INTEGRATING CONTEXTUALIZED TEACHING OF PRONUNCIATION TO IRANIAN EFL ELEMENTARY CLASSES: INSTRUCTION OF SEGMENTAL AND SUPRASEGMENTAL ASPECTS

Given the less emphasis put on pronunciation despite the recognition of its significance in English as A Foreign Language or Second Language (EFL/ESL) learning and teaching, the contextualized teaching of pronunciation (CTP) was integrated in the Iranian educational context at elementary level as the early stage of EFL learning to assist students learn the four English sounds (?, ?, w, and ?) that are absent in Farsi phonological system but contribute a lot to developing a good English pronunciation. It was also tried to determine the aspects of pronunciation that improved as a result of CTP and if there was interrelationship between the four sections of the pronunciation test and students’ total scores in the pronunciation test.The participants were 66 EFL students in a guidance school in Kish Island, Iran. To this end, KET was administered and then they were randomly assigned to the control and the experimental groups. Whereas the control group followed the natural procedure of general English classes, the experimental groupreceived extra formal and contextualized instruction of English pronunciation including practice on both segmentals and suprasegmentals. To collect data, the English version of the Pronunciation Test (PT) adopted from Elliot (1995a), test of normality, descriptive statistics (Mean & SD), and several paired and independent t-testsas well as nonparametric tests, and Pearson Correlation were utilized. The results revealed an overall improvement in pronunciation as well as significant progress in all sections of the PTincluding word and sentence repetition, word reading, and spontaneous production of the target language in the experimental group. A significant correlation was also found between the first three sections of the PT and students’ overall score in both groups. The findings provided evidence for the effectiveness of CTP among Iranian elementary language learners.