Is The Pronunciation Important For Learning Foreign Language?

      Developing technology presents humanity great amount of resources for their searching. Some teachers and scientist try to find the best ways of teaching to the students about how they can understand and learn better. There are general arguments about importance of pronunciation in learning. Some teachers say that it is important because it helps learners to develop their learning skills. However other teachers say that it is not important. Some other teachers agreed about it is importance but they are complained about lack of time. In this essay I will try to answer following question Why pronunciation is important. In the next paragraph, I am going to write about the definition of pronunciation.


              I will start with the definition and some examples of pronunciation. Pronunciation is the ability of using correct  stress and intonation of words. Stress is consisting of word syllables  in English we have one  and more syllable words. Example of the word which     has one syllable is ‘cat , one , done , some and etc.. ‘ but  we can generally use stress in words which have more than one syllable for example ‘ contemporary , misunderstanding , leader , creator etc ‘ In word stress can be in any syllables for example ‘MO-ney ,     
  a-Part-ment , etc ‘. The definition of intonation is rhythm  of a speech and words. When we talk we can use the  intonation in order to better express ourselves and impress the listener . Mostly in meeting or conversation it is important to impress listener for not loosing the interaction to our speech and the best way of doing  that is possible with a correct pronunciation. Other areas of communication  are sound of vowels consonants, digraphs, dipthongs and blends.

‘Vowels are the letter a, e, I, o, u and sometimes y

Consonants are all the other letters

Digraphs are two or more letters which blend to make one sound,

such as th, sh, ch, wh, ea in bread. 

Diphthongs are vowel sounds which glide from one sound to

another, such as the sound of oy in boy, ee in tree, ou in shout.

Blends are two or more letters that are combined but still keep their

individual characteristics, such as bl in blend, sch in school

                Nowadays English has expanded its usage in many areas and it is called a global language. To illustrate even in UN (United Nations) meetings presidents speaking is translated to English. In many Universities in the world including Turkey (some universities like METU, Middle East Technical University, etc.) use English in order to their teaching language. It is an important footstep because of its global language. However, in some schools the lessons for pronunciation do not exist because some teachers say that they do not have enough time to teach how to pronounce words and how to speak fluently. They are just teaching to students the structures of sentences and grammar. Some other instructors believe that teaching pronunciation is not important andit is nothing but a time lost. In my opinion they are wrong, because teaching how to pronounce words and how to speak English is very important for better and effective communication. For example, in Turkey, even many teachers and the most of the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) students do not know how to speak English and how to pronounce the words. The wrong pronunciation in speaking may cause big misunderstandings during a conversation or an argument. With the wrong pronunciation of the words the people whom you are talking with may think that you are a rude person and also with the wrong intonation people may judge you in a bad way. For example, think that you are in a company meeting and your company is about to make a big agreement with another company and they know that you were graduated from an English department and they expect you to make a communication between these two company and therefore you will take all the responsibility of  that conversation. If you fail at making a conversation by mispronouncing the words that your company says in the meeting, it will probably lead your company to a very huge incomprehensibility and nuisance. Nevertheless, you will likely to get fired from your company. For preventing the incomprehension or misunderstandings, you have to learn not only how to write but also how to speak and pronounce well. In addition to that, if this example does not satisfy your curiosity, there is another example but in this time it is about to wrong intonation. In speaking we generally speak not only like robots but also using intonation. For questioning we stress our question mark for example Do you want to go out today? In this example we stressed the yellow marked word for emphasizing our question but we use lowering intonation in the word ‘today‘ for making it polite. In communication we use such an intonations for being polite and kind to people which is important because of not understanding wrongly by them. Therefore like many instructors and professors I really understand that the importance of intonation, and stress in communication and I will not agree with some other instructors in lack of time issues because teaching or being a teacher is not only just earning money but also it is for developing enlightened and well-educated students or peoples for our future but this is not only for our nation but also it is important for humanity.

                         To sum up pronunciation has a great importance in our future business life and our communication with foreign people. Additionally if we want to hang on the globalizing world we must develop our pronunciation ,because learning or having a grammar will help you only written communication on the other hand when you will be able to speak not only a good speaking but also effective speaking ( with body language ,mimics etc.) you will acquire many achievements . In my opinion every teacher or teacher candidates should develop themselves in pronunciation and everybody must not underestimate the power of good communication. Good communication will acquire you good manners.

Bokhari, M. A. (2009). Phonetics and phonology. 02/18/2009,

Kurniawan, Y. (2009). Why is pronunciation important. Feb 27, 2009, , 1.

Maniruzzaman, D. M. (2007). Teaching efl pronunciation: Why, what and how?. Nov 20, 2007,

Mattey, P. The importance of good pronunciation.

Saylor, S. Importance of english pronunciation.

the Manitoba government server. (2012). Pronunciation., 1-2,3.

Wecker, M. (2011). “More and more universities will use social media”: U.S. news education web producer ryan lytle. MAY 3RD, 2011,

Wojcik, M. R. (2002). How important is good pronunciation for communication?. Wednesday, January 02, 2002, 19:21 GMT, , 1.

How Will You Act When You Become An English Teacher ?

I wonder about your actions when you become a English Teacher. Are you going to be an ordinary teacher or are you going to change something ?