IRAL 2022; aop

Research Article

Loc Tan Nguyen* and Michael Burri

Pronunciation pedagogy in English as a
foreign language teacher education
programs in Vietnam
https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2022-0126
Received June 26, 2022; accepted October 10, 2022; published online November 17, 2022

Abstract: Pronunciation has gained significant attention in the field of English

language teaching, with recent studies examining pronunciation representation in
textbooks, classroom practices, teachers’ beliefs, and learners’ perceptions. However,
research into teachers learning to teach English pronunciation is only beginning to
emerge. The current study extends this line of enquiry by investigating the preparation
of 20 Vietnamese English teachers to teach pronunciation. The study also examined
the teachers’ perceptions of how Vietnamese teacher education could further assist
teachers in teaching pronunciation. Qualitative data sources included academic
transcripts, a questionnaire, and individual semi-structured interviews to examine
the teacher-participants’ pronunciation pedagogy training and their beliefs about
effective pronunciation teacher preparation. The findings showed that the teachers
were insufficiently trained but reported being confident in their ability to teach
English pronunciation. The participants also proposed several changes to be made to
Vietnamese English teacher education programs for teachers to teach pronunciation
more effectively.

Keywords: English as a foreign language; pronunciation pedagogy; second language

teacher education; teacher beliefs; Vietnamese education

1 Introduction
Given the globally growing demand for well-prepared teachers of English as an
additional language, it is not surprising that second language teacher education

*Corresponding author: Loc Tan Nguyen, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH), Ho Chi
Minh City, Vietnam, E-mail: [email protected]. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4126-3128
Michael Burri, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, E-mail: [email protected].
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0115-5349
2 Nguyen and Burri

(SLTE) has been discussed and researched extensively in the last three decades. In
their seminal piece, Freeman and Johnson (1998), for example, suggested the
reconceptualization of the knowledge-base of SLTE to include both content and
pedagogical knowledge to efficiently prepare language teachers. More recently,
Johnson and Golombek (2020) put forward a sociocultural approach, claiming that
this was the most effective approach to preparing future second language (L2)
teachers. This holistic and social interactive approach is suggested to take into
consideration the historical backgrounds and lived experiences of individual
student teachers, and thus meeting their diverse needs and better preparing them
for future teaching endeavors.
In spite of these major conceptual contributions, additional empirical insights
are needed for the field to gain a more nuanced understanding of how L2 teachers
can be prepared effectively (Sadeghi 2019). This is particularly true for the
preparation of pronunciation instructors, because L2 teachers often perceive
pronunciation to be one of the most challenging skills to teach (e.g., Couper 2017)
due to a lack of training (Foote et al. 2011; Murphy 2014) and a lack of inappropriate
materials (Baker and Murphy 2011; Derwing et al. 2012; Diepenbroek and Derwing
2013). The past few decades have seen a significant number of studies exploring
teachers’ beliefs and practices, learners’ perceptions, and teacher professional
development (TPD) to enhance teachers’ pronunciation pedagogy. Much less
research, however, has examined how well teacher education prepares L2 teachers
to teach pronunciation in their English classes. This is especially true for English as
a foreign language (EFL) contexts such as Vietnam, and therefore the present study
makes an important empirical contribution to the literature on SLTE by exploring
Vietnamese EFL teachers’ perceptions of pronunciation teacher preparation.

