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CHAPTER-4: PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

nouncing the word made correctly where the “a” is a long vow-
el with an element of “i”. On the other hand, the short A /ae/
helps in pronouncing the word mad in a correct manner where
‘a’ as an vowel is quite short. The same goes with other vow-
els like e, i, o and u where each alphabet has a long and short
vowel sound (Stevens, 2000). Students need to understand the
basic difference between these wounds in order to pronounce
words correctly when speaking in English. Unlike, Spanish,
where vowels sounds are pronounced without differentiating
between short and long vowels, English language clearly dif-
ferentiates between the short and long vowel sounds in order
to pronounce words clearly rather mixing them up creating
confusion. As sated before there are ten vowel sounds that can
be worked on, in order to have proper English pronunciation
(Watt, Tillotson, 2001). Students need to practice these words
and understand these vowels to have a proper understanding
of pronouncing words correctly. A basic idea has been high-
lighted below.

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

From the above chart, it is very much clear that each English
vowel has two distinctive sounds making ten different vowel
sounds. By seeing and understanding the symbol, students can
gain an idea over how to pronounce words correctly (Hayward,
2000). Some of the examples that have been given in terms of
words can be used to gain a better understanding along with
relating other words having similar sounds and pronunciation.
It needs to be stated that students are offered a general and ba-
sic framework to identify vowels rather than a standard or ad-
vanced framework that may confuse them. The basic idea is to
make students think on how to produce vowel sounds along
with offering practical illustrations that will help in under-
standing symbols along with pronouncing words in a correct
and hassle free manner.
The position of tongue plays an important role in the pronun-
ciation of vowels sounds. When the alphabet [i:] that is long
vowel followed by [u:], long vowel is said, there is a sudden
movement in tongue. While saying [i:], the tongue moves to-
wards front while saying [u:], the tongue moves backwards. It
can be said that [i:] is the front vowel while [u:] is back vowel
and can be felt with the movement of tongue. The length of
vowels also differs to an extent (Fletcher, 2006).
It can be said that [i:] is a long vowel while[I] is a short vowel
and same is applicable on other vowel sounds like a, e, i and u.
Long vowel sounds have different way of pronouncing where
the vowel is stressed at the highest point. Vowels sounds also
differ in terms of rounding of lips. While pronouncing the word
“Cheese” [i:z] where “I” is a long vowel can be felt unround-
ed. On the other hand, while pronouncing the word “Choose”
[u:z] where “u” is a back vowel, the vowel can be felt rounded.
It can be felt while speaking these words in order to ascertain
the difference. This will also help in understanding the basic

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difference between the length, rounding and position of vowels
while pronouncing words in a correct way. At first, it is im-
portant to differentiate between the position of vowels that can
be front or back by saying words like Cheese, Choose, Geese,
Goose and Leave, Loose. This will help in understanding front
and back vowels. Next, is to ascertain the length of vowels that
can be long or short like “sit and seat” where the word sit has a
short vowel and seat has a long vowel and thus difference in the
pronunciation (Ladefoged, 2006).
At the same time, it is important to differentiate between the
rounding of lips. Few vowels sounds are pronounced when
lips are rounded like “O” as in Loose, Goose, Soup, Loop and
Nook. Rounding of lips help in the correct pronunciation and
it is important to understand its usefulness in a clear manner.
This will help in understanding and recognizing different vow-
els in a clear manner. The next part of the discussion presents
an understanding over how production of vowel sounds will be
taught to students in an easy manner.
First of all, it is important to teach the difference between long
and short vowels by designing set of words that will help stu-
dents in pronouncing words correctly (Fletcher, 2006). A com-
plete illustration has been highlighted below:

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

Students need to go through these words having long and short
vowel sounds. This will help them in differentiating between
the ways of pronouncing long and short vowels in different
words. At first, these words will be spoken in front of them
highlighting the long and short vowels. Based on this, students
will be asked to repeat this words resulting in correct idea of
pronouncing words in a correct manner.
At the same time, other ways through which vowels sounds
will be taught in a clear manner have been discussed below in
an illustrative manner.
Listen and Repeat- One of the most interesting and easy ways
of teaching speech sounds is to speak in front of students and
making them repeat one by one. This will help them in un-
derstanding how words are pronounced. With 25 students, it
is not a tough task to make them listen to the pronunciation
of few words and accordingly asking them to repeat the same.
This will help in teaching the intricacies of syllables, length of
vowels and position of tongue and lips (Hayward, 2000).

