Teaching and Learning Foreign Language Sounds: Students’ Perspective
Teaching and Learning Foreign Language Sounds: Students’ Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The following article presents the results of a questionnaire study regarding Polish students’ perceptions of English sounds learning and teaching. In the first part of the article, the theoretical background is delineated. The most crucial definitions of attitudes and beliefs in the context of foreign language learning and teaching are also provided in the introductory section. The article discusses the role of pronunciation training in the foreign language classroom. Namely, what goals and priorities of phonetics should be incorporated in language teaching. The main objective is to present the attitudes towards teaching and learning foreign language sounds from the students’ perspective. The findings provide essential insight into the notion of self-reflection, and its impact on the overall language attainment process. Students’ reflective thoughts on their education experience appears to be highly significant, especially in the current situation of distance and remote learning. Teenage learners, mindful of the communication skills priority, seem to represent positive attitudes towards phonetics training in the classroom. The participants acknowledge not only the necessity of proper foreign sounds imitation in communicative situations, but also the equal status that pronunciation has among all the other language elements taught at schools such as grammar or vocabulary. The study also intend to explore learners’ beliefs about the sufficient level of pronunciation proficiency (comfortable intelligibility vs. native-like pronunciation), as well as preferred phonetic models and favored sound practice techniques. Researching attitudes and beliefs (of both learners and teachers) is contributory to understanding individual differences and educational needs of learners, as well as it is necessary for discerning and establishing appropriate teaching goals and priorities; not only in terms of sounds training, but also in the overall foreign language attainment process.

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