2 Literature review
2.1 Second language teacher education and pronunciation
teacher preparation

Richards (1990) coined the term SLTE to conceptualize the process of L2 teacher
learning 30 years ago. Since then, SLTE has grown substantially with numerous
studies – conducted in different contexts and countries – contributing to the
understanding of the process of preparing pre-service and in-service L2 teachers.
A sign of the maturation of SLTE is journals solely designated to L2 teacher
preparation and learning, such as Second Language Teacher Education and the
English Language Teacher Education and Development Journal.
 Pronunciation pedagogy in English 3

A relatively recent trend is the proposition of the importance of taking a

sociocultural perspective on SLTE (Johnson and Golombek 2020). That is, student
teachers’ backgrounds, personal histories, and experiences are all positioned
within a particular context and are seen as important resources that contribute to
the preparation of L2 teachers. This line of work, along with studies exploring how
prospective teachers learn to teach various skills, has shed light on what it takes to
become a competent and knowledgeable L2 teacher. However, one area that
researchers have only recently begun to investigate is the preparation of
pronunciation teachers in TESOL programs. The interest in learning to teach
pronunciation arose, more or less, parallel to research showing that L2 teachers
often lack training and confidence in their ability to teach pronunciation (e.g., Bai
and Yuan 2019; Baker 2014; Foote et al. 2011), and as a result, pronunciation
instruction tends to be unsystematic (Couper 2017) with segmentals (vowels
and consonants) often being prioritized over suprasegmentals (rhythm, stress, and
intonation) (Nguyen and Newton 2020; Foote et al. 2011).
Golombek and Jordan’s (2005) was perhaps the first study conducted in a
pronunciation teacher preparation context. Their research demonstrated the
evolving identities of two student teachers from Taiwan during a graduate course
on pronunciation pedagogy. The student teachers began to view themselves as
legitimate pronunciation teachers as a result of taking the course. Baker (2011) then
investigated pronunciation teaching provided by five experienced L2 instructors in
the US and found that preparing teachers to teach pronunciation in a graduate
TESOL program can have positive effects on their practices and cognitions (beliefs,
attitudes, and knowledge) about English pronunciation.
These studies led Burri (2016) to conduct his doctoral research on the effective-
ness of graduate students learning to teach English pronunciation at an Australian
university. The research revealed that group work and accent comparisons facilitated
an increase in student teachers’ awareness of not only English varieties and accents,
but also of the goal of pronunciation instruction being intelligibility rather than accent
elimination (Burri 2015a). Additionally, student teachers began to see value in
teaching suprasegmentals while non-native student teachers felt that their awareness
of their own pronunciation and spoken English increased during the course, leading
to an increase in their confidence to teach pronunciation in future L2 classrooms (Burri
2015b). Findings also suggested that non-native participants with prior teaching
experience were able to relate to course content more so than their inexperienced
native speaking peers (Burri et al. 2017a). Lastly, student teachers’ identity
construction was closely intertwined with the development of their cognitions, with
both of these aspects playing important roles in learning to teach pronunciation (Burri
et al. 2017b).
4 Nguyen and Burri

Following Burri’s research, other studies have provided additional understandings

of pronunciation teacher preparation. Buss (2017), for instance, showed that a course
on phonology and pronunciation pedagogy taught in a Canadian undergraduate
TESOL program fostered student teachers’ positive views towards pronunciation
instruction and, similar to Burri (2015b), facilitated participants’ awareness of their
own pronunciation and increased their confidence in teaching it. Kochem (early
view) made an important contribution by examining the practical side of student
teachers learning to teach pronunciation. As part of a graduate pronunciation
pedagogy course taught in the US, his research explored the relationship between
student teachers’ cognitions, learning of course content, and actual pronunciation
instruction during a four-week one-on-one tutoring project. Findings from this study
showed that the tutors did progress into communicative activities, but they still
predominantly used controlled activities, as they were found to be easier to create
and use in the tutoring context.
Notably, these studies were conducted in English-speaking countries, and
only two studies have been carried out on learning to teach pronunciation in an
EFL context to date. Lim’s (2016) work demonstrated that Cambodian pre-service
teachers were comfortable with their foreign English accent and that they believed
they were capable pronunciation instructors. The teachers also believed that
intelligibility should be the pedagogical goal rather than native-like pronuncia-
tion, even though native English-speaker pronunciation appeared to the preferred
norm among the teachers. Additionally, participants held positive views of
non-native English varieties but expressed concerns about introducing them in
the classroom due to L2 learners’ potentially negative reactions towards these
varieties. The second study was done by Tsunemoto et al. (early view) in the
Japanese EFL context. Their research demonstrated that Japanese pre-service
teachers’ prior experiences shaped their beliefs and assessment of pronunciation.
That is, student teachers with previous experiences, including study abroad
and practice teaching, tended to be more skeptical towards the teachability of
pronunciation and more critical of English accents than their less experienced
counterparts. Both of the studies focused on pre-service EFL teachers, and there-
fore more research is needed on experienced, in-service EFL teachers’ views
and perceptions of pronunciation teacher preparation. As Burri and Baker’s
(2021) study showed, pronunciation teachers often face contextual challenges
(e.g., requirements to use textbooks and collaborate with colleagues, time and
curriculum constraints, and student proficiencies) that only emerge when they
begin teaching. Thus, exploring in-service EFL teachers’ perceptions would likely
reveal important findings that could help improve the preparation of pronuncia-
tion teachers in TESOL programs.
 Pronunciation pedagogy in English 5

