Developing Fluency in the Pronunciation of Iraqi Learners of English: Method and Techniques

Apart from accuracy, fluency is one of the issues that concemlanguage learners and teachers on parallel grounds. Fluenry isgenerally delined as the rapid, smooth, and effortless use of spokenlanguage. This study aims at suggesting a method and a set oftechniques that can be employed in the pronunciation classroom towork on training Iraqi learners of English to learn and use someaspects of connected speech, viz. weak forms, sentence stress,linking and elision, and accordingly developing their fluency skillsin speaking English. It basically draws on using a communicativeapproach with the following characteristicss first, maintaining alearner-centered teaching, encouraging pair/group work, andemploying practice through using activities and tasks. Thesuggested method involves proceeding through three stages ofpractice: mechanical, meaningful, and communicative. Mechanicatpractice is a controlled type of practice carried out throughrepetition and substitution activities; meaningful practice is also acontrolled practice through meaningful choices of items; and thelast stage, communicative practice involves using language withinreal communicative contexts. The suggested techniques are also setinto three stages in consonance with the stages of the method.