural and educational context in which English is taught in Poland is presented, with the main focus on teachers’ and students’ attitudes to this language skill and the quality of phonetic instruction in schools.

Part A

A.1.1 Why Should Pronunciation Be Taught?

Suppose you are in a situation in which you have to speak a foreign language. It will take some time for the listeners to find out how well you know its grammar, how rich your vocabulary is. But it is enough if you utter just a few words for them to know how good (or bad) your pronunciation is. The first impression is formed and we all know how important first impressions are and how difficult it is to change those initial judgements.

But, of course, there is more to having good pronunciation than just creating a positive first impression. It is an important component of language without which no efficient oral communication is possible. Thus, phonetic errors may lead to misunderstandings and even communication breakdowns, as reported in many stories, like the one about a tourist asking in a London restaurant for soup, pronounced by him as soap, and being directed to the bathroom. Not long ago I had a conversation in English with a Polish student about her school experiences and she kept repeating how much she disliked that [staf]. I was quite confused as to whether she meant the teaching staff or stuff, i.e. school education in general, as in that particular context both items were just as likely to occur. Many similar stories, some jocular, some serious or even tragic, can be provided to prove the importance of clear and comprehensible pronunciation. Perhaps the most shocking of them concerns a collision of two aeroplanes with over 200 people dead in 1977 in Tenerife, attributed to a misunderstanding between the pilot and the air traffic controller due to the pilot’s poor English pronunciation.¹

Luckily, the consequences of phonetic errors are rarely so dramatic. In most cases misunderstandings can easily be explained. In other situations the linguistic and/or extralinguistic context will allow the listener to guess the meaning of an utterance. For example, if on a walk with your pet somebody asked you in Polish English: Is this your [dok]?, you could guess without any major difficulty that the question concerns your dog rather than your physician. In another situation, if a person, using Polish-accented English, states that she has just bought a new [bek], you will easily identify this word as the highly probable bag and not as the totally unlikely back.

But can we be satisfied with having pronunciation that is just comprehensible? To answer this question, let us consider some of the consequences of heavily foreign accented speech which can, however, with some effort on the part of the listener, be understood. As various researchers have observed, pronunciation which puts too much strain on the listeners is very likely to cause them irritation and annoyance and, in consequence, discourage them from further contact with the foreign speaker. The effort that is required might simply be too much for our interlocutors. I have personally found myself in a situation of this kind. Some years ago I spent several months in the USA where I rented a flat in a university building for foreign visitors. It turned out that my upstairs neighbour was a girl student from China. I tried to talk to her a few times, but found her English so difficult to understand that I finally gave up. In consequence we never made friends and just exchanged greetings and polite smiles when we accidentally met.

Speakers with pronunciation problems often make, quite unconsciously and unintentionally, an unfavourable impression of their personality on their listeners. Kelly (2000), for instance, in his discussion of the role of English prosody, claims that German learners who use their native intonation patterns in English sound abrupt or impolite, while the Spanish who employ Spanish prosody in English might sometimes appear rather bored and disinterested. Other studies have demonstrated that listeners often judge people they have never met on their personality, intelligence and social status just from listening to the way they pronounce a few words. Needless to say, the less intelligible the foreigner’s speech, the more critical such judgements are. In Part B a brief report is presented on the experiment which has been carried out to examine how native speakers of Polish perceive foreign-accented Polish and how the degree of accentedness affects the listeners’ evaluation of the speakers’ personal characteristics. It is shown that the better foreigners’ Polish pronunciation is, the higher scores they receive on their alleged intelligence, education, reliability, pleasantness and trustworthiness. Of course, the opposite is also true; more heavily accented and less intelligible speech causes more critical assessments.

Further empirical evidence is also available to show that there are serious drawbacks to having poor English pronunciation. In one experiment the same lecture was delivered to two groups of students. In the first case it was presented with near-native pronunciation, in the other, a foreign-accented version. The students’ judgements were very different; the first lecture was regarded as more interesting, more logical and better organized than the second, even though the content of both was exactly the same! In another study carried out in Sweden (Abelin & Boyd, 2000), students evaluated foreign teachers who taught various subjects in Swedish. In all instances teachers with good Swedish pronunciation were assessed as more competent and efficient than those with a strong foreign accent.