The majority of the aforementioned studies included recommendations for

preparing pronunciation teachers. For example, discussing different accents in a
pronunciation pedagogy course has been suggested to facilitate student teachers’
understanding of the importance of English varieties and the pedagogical target
being intelligibility rather than adhering to a native English-speaking point of
reference for pronunciation teaching (Burri 2015a; Lim 2016; Nguyen and Newton
2020). Student teachers speaking English as an additional language should also be
given opportunities to experience an improvement in their own pronunciation,
which most likely enhances their confidence and understanding English
pronunciation. Collaborative elements such as peer-teaching sessions in which
student teachers experiment with the use of newly learned techniques (Burri
2015b), as well as a practical component, such as tutoring sessions are seen as
helping student teachers understand learner needs and develop knowledge and
pedagogical skills necessary to teach L2 pronunciation (Kochem early view).
Observing expert L2 instructors teaching pronunciation and teaming up experi-
enced with less experienced student teachers in collaborative learning tasks (Burri
et al. 2017a) and opportunities to reflect on and examine their pre-existing beliefs
(Tsunemoto et al. early view) are believed to be effective means to assist student
teachers in processing newly learned course content and connecting it with
practice. Another suggestion has also included the use of pronunciation-specific
case studies to foster prospective teachers’ understanding of pronunciation
teaching in the L2 classroom (Burri and Baker 2021; Pennington and Rogerson-
Revell 2019). While these are useful recommendations for the preparation of
pronunciation instructors, how relevant and effective they are for places like
Vietnam, the context in which this present study is situated, is more or less
unknown. As such, our current study makes a novel contribution by shedding light
on an under-researched area: the preparation of pronunciation teachers in
Vietnam.

2.2 Pronunciation teacher preparation in Vietnam

Interest in pronunciation instruction in Vietnam has grown in the last few years with
recent studies making valuable contributions to the understanding of pronunciation
teaching practices and beliefs held by Vietnamese teachers of English (VTE). Ha and
Murray’s (2021a) work revealed, for example, that recasts were the most common
feedback practices used by VTEs, and that some incongruity existed between the
teachers’ practices and beliefs about oral corrective feedback (OCF). Other research
also showed VTEs’ frequent use of recasts and prompts in correcting students’
pronunciation errors, but also suggested that VTEs’ approach to pronunciation
6 Nguyen and Burri

