Prosodic elements to improve pronunciation in English language learners: A short report

The usefulness of teaching pronunciation in language instruction remains controversial. Though past research suggests that teachers can make little or no difference in improving their students’ pronunciation, current findings suggest that second language pronunciation can improve to be near native-like with the implementation of certain criteria such as the utilization of prosodic elements. With the emphasis on meaningful communication and the understanding that speech production is affected by speech perception, there is a need to integrate prosodics with communicative activities providing situations to develop student pronunciation through listening and speaking. This short overview examines such elements.