Abordagem do professor de inglês em relação aos "erros" de pronúncia dos aprendizes

Abstract

Pronunciation has always been an important issue in language teaching and learning. Nowadays, in the search for a paradigmatic change (KUHN, 199) as a proposal for English teaching as an International Language (PHILLIPSON, 1992; PENNYCOOK, 1994; CRYSTAL, 1997, 2006), we have seen a distinct perception in relation to pronunciation acquisition which takes into account aspects such as tolerance and diversity (JENKINS, 2000). From this perspective, and due the implication of it in language teaching and learning, we intend, with this work, to analyze English teacher/professor’s approach, associated to learners’ pronunciation “errors”. In order to perform this investigation, we have considered the concept of approach as presented by Almeida Filho (1993; 1999) based on Bourdieu’s (1991) habitus conception. The research is allied to an interpretativist/qualitative paradigm of research (TRIVIÑOS, 1987; ANDRÉ, 1998 and MOITA LOPES, 1994), with an ethnographical tendency (MOITA LOPES, 1996), which aims at identifying how subjects negotiate and realize meaning in sociolinguistic interaction. To accomplish this study, we have counted with the collaboration of four English teachers/professors, of a Letras Course, in a specific university institution. After a previous contact, those teachers have accepted promptly to respond to a questionnaire and to have their classes recorded for posterior analysis. In order to have a wider representation of the situation, after collecting the material, we have confronted the didactic material used in classroom with teacher/professor’s positions. The research has revealed the existence of a strong predisposition, of those teachers, in achieving, for the learners’, a “perfect” pronunciation, based on the imitation of a supposed English “American” or/and “British” “native” speaker. The “errors” commonly approached and observed in classroom, are, basically, those of insertion, substitution and overgeneralization of segmental sounds. In the suprasegmental level, due to its difficult of systematicity, the “error” that has a special consideration in classroom, by these teachers, is the lexical accent transfer. When we compared teacher/professor’s approach with that of the didactic material, we have observed that the last emphasizes the imitation of suprasegmental sounds while the teachers/professors are more preoccupied with segmental imitation. We have also realized that three, of the four teachers, have no awareness of a pronunciation approach in English teaching as an International Language. Those teachers/professors do not have a critical view which views, in learners’ “errors”, the possibility of empowering them (FAIRCLOUGH, 1989), and the recognition of “errors” as identity markers (MOITA LOPES, 1998) in association with a counterdiscursive perspective on interlanguage pronunciation (PEIRCE, 1995). We have observed the reproduction of the antique belief that those learners who are not able to imitate the monolingual English speaker are linguistically deficient.