instruction tended to be unplanned due to their lack of training opportunities

(Nguyen and Newton 2020). Addressing the need for more training, Nguyen and
Newton (2021) designed a 3-h pronunciation-specific workshop for six VTEs teaching
in a university English program. They found that the job-embedded and collabo-
rative nature of the workshop had a positive impact on the participants’ cognitions
and pronunciation teaching skills. Resembling Nguyen and Newton’s project, Ha
and Murray (2021b) delivered a 4.5-h workshop with the purpose of training 10
Vietnamese high school English teachers in the provision of OCF. Data was collected
over a 14-week period and included several opportunities (e.g., journaling,
classrooms observations) for participants to reflect on content learned during the
workshop. Similar to Nguyen and Newton’s (2021) findings, Ha and Murray’s
workshop facilitated a positive change in the teacher-participants’ beliefs about
OCF, suggesting that this type of TPD can be effective in the Vietnamese context.
While these are promising findings, pronunciation teacher preparation in
Vietnamese-based foreign language teacher education (FLTE) programs remains
unexplored. Research is urgently needed in this area to further improve pronunci-
ation instruction in Vietnam. The following research questions guided the present
study:
1. To what extent do Vietnamese EFL teachers feel that their teacher education
programs prepared them to teach English pronunciation?
2. What beliefs do the teachers hold about effective pronunciation teacher
preparation?

3 Method
3.1 Research setting and participants

The study was conducted in Vietnam with the teacher-participants having received
education from different universities located throughout the country. Convenience
sampling was employed to select participants based on their availability and
willingness to participate (Creswell and Poth 2017). In response to an invitation
email sent to all teachers in Nguyen’s network, 35 teachers replied and 27 agreed to
take part in the research. Given the focus of the current study (i.e., Vietnamese
teacher education), seven teachers earning degrees from foreign institutions
(e.g., Australia or New Zealand) were excluded from the group, leaving a cohort of
20 study participants. They included both males and females, aged from 27 to 35,
and were from North Vietnam (N = 5), Central Vietnam (N = 6) and South Vietnam
(N = 9). The teacher-participants earned their BA degrees in ELT and MA degrees in
TESOL or English Linguistics from 12 different Vietnamese universities. These are
 Pronunciation pedagogy in English 7

large universities offering EFL teacher education programs for over 20 years in
three different areas of the country (three from North, three from Central, and six
from South Vietnam). The teachers’ teaching experience ranged from 5 to 11 years
at secondary or tertiary level. To ensure their confidentiality, the teacher-
participants were given the pseudonyms T1–T20 in this report.

3.2 Data collection

At the onset of the study, the teacher-participants were asked to complete a

questionnaire that was attached to the invitation email and aimed to collect
information about: (1) their demographic properties, (2) training in pronunciation
pedagogy, and (3) confidence in teaching English pronunciation. At the end of the
questionnaire, the teachers were asked if they were willing to participate in an
individual semi-structured interview. Once completed, the teachers emailed
Nguyen the questionnaire and a copy of their BA and MA academic transcripts,
which were used to validate questionnaire and interview responses. The teacher-
participants were then invited to an individual and audio recorded, 30-min
semi-structured interview with Nguyen. During the interview, the teachers were
asked to reflect on their experiences in their pronunciation pedagogy training,
confidence in teaching pronunciation, and how they developed their pronuncia-
tion teaching skills. The teachers were also encouraged to provide suggestions
in the ways Vietnamese FLTE programs could help future teachers become
more effective pronunciation instructors. The questionnaire and interviews were
conducted in Vietnamese to avoid any misunderstandings.
In total, the collected data included 40 academic transcripts, 20 question-
naires, and 20 interview transcripts (i.e., 10 h of audio recordings). The data
enabled the researchers to obtain insights into the preparation of pronunciation
teachers in Vietnamese FLTE programs.

3.3 Data analysis

The study adopted a thematic analysis of the qualitative data, involving an

iterative, cyclical, and inductive process of identifying and refining themes and
categories in the data set (Creswell and Poth 2017). Specifically, through
transcribing and reading the transcripts, initial themes and categories were
identified, which were then refined through an iterative process of re-reading and
refining the thematic categories. All of the data was analyzed manually by the first
author with handwritten codes being created during the coding process. The data
analysis procedure is as follows.
8 Nguyen and Burri

First, Nguyen transcribed verbatim the interview recordings in Vietnamese.

