ABSTRACT

Close links between listening and pronunciation can be found in theories of perception (Liberman & Mattingly, 1985), in teacher training axioms (e.g. ‘if you can say it you can hear it’; ‘you need to hear the difference before you can say it’), and in textbook materials (‘listen and repeat’). They are also linked in that they are both susceptible to avoidance in discussions of English language teaching (ELT). Research has shown that teachers avoid teaching pronunciation (Breitkreutz, Derwing & Rossiter, 2001; Macdonald, 2002; Murphy, 2014) and when teaching listening they avoid direct encounters with the sound substance of English (Field, 2008), the characteristic acoustic blur of spontaneous speech (Brown, 1990; Cauldwell, 2013). There is a further link in that they have both been referred to as the ‘Cinderella’ skills of both second language (L2) and foreign language (FL) instruction (Kelly, 1969; Nunan, 2002; Thanasoulas, 2003; Vandergrift 1997).