This document discusses ways to assess pronunciation in language learners. It emphasizes that pronunciation is a subcategory of speaking and should be assessed within the context of communicative tasks. The document outlines several techniques that can be used to assess aspects of pronunciation like consonants, vowels, stress, rhythm, and intelligibility. These include tasks like sentence repetition, reading aloud, and discrimination of word stress patterns. It stresses the importance of teaching pronunciation and preparing specific assessment rubrics that evaluate the aspects targeted in instruction.

1. Assessing pronunciation
By: Valentina Espinosa
Camila Martínez
Concepción-June-2017

2. Introduction
In this presentation, we will show you some
ways of how to assess pronunciation and
aspects that must be considered during this
process.
The first one, and most important is that
“pronunciation” is a subcategory of speaking.

3. Assessing speaking
❖ Personal impression.
❖ Expectations of hearer.
❖ Purpose of hearer.

4. Cycle of assessing speaking
Luoma, 2004 (p.5)

5. Speaking task
Highly
structured
tasks
Luoma (2004) defines this
concept as: “structured
speaking tasks are called
´structured´ because they
control quite closely what
the examinees are going
to say”. (p.158)
Aspect of examinees’ Knowledge of grammar points
language control
Pronunciation skill
-Sentence repetition.
-Sentence completion.
-Reading aloud.
-Short-answer questions.
-Reacting to phrases tasks.

6. Before assessing
pronunciation
Before assessing pronunciation we must
consider the following:
Pronunciation teaching
must focus on issues of
oral fluency and ss’
accuracy
Teaching should extend
beyond isolated word
level to discourse level
Teacher needs to
consider learners
styles
The practice and
feedback need to
involve ICT’s
Roach,P. 2009

7. Sources to consider in assessing
pronunciation
Age
Social
Class Style
-Differences
between young
and old
generations
-Young people
tend to present
more elisions
than older
people
-Input
-Expansion
of domains of
linguistic
competence.
-Speaker and
hearer
relationship
-Background
knowledge
-Foreign
learners-
careful and
formal
-Foreign with
native- rapid,
casual.
-Context
Exposure to
the target
language

8. Assessing
pronunciation
The main goal of pronunciation
activities is that “learner’s
pronunciation sufficiently to
permit effective communication
with native speakers.”
Roach,P. 2009 (p.6)

9. Ways of assessing
pronunciation
• Intonation
• stress: word stress / sentence stress
• Vowels: short /long
• Consonants: voiced / voiceless
• Rhythm
• Intelligibility

10. Techniques used to assess
pronunciation

11. Pronunciation testing
and evaluation
Consonant-vowel
discrimination
Example:
Underline the word you
hear.
a.Don’t (slip/sleep) on the
floor.
b. He’s gone to (back
up/pack up) the car.

12. Example:
Pronunciation testing
and evaluation
Recognition of English
words stress patterns.
Word stress
Direction: Circle the alternative that shows the syllable receiving the
main stress (capital=stress)
(on cassette) 1. Photography in one of my favorite activities.
a. PHOtography d.ACtivities
b.phoTOGraphy e.acTIVities
c.photoGRAPHY f.actiVITies

13. Pronunciation testing
and evaluation
Prominence Example:
Directions: listen to the following
utterances and choose the
alternative that best represent the
proper stress pattern (capital=stress)
1. Joe: Hi, I’m Joe Miller. What’s
your name?
a.HI, I’m JOE Miller. WHAT’S your
name?
b. HI, I’M Joe MILLER. What’s YOUR
name?
c. Hi, I’M Joe Miller. What’s your
NAME?
Ability to perceive
the most prominent
element used for
word stress.

14. Pronunciation testing
and evaluation
Intonation
Example
Discrimination of
intonation patterns
using rising or falling
intonation.

15. • This test principally focus on production
rather than perception.
• There are oral proficiency tests usually rated
globally in which pronunciation is evaluated:
Proficiency test
Basic English
Skills Test
(BEST)
Test of Spoken
English
(TSE)

16. Methodological variation
Communicative
approach
Fluency obligatory;
accuracy optional
Method- learner
engagement in
authentic listening
and speaking
tasks
Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin, 1996 (p.327)

17. Pronunciation
Communicative
task
If the focus is pronunciation, the task
does not develop communicative
competence.

18. Conclusion
To sum up, it is important to say that to assess
pronunciation, we, as teachers, must teach it
during our classes; and prepare specific tasks
and rubrics that assess what we really want to
assess taking into consideration all the aspects
we mentioned in this presentation.

19. References
• Celce-Murcia, M; Brinton, D & Goodwin, J (1996) “Teaching pronunciation:
a reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages”.
Cambridge University Press.
• Correa, R (2016) “Assessing Pronunciation”. Recuperado de la base de
datos Intranet Corporativo UCSC.
• Correa, R; Bórquez, P (2016) “Assessing Pronunciation”. Recuperada de
la base de datos Intranet Corporativo UCSC.
• Roach, P (2009) “English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical course".
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Luoma, S (2004) “Assessing Speaking”. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.