Only extracts used for illustration in this paper were translated into English, and
the translation accuracy was cross checked by another proficient Vietnamese
teacher of English. Second, Nguyen read the transcripts several times to under-
stand the data and a preliminary codebook with handwritten codes was created
simultaneously. Then, the data were coded according to the themes that were
discovered during the reading phase. Finally, these codes were refined through
an iterative process of re-reading and revising the thematic categories. To ensure
the trustworthiness of the coding process, a Vietnamese EFL teacher was
trained to independently code approximately one-third of the data set, and simple
inter-coder agreement was over 83%, which is a satisfactory rate (Miles and
Huberman 1994; Neuendorf 2002).

4 Findings
4.1 Vietnamese EFL teachers’ perceptions of their
pronunciation teacher preparation

The interview data revealed that the teacher-participants’ training in pronuncia-

tion pedagogy was limited. They said that the ELT methodology course they took in
their BA programs mainly focused on theories about language learning and how to
teach grammar, vocabulary, and the four language skills of speaking, listening,
reading, and writing. T6–T11 reported attending one undergraduate lecture
providing some basic pronunciation teaching theory, while T12–T15 were given a
few minutes in class to demonstrate the application of theory in pronunciation
teaching. Subsequently, as the following extracts illustrate, the majority of the
teachers reported developing their expertise in pronunciation teaching through
self-study and/or experience sharing:

I know nothing about pronunciation pedagogy. Both my BA and MA programs had no specific
course in pronunciation teaching. The ELT methodology course only focused on teaching the
four major English skills, grammar, and vocabulary … Since I started my teaching job,
usually I look for instructional materials and teaching approaches on the Internet and learn
from my colleagues. (T4)

Frankly, I’ve never taken any specific course in teaching pronunciation, but I had two periods
about pronunciation teaching as part of an ELT methodology course when I studied for my BA
degree. Generally, this course focused on theories about language learning and approaches
to teaching listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary … In my BA
program, I remember that the teacher taught some basic theory and pronunciation teaching
 Pronunciation pedagogy in English 9

techniques for one period, then about half of my class had one or two minutes each to
illustrate how to apply these techniques in actual teaching. (T15)

As is evident in T4’s statement above, the interview and questionnaire data also
showed that the participants’ graduate programs did not include any pronuncia-
tion teaching training, and a close analysis of the 40 BA and MA academic
transcripts confirmed that there was no pronunciation pedagogy course included
in the teacher-participants’ FLTE programs. This clearly demonstrates that
Vietnamese FLTE does not equip student teachers with specific content and
pedagogical knowledge to teach English pronunciation in their classrooms.
Despite their insufficient training in pronunciation pedagogy, 14 of the
teachers reported being confident (n = 12) or very confident (n = 2) in teaching
English pronunciation (see Table 1). As the following excerpts show, the main
reason for the teachers’ confidence was that they felt good about their own
pronunciation skills and that their English non-majored learners enjoyed the
teachers’ pronunciation instruction:

I chose very confident because I’m proud of my pronunciation skills and my students usually
enjoyed the pronunciation activities that I used in class … My students often told me they had
a lot of fun when I taught them pronunciation. (T13)

I chose level 4 because I’m confident in my own pronunciation. Also, I mainly teach English
non-majors, so for them my pronunciation is very good already. Many of my students have
told me they’re impressed with my pronunciation and they usually ask me for ways to
improve theirs. (T18)

In contrast, six of the teachers reported being unconfident in teaching English

pronunciation. This is not surprising given their lack of formal training in

Table : Teachers’ confidence in teaching pronunciation.

