I am somebody.
I was somebody when I came.
I'll be a better somebody when I leave.
(Rita Pierson)
Research interests
- Ralph Nader -
Your best teacher is your last mistake.
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Having recently started writing my own ePortfolio which is supposed to document my learning process and support my self-reflection, I am wondering in how far this tool may also be of interest for my future teaching context.
I may use it to document my development as foreign language teacher and enhance my own CPD, but it may also be an effective means of fostering student-reflection in school contexts.
I initially planned to focus on the effectiveness of ePortfolios in my research project, but in the course of the intensive course, I developed a different interest that I would like to focus on and therefore, I may focus on ePortfolios in a later project. This allows me to first gain comprehensive experiences using an ePortfolio myself.
Being inspired by a teaching methodology/linguistics class I took at Kiel university, I decided to focus on foreign language pronunciation in my research project.
Nowadays, communicative approaches are dominating foreign language classrooms and they often set the principle of "fluency before accuracy". The question arising in this context is, however, how much accuracy is needed to be able to speak fluently in the target language and to speak with an accent that does not “draw unfavourable attention to itself” (Greenwood 1992: 38).
Research questions
°What are prospective teachers’ goals in regard to their pronunciation in the foreign language?
(native-like pronunciation vs. intelligible pronunciation)
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°What pronunciation goals do foreign language teachers impose on the foreign language classrooms (and which models do they follow)?
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°What do the guidelines in different countries say about the goals of pronunciation teaching?
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I would like to investigate this topic because personally, I have changed my approach towards pronunciation teaching and I would like to compare my own approach with approaches from other prospective language teachers. In addition, I would like to investigate how guidelines in different countries approach this issue.
This topic seems to be particularly interesting since pronunciation teaching has long been neglected and therefore, there is not as much research in pronunciation teaching as there is in other language areas.
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In order to support my research and to get an overview of other prospective teachers' approaches towards pronunciation teaching, I created a questionnaire that can be accessed using the following link:
http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/YCK00/
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My research has shown that many prospective teachers have not taken any classes that focus on pronunciation teaching and, therefore, they are not aware of tools that foster the development of pronunciation skills or of specific methods for teaching pronunciation.