Negative perceptions of accented speech can have even more serious consequences and sometimes lead to foreigners’ social stigmatization and discrimination (see Lippi-Green, 1997; Moyer, 2013). Munro (2003), for instance, discusses several cases of accent-based discrimination in Canada. One of them involved a Polish immigrant called Gajecki, who spoke fluent English but with a strong Polish accent. After a few years of a successful teaching career at school, Gajecki was denied employment because, according to the administrator, he ‘did not speak English’. A court ruled that Gajecki was discriminated against on the basis of his accent and awarded him compensation.

Thus, no matter how good someone’s general command of a foreign language is, if their pronunciation is poor, it might negatively influence the perception of such a person.² On the other hand, learners with good English pronunciation impress people favourably and often benefit from this asset. Some years ago a student of mine went to London for his summer holidays. He needed money to live on, but all he managed to find was a rather unattractive and poorly paid job of washing up in an expensive restaurant, which he did with two other foreigners. One day a waiter was taken ill and a replacement was needed. The manager decided to employ one of the three foreigners and chose the Polish student to be the new waiter (a considerably nicer and better paid job, with good tips from the customers) because of his good English pronunciation, much better than those of the other two candidates.

Finally, it should be pointed out that people with poor pronunciation often lack the confidence to speak up and try to say as little as possible. On the other hand, good pronunciation provides learners with the confidence to engage in conversations with other speakers of English, allows them to sound able and competent, and gives them a sense of achievement. It is an asset that cannot be underestimated.

I hope the above remarks make it clear why mastering the pronunciation of a foreign language is well worth both the teachers’ and the learners’ effort. As argued by Morley (1991), the question is not whether pronunciation should be taught, but rather what should be taught and how it should be done.

A.1.2 Why is Pronunciation Teaching Often Neglected?

In the preceding section we have pointed out the major advantages of having good English pronunciation as well as some negative consequences of poor pronunciation for language learners. A logical assumption based on the presented reasoning can be made that pronunciation instruction occupies an important place in ELT. Yet it is striking that many, if not most, books and articles devoted to pronunciation instruction begin in a similar fashion, i.e. with remarks concerning a general neglect of pronunciation teaching, often called the ‘Cinderella’ of ELT (e.g. Celce-Murcia et al., 1996; Kelly, 2000). Hewings (2004: 11) maintains that, even if good pronunciation is important to many learners who are willing to work hard to achieve it, ‘teaching does not always reflect this wish, and pronunciation is treated as a low priority area of study’. Derwing and Munro (2005: 382) also complain about ‘the marginalization of pronunciation within applied linguistics’. This view is expressed by many authors in their assessment of the situation both in ESL and EFL teaching contexts, which indicates that this is a global rather than a local issue.

Thus, in spite of its undeniable importance, phonetic instruction tends to be neglected in ELT, which is a puzzle that requires some explanation. First of all, pronunciation is frequently regarded as the most difficult aspect of another language to master. Thus, numerous examples are often provided of language learners who achieve a high level of competence in grammar and vocabulary of the L2, but whose pronunciation leaves much to be desired.³ In other words, different elements of language are learnt with varied success and in this respect pronunciation appears to be the most problematic area, particularly when native-like speech is seen as the goal of teaching and learning. Consequently, many teachers believe that since time and effort spent on pronunciation instruction usually brings unsatisfactory results, it should rather be devoted to those aspects of language which are teachable and learnable.

Secondly, as argued by Elliot (1995: 531), ‘teachers tend to view pronunciation as the least useful of the basic language skills and therefore they generally sacrifice teaching pronunciation in order to spend valuable class time on other areas of the language’. This view is additionally reinforced in EFL contexts by predominantly written exams that learners must take, for example at the end of mandatory language courses in many countries, and for which teachers must prepare their students. It should be added that the teachers’ professional reputation often depends on how well their students do in such tests. Also, many international language examinations (see Szpyra-Kozłowska, 2003) attach little importance to the examinees' English pronunciation in comparison with other language skills. If what is tested in language exams is primarily grammar and vocabulary, then intensive pronunciation training must be viewed by teachers and learners as a waste of precious class time. This is known as a ‘washback effect’.

Furthermore, the negligence of pronunciation can be affected by the fact that frequently very little attention is given to it in general English course books as well as books preparing learners for different international examinations (see Section A.3.6. in Chapter 3 for more details). Many instructors, believing that course book authors are highly qualified specialists in ELT who know best how much attention should be given to various language components, follow the contents of such publications faithfully and tend to devote insufficient time to pronunciation training.