Rating Frequency Teachers Reasons

Completely confident N =  X X
Very confident N= T–T Good pronunciation skills;
students enjoyed classroom
activities
Confident N =  T–T; T–T; Good pronunciation skills;
T–T English non-majored students
Unconfident N= T–T; T–T No training; no pronunciation
teaching
Completely N= X X
unconfident
10 Nguyen and Burri

pronunciation pedagogy. As T2’s comment illustrates, since they were not trained
in teaching pronunciation, the teachers left university without clear guidance on
the use of pronunciation activities. The exceptions were error correction, minimal
pairs, and tongue twisters because the participants experienced those types of
pronunciation teaching activities as English language learners themselves:

Honestly, I have no confidence in teaching pronunciation. The main reason is, as I’ve just
said, there was nothing about pronunciation pedagogy in my BA and MA programs, and so I
don’t know to design activities for my students. What I usually do is correcting their errors or
giving them minimal pair practice; and this is based on my own learning experience as an
English language learner. (T2)

In summary, no pronunciation-specific course was included in the participants’ BA

and MA programs, and therefore they felt that Vietnamese FLTE did not provide
them with sufficient training in pronunciation pedagogy. Six participants were
not confident in their ability to teach pronunciation, whereas two thirds
(14/20) reported being confident in teaching pronunciation because of their own
pronunciation skills and their learners’ positive reaction towards the pronuncia-
tion instruction they received.

4.2 Vietnamese EFL teachers’ beliefs about effective

pronunciation teacher preparation

On the question of how FLTE in Vietnam could assist teachers to teach pronun-
ciation more effectively, the teacher-participants made several recommendations
that could be implemented during three specific training stages: pre-training,
while-training, and post-training. As Table 2 depicts, the teachers’ suggestions
included revisions to candidate selection (pre-training), focus on student teachers’
own pronunciation skills and pedagogy (while-training), and teacher professional
development (post-training).

Table : Effective pronunciation teacher preparation in Vietnam.

Stages Recommendations Focuses Frequency

. Pre- Candidate selection Entry requirements (English N = 

training proficiency)
. While- Pronunciation skills and pro- Pronunciation training, phonetics and N = 
training nunciation pedagogy phonology, pronunciation pedagogy
English native-speaker teachers N = 
. Post- Professional development Pronunciation teaching skills N = 
training (i.e., TPD)
 Pronunciation pedagogy in English 11

According to the teachers, the first modification to improve the preparation of

EFL pronunciation teachers in Vietnam should address the selection of future
teacher candidates. As shown in Table 2, 17 teachers reported that entry
requirements based on English proficiency should be raised for more suitable
candidates to enroll in Vietnamese FLTE programs. They believed that rigorous
entry requirements based on English proficiency would lift the overall quality of
EFL teacher graduates. For example, T9 said:

First, we need to change the entry requirements in EFL teacher education … if we accept
students with low English proficiency, it’s hard to guarantee the quality of future teachers … I
think only students who have achieved a high English proficiency level, for example who
score from 7 in IELTS or over 100 in TOEFL can be accepted in training programs … A good
starting point ensures student teachers will progress during the training process. Once we’re
able to do this, I think we’ll be more likely to have high quality teachers after they graduate
from university.

The second recommendation rests on the participants’ own pronunciation as well as

their pedagogical skills. As recommended by all 20 participants, in order to enhance
student teachers’ pronunciation skills and pronunciation-specific pedagogy, FLTE
in Vietnam should include three separate courses, namely pronunciation training,
phonetics and phonology, and pronunciation pedagogy. From their perspective,
these three courses in the while-training process were intertwined and thus would
enable student teachers to become effective pronunciation instructors. They
believed that a pronunciation training course was for student teachers to sharpen
their own pronunciation skills, which aligns with Burri’s (2015b) recommendation of
improving student teachers’ own pronunciation in SLTE programs. Meanwhile, as
evident in a comment made by T3, courses in English phonetics and phonology and
pronunciation pedagogy were thought to provide student teachers with both content
and pedagogical knowledge, which, according to Baker and Murphy (2011), is
essential in establishing pronunciation instructors’ knowledge-base and in
improving the effectiveness of pronunciation instruction:

For pronunciation, I think we need to teach three separate subjects in EFL teacher education
in Vietnam. They’re pronunciation training, phonetics and phonology, and pronunciation
pedagogy. We also need to allocate more time to these subjects. The pronunciation training
subject allows student teachers to practice pronunciation skills…, and phonetics and
phonology provides them with more specialized knowledge about English phonology which
is very useful for their future pronunciation teaching. The pronunciation pedagogy subject is
even more important because it gives student teachers an opportunity to learn how to teach
pronunciation … and apply this in teaching.