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Isolation- At times, repeating vowels in certain words may not
offer great learning to students. So, isolation of vowel sounds
will help in understanding the correct sounds of vowels. The
pronunciations of vowels like a, e and u separately will help stu-
dents to grasp sounds easily along with using them in words.
This will also help in learning in a clear and systematic manner
(Ladefoged, 2006).
Minimal Pairs- Minimal pairs offer great way of learning pro-
nunciation by concentrating on few words that can be paired
together having similar sounds yet different in a specific man-
ner. Minimal pairs can be in the form of words like Rat and
Rate, Pin and Pen, Dim and Dime and Bat and Pat. By doing
so, the focus is more on specific sounds that will also help in
differentiating between the lengths and positioning of vowels
in a clear manner. Moreover, this will also help in enhancing
and strengthening the vocabulary of students in a great man-
ner (Ladefoged, 2006).
Record and Play- Recording the sounds of speakers often help
in teaching in a great manner. Oftentimes, students think that
their pronunciation is quite correct but the recording of voice
helps in ascertaining the correct and incorrect ways of pro-
nunciation. At the same time, pronunciation of students can
be compared with native English speakers in order to high-
light the loophole and thus offering right feedback (Ladefoged,
2006).
Using a Mirror- Speaking is an art and when it comes to pro-
nunciation, it is important to watch the lips and tongue move-
ments in a clear manner. Using a mirror will help students to
see their face and lips movements while pronouncing short
and long vowels. Sometimes, seeing the way a person is speak-
ing helps in correcting pronunciation problems in an effective

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

manner (Stevens, 2000).
Phonetics- Phonetic symbols help in understanding how and
when to accentuate words. The difference between short and
long vowels has been defined in the previous discussion. Pho-
netics represents the symbol of sounds. In the word seat, the
phonetic symbol is /si:t/ and in the word eat, phonetic symbol
is /i:t/. It can be clearly seen that /i:/ in seat and eat is a long
vowel that has to be pronounced by taking the tongue back-
wards with lips also moving backwards. Like this, there is a set
of phonetic symbol for every word that often helps students to
learn correct way of pronunciation (Stevens, 2000).
Speaking and Sharing- Speaking is an art that helps students
to come out of the pronunciation fear. Speaking helps in iden-
tifying rights and wrongs of correct pronunciation in a correct
manner. Students will be asked to speak on random topics in
order to assess their pronunciation of words. At the same time,
other students will be asked to recognise the pronunciation
issues in order to help the speaker in rectifying his mistakes.
This will be followed by thorough feedback helping students
to work on their mistakes along with improving them (Lade-
foged, 2006).
Listening and Speaking- there is no better way of learning
than to listen to others along with learning from them. Record-
ings of native English speakers and their way of speaking will
help students to learn from them along with finding more ways
of understanding different ways of pronouncing vowel sounds.
All these initiatives will help students to learn the effective pro-
nunciation of vowel sounds. The next part of the discussion
presents an understanding over contractions.

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4.4: Contractions
Contractions can be defined as a shorten version of writing
and speaking words by omitting letters. It needs to be men-
tioned that contractions are more used in informal speaking
and writing by omitting vowels from words like I’m instead of
I am. In terms of formal speaking and writing; contractions are
generally not used to maintain the flow of the language and
words rather than making it complicated for learners and thus
creating an informal way of speaking and writing (Roberts, et
al. (2005). Contractions are reduction of word sounds that help
speakers to speak in an informal manner. Some of the com-
mon contractions of “will” with pronouns and “Wh” words
have been highlighted below that will help students to learn in
a better manner.
Contractions of Pronoun with Will

Contractions of Wh words with Will

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

Contractions are not hard to teach considering the understand-
ing over the emission of vowel sounds or initial sounds at the
beginning and thus using apostrophe in writing and making it
easy and simple. I need to mention that contractions are used
to