Little attention to practical phonetics stems also from the assumptions of the communicative approach, dominant in modern language teaching, in which, on the one hand, good pronunciation is viewed as essential for effective communication but, on the other hand, emphasis is placed on fluency rather than accuracy and pronunciation errors are tolerated. This, in consequence, means that pronunciation training tends to be fairly limited as ‘communicatively adequate pronunciation is generally assumed to be a by-product of appropriate practice over a sufficient period of time’ (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996: 449).

Yet another reason for many non-native teachers’ reluctance to teach practical phonetics more extensively is the poor quality of their own pronunciation and the resulting lack of confidence concerning this skill. It has been observed that the better the teachers’ mastery of the English sound system is, the more attention they pay to their students’ phonetic training. Of course the reverse is also true.

Finally, various researchers base many instructors’ failure to teach pronunciation properly on their inadequate training which does not provide them with the necessary knowhow. This is particularly true of ESL contexts, in which only brief and often superficial courses are needed to obtain ELT qualifications. As pointed out by Celce-Murcia et al. (1996: 12), ‘teachers can effectively address the pronunciation needs of their students only through comprehensive knowledge of the English sound system and through familiarity with a variety of pedagogical techniques, many of which should be communicatively oriented’. If prospective teachers are not properly trained in these issues, they are either likely to marginalize pronunciation training or do it ineffectively in their work.

A.1.3 Goals of Pronunciation Teaching/Learning

In Section A.1.2 we have provided many reasons why learners of English should strive to have good English pronunciation. The question that immediately arises is how good the student’s pronunciation should actually be. In other words, what has to be decided is the goal of phonetic instruction.

The traditional answer was simple: the aim of the phonodidatic process was for learners to achieve either native or near-native pronunciation, the only important issue being the choice of a native accent model, which will be discussed in detail in Section A.1.5. This objective implies adopting native norms of linguistic correctness and granting native speakers a special status of being the ultimate authority on English language use.

With time, however, more and more researchers have arrived at the same conclusion: for the overwhelming majority of foreign learners, the goal of achieving native-like or even near-native pronunciation is simply unattainable. As mentioned in the preceding section, while a high level of proficiency or even mastery in grammar and vocabulary is not infrequent, pronunciation is different in that articulatory habits formed early in the process of L1 acquisition appear to be fairly resistant to change in learning the phonetics of the L2. Thus, although cases of foreign learners with native-like English pronunciation are sometimes reported, they are extremely rare, particularly when language learning takes place in the so-called instructed setting, i.e. in the classroom in a country where it is not spoken.

Nowacka (2008), for example, examined the ultimate phonetic attainment of 200 Polish university and college graduates in six different institutions of tertiary education, all specializing in English and about to become language teachers and interpreters. She recorded samples of their read and extemporaneous speech which were next evaluated by several native-speaker judges whose task was to decide how native a given speaker sounded. Of all the participants, only one of them was taken to be a native speaker of English. It should be added that the subjects can be considered highly motivated and talented learners, who received formal training in theoretical and practical English phonetics. In the study reported here, achieving native-like pronunciation has turned out to be impossible for all students but one, so attaining this goal seems to be even less likely in the case of other learners.

In modern phonodidactics it has long been suggested that a more achievable and realistic goal is ‘intelligibility’. This rather vague and imprecise term has been understood, however, in a variety of ways (for a discussion, see Jenkins, 2000).

A distinction should be made between basic or minimal intelligibility which allows for rudimentary communication but puts a considerable strain on the listener and requires much effort on their part to understand the message, and comfortable intelligibility, to use Abercrombie’s (1949) term, which puts little or no strain on the listener. While some learners need to achieve no more than basic intelligibility, such as tourists travelling abroad who need English to ask for directions, order a meal in a restaurant or pay a hotel bill (so-called ‘survival English’), the majority of them need to be comfortably intelligible, which would allow them to use English in a variety of situations and for various purposes.

It is clear that these different goals have important consequences for phonetic instruction. When near-native pronunciation is aimed at, all phonetic details of the native model are important and should be practised and faithfully imitated. When the learner’s objective is intelligible communication, some pronunciation areas must be prioritized while others can be neglected.

At this point another important but frequently confused and disregarded distinction must be made between a pronunciation model, which is a kind of idealized reference point, and the goal or target which learners try to achieve depending on their specific needs and abilities. This means that with one accent model different goals can be pursued, e.g. minimal intelligibility, comfortable intelligibility or native-like pronunciation. It can be likened to climbing mountains in order to admire a beautiful landscape. For some climbers the only imaginable and worthwhile aim might be conquering the highest peak, regardless of all the effort and hard work involved in getting there, while others will be quite satisfied with reaching