Although the feasibility of offering three courses in Vietnamese FLTE programs is

questionable, the participants’ suggestion supports Baker’s (2011) proposal of
12 Nguyen and Burri

offering both a pronunciation pedagogy course and a phonology-based course in

SLTE programs to enhance the preparation of pronunciation instructors.
In addition to the proposition of including three courses, 12 participants
believed having English native-speaker teachers teach pronunciation or speaking
courses was another way to enhance Vietnamese student teachers’ own pronun-
ciation. As evident in T12’s comment, the participants thought that studying
with English native-speaker teachers allowed student teachers to be immersed in
pronunciation of the target language, laying the foundation for pronunciation
improvement:

… if possible, I think we can invite native-speaker teachers to teach pronunciation and

speaking because this gives student teachers more exposure to native pronunciation in real-
life communication … For me, there’s nothing better than studying pronunciation or
speaking with native-speaking teachers because we’ll have more opportunities to learn,
practice, and refine our pronunciation.

The third modification recommended by most teachers (18/20) included the

provision of pronunciation-specific TPD after student teachers graduate from their
FLTE programs (see post-training in Table 2). T19’s response reflects the partici-
pants’ beliefs that TPD was necessary to sustain practicing teachers’ pedagogical
expertise and to further refine their pronunciation teaching skills once they
commence teaching:

After students graduate and start teaching, they still need to learn because it’s a lifelong
process …, so TPD is important for teachers’ professional growth. What teachers have learnt
at university may not be suitable in their real teaching situations, so TPD courses are
necessary for them to update the latest pedagogy to support student learning … I think not
only me, but many teachers need a TPD course focused on pronunciation pedagogy, because I
know many BA and MA programs in Vietnam don’t have any subject about pronunciation
teaching.

Taken together, the findings generated by the present study revealed that Viet-
namese EFL teachers believed that they were insufficiently trained to teach English
pronunciation. In response to their inadequate training, the teacher-participants
made several recommendations for Vietnamese FLTE programs so that student
teachers can be better prepared to teach pronunciation in their L2 classrooms.
These modifications included an adjustment to university entry requirements
(based on the English proficiency level of applicants), improvement of student
teachers’ own pronunciation and pedagogical skills, and the provision of
pronunciation-specific TPD opportunities for practicing teachers.
 Pronunciation pedagogy in English 13

