Abstract:

Training practices have promoted developing comprehensibility and intelligibility in speech over accuracy in the current paradigm of teaching English. In real-life communication, speakers’ ability to be understood depends on a range of factors, which do not inevitably include imitation of native-like sounds. Foreign learners of English in general courses are not required to drill native-like pronunciation of individual words. However, they are encouraged to develop their speaking comprehensibility and awareness of phoneme-letter correspondence through various tasks, which can be implicitly or explicitly aimed at pronunciation practice. As a result, foreign learners systematically apply pronunciation rules to other vocabulary items they encounter in speech or writing. However, academic texts are texts with relatively limited distribution among foreign language learners and contain specific vocabulary items pronunciation of which presents a considerable challenge for foreign learners of English unless their pronunciation is presented to learners explicitly. As a result, foreign learners often mispronounce words typical for English for academic purposes. In these mistakes, common themes can be observed.

The paper aims to identify the words from English for academic purposes commonly mispronounced by the pre-service teacher used in academic contexts. The examples were collected from spontaneous speaking tasks during seminars and discussions. Then the paper aims to classify common pronunciation mistakes according to their type. The mistakes can be identified on the basis of incorrect application of a general pronunciation rule, incorrect stress placement, the substitution of a sound with the sound from a mother tongue or other types of mistakes. In the final part, the paper aims to present suggestions for practising the items of English for academic purposes in courses for pre-service teachers of English..

Acknowledgement:
The paper presents partial research outcomes of the project 7/TU/2021 Pronunciation mistakes of pre-service teachers of English.

Keywords:

English for academic purposes, English, pronunciation, mistakes, intelligibility, comprehensibility.