Abstract/Summary

This study has explored non-native English-speaking (NNS) and native English-speaking (NS) EFL teachers’ attitudes to intelligibility and nativeness in pronunciation assessment. The study is timely and relevant due to the importance of investigating EFL teachers’ language attitudes as highlighted in previous literature (e.g., Dyers & Abongdia, 2010). It is also relevant since its findings can help in identifying effective ways for developing professional training for teachers on assessing pronunciation and, by extension, teaching pronunciation, and contribute to recent research on best practice regarding pronunciation assessment and, by extension, pronunciation instruction. Furthermore, this study is needed due to the limited research in EFL teachers’ attitudes research demonstrated in previous literature (Baker, 2014; Baker & Murphy, 2011), especially in pronunciation assessment. The study has also particular relevance to its context, King Abdulaziz University (KAU), where the author of this study is an EFL teacher. At the university there are teachers of English from all over the world and many of these teachers do not support the use of norms based on nativeness, as this study demonstrates. The current study adopted a mixed-methods design; it made use of both quantitative and qualitative methods, and direct and indirect methods to answer the research questions. It elicited the attitudes of the teachers through two practical tasks and one online questionnaire. The practical tasks included an assessment task that involved rating L2 English speakers on phonological features and an acceptability task that involved responding to spoken words by accepting or rejecting them. The online questionnaire was an agreement/disagreement questionnaire based on a 7-point scale. The study tasks were followed by interviews with a small number of the study participants (N = 6) to further investigate the behaviour of these participants in the study tasks. The participants of the study are EFL teachers (N = 57). A questionnaire was used to elicit personal background information about the participants such as their ages, teaching experience and speaking assessment experience. The study adopted a quantitative approach to data analysis. Percentages were calculated for the data of the assessment of students’ speech task and then comparisons between the participants were conducted using t-tests to determine the attitudes of the participants towards intelligibility and nativeness. Also, comparisons for the data of the acceptability task and the online questionnaire were made using t-tests to determine the attitudes of the participants towards intelligibility and nativeness. Next, correlation analyses were conducted for the data of the practical tasks (i.e., the assessment of students’ speech task and the acceptability task) and the data of the online questionnaire to find out if the attitudes in the online questionnaire are reflected in the practical tasks. Further, correlation analyses were made to investigate if the attitudes of the participants in the study tasks are affected by particular personal background information such as age and teaching experience. Finally, deductive analysis for the data of the follow-up interviews was conducted, where the research questions were determined as categories and then any connections in the data of the follow-up interviews were mapped to these categories. The findings of this study showed that both groups of participants (NNS and NS) have behaved similarly in the practical tasks: neither were intelligibility or nativeness. However, in the online questionnaire, whereas the NNS group failed to show more orientation to intelligibility or nativeness, the NS group were more oriented to intelligibility. The findings also showed that the attitudes of the NS group were more oriented to intelligibility than the attitudes of the NNS group in the online questionnaire, but both groups were similar as regards nativeness. The findings further showed that the participants’ attitudes in the online questionnaire may have not been reflected in their behaviour in the practical tasks. The attitudes of the participants emerged in the online questionnaire were not correlated with their behaviour in the practical tasks. The reasons behind this according to the interviews conducted may have been that the participants’ real attitudes in the online questionnaire were hidden and their behaviour in the practical tasks were the representative of their attitudes. Finally, the findings showed that in general the participants’ age, teaching experience and speaking assessment experience had no effect on the participants’ attitudes. However, according to the interviews conducted, experience as L2 English learners at school, experience of learning English in general and speaking assessment policies were possible factors affecting the participants’ attitudes.