5 Discussion
The study demonstrated that Vietnamese EFL teachers received limited, if any,
training in teaching English pronunciation. This finding adds to a growing body of
research showing that L2 instructors, irrespective in which country and contexts
they teach, are often insufficiently trained to teach pronunciation in their
classrooms (Bai and Yuan 2019; Couper 2017; Derwing and Munro 2005; Foote et al.
2011; Saito and van Poeteren 2012). A novel finding of the present study is that a
notable number of teachers (14 out of 20) were confident in their ability to teach
English pronunciation, which is inconsistent with previous research suggesting
that L2 teachers often lack confidence and generally feel uncomfortable with
teaching pronunciation (Bai and Yuan 2019; Baker 2011; Couper 2017). In this
study, however, two thirds of the teachers – despite their lack of formal training in
pronunciation pedagogy – reported a high level of confidence because they were
confident in their own pronunciation skills and also because of their learners’
positive reactions to being taught pronunciation in the classroom. This should be
of particular interest to researchers and practitioners because most instructors in
previous studies were native English speakers, yet they still felt insecure in
teaching pronunciation (Burri et al. 2017a, 2017b; Couper 2017; Foote et al. 2011;
Henderson et al. 2012; Saito and van Poeteren 2012). Thus, our study makes an
important contribution, and, at the same time, supports Levis et al.’s (2016) work,
suggesting that L2 instructors speaking English as an additional language can
teach English pronunciation with confidence.
It is possible that the teachers in our study were of the conviction that ‘if you
can speak it, you can teach it’, and therefore did not take their pronunciation-
specific knowledge and skills into account when completing the questionnaire and
providing responses during the interview. This, of course, would be problematic,
given that effective pronunciation instructors typically draw on both content
knowledge (knowledge of phonetics and phonology) and pedagogical knowledge
(knowledge of how to teach pronunciation) (Celce-Murcia et al. 2010; Crystal 2019;
Derwing and Munro 2015; Levis 2018). Further research is, therefore, required to
better understand the exact source of the teacher-participants’ confidence.
The study also showed that Vietnamese EFL teachers want pronunciation to play
a more substantial role in FLTE in Vietnam. Specifically, the teacher-participants
expressed a strong desire for Vietnamese FLTE programs to place more emphasis on
improving student teachers’ own pronunciation and their pedagogical skills in order
to become more effective pronunciation instructors. The finding supports Burri’s
(2015b) proposition of fostering student teachers’ own pronunciation and subse-
quently enhancing their pronunciation teaching skills in SLTE. In light of these
14 Nguyen and Burri

findings and the fact that SLTE can have a substantial impact on teachers’ knowledge
and beliefs about L2 teaching and learning (Borg 2011; Busch 2010; Lee 2015; Wyatt
and Borg 2011), we urge Vietnamese FLTE to include more pronunciation-specific
training into their programs, including opportunities for student teachers to work on
their own pronunciation, as a means to equip Vietnamese EFL teachers with the
knowledge and skills necessary to teach pronunciation to their L2 learners.
Finally, the teacher-participants also recommended Vietnamese FLTE to pro-
vide pronunciation-specific TPD for in-service teachers to sustain and improve their
pronunciation teaching ability. This finding is consistent with previous research
suggesting that L2 teachers want more professional learning activities focused on
improving their pronunciation pedagogy (Couper 2017; Foote et al. 2016; Kochem
early view; Murphy 2011). It also echoes pronunciation scholars’ call for more TPD
opportunities to help L2 teachers teach pronunciation more effectively (Brinton
2018; Derwing 2018; Derwing and Munro 2015; Levis 2018). Considering this
particular study findings and existing empirical evidence of the effectiveness of TPD
within the Vietnamese EFL context (Bui 2019; Ha and Murray 2021a, 2021b; Nguyen
and Newton 2021), we would like to see more pronunciation pedagogy workshops
made available to practicing (i.e., in-service) Vietnamese English teachers.

6 Conclusion
This study was a first attempt to understand the pronunciation teaching prepa-
ration of Vietnamese EFL teachers. The findings showed that the teachers felt
insufficiently trained, but reported being confident in teaching English pronun-
ciation. The teachers suggested for Vietnamese FLTE to place more emphasis on
student teachers’ own pronunciation and pedagogical skills, as well as to offer
pronunciation-specific TPD for in-service teachers. This study provides further
evidence to EFL teachers’ perceptions of training in L2 pronunciation by including
Vietnamese teachers; yet, future research should also examine Vietnamese
learners’ perspectives of their teachers’ English pronunciation teaching practices.
Obtaining learners’ perceptions would most likely provide valuable and additional
insights relevant to L2 teacher educators, L2 teachers, and researchers in Vietnam
and beyond.

Research funding: This work was funded by University of Economics Ho Chi Minh
City (UEH), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Consent for publication: The authors all consent to the publication of this article.
Competing interests: The authors hereby declare that we have no conflicts of
interest.
 Pronunciation pedagogy in English 15

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