The overall results obtained from this project will be used to create a digital tool which explains the correspondences and differences in pronunciation (including those beyond stress patterns of Romance loans) between Dutch, English and German to assist English language learners and teachers.
When such information of similarities and differences between languages is available, it is often presented in highly specialist terms and not easy to understand for teachers and learners without historical linguistic knowledge. As all three languages are West Germanic and show a large amount of overlap, there are a number of rule-based historical changes which explain variation that may, at first glance, seem idiosyncratic.
If these rules can be simplified and explained in such a way that they can be used in language learning and teaching, this may facilitate a more rapid progression and will allow students to apply these rules not just to words they have already learned but also to new material they encounter.
With the aim to provide resources for pronunciation teaching in English, we currently survey students’ and teachers’ experience with teaching different aspects of pronunciation. In the survey, we also asses the attitude towards pronunciation teaching/learning as well as the resources students and teachers currently use. We are particularly interested in the role that training in phonetics plays in the teaching of pronunciation – for both the teachers and the students.
