Van Uitspraakonderzoek Naar Uitspraakonderwijs

The study of pronunciation (especially prosody) has often been marginalized within the field of applied linguistics. As a result, teachers are often left to rely on their own intuitions and/or tend to neglect pronunciation in their teaching practice. This article shows that applied linguistic research on interlanguage phonology and foreign accent has much to offer to second/foreign language teachers in terms of helping them to set learning goals, identifying appropriate pedagogical priorities for the classroom, and determining the most effective approaches to teaching. After a brief review of the literature on the acquisition of L2 pronunciation, these issues are discussed within a framework in which mutual intelligibility is the primary concern. Finally, we emphasise the need for more collaboration between researchers and practitioners, so that more classroom-relevant research on pronunciation learning and teaching will be conducted in the future.