The place of pronunciation in the competency- based English curricula at the Algerian middle and secondary school level.

Abstract

The present study explores the reality of pronunciation teaching in the Algerian Middle and Secondary schools. More specifically, it investigates the adequacy of the pronunciation materials included in the curriculum documents, the textbooks and the official examinations (the “Brevet d’Enseignement Moyen” and the “Baccalaureate”) and to gauge the degree of their compatibility with the principles of Competency-based Language Teaching, to evaluate the level of the teachers’ preparedness to teach pronunciation, to identify the teachers’ attitudes and perceptions about the pronunciation component teaching in Competency-based Language Teaching and to gauge the degree of compatibility between the teachers’ practices and the Competency-Based Language Teaching principles. The data are collected by means of qualitative analyses of curriculum documents and textbooks of the Middle and Secondary schools and samples of the “Brevet d’Enseignement Moyen” and the “Baccalaureate” examinations and in-class tests. In addition, a questionnaire about the teachers’ preparedness, attitudes and perceptions about the teaching of pronunciation and a questionnaire about the teachers’ practices of pronunciation teaching within the framework of Competency-Based Language Teaching have been designed and administered to 87 Middle and 62 Secondary school teachers. The results of the present study reveal that the way pronunciation is taught, assessed and tested in the documents is not adequate and only partly compatible with the principles of Competency-based Language Teaching, the teaching and assessment practices are not in line with the principles of Competency-based Language Teaching. More importantly, the present study shows that the washback effect of the official tests impacts negatively on both the teaching and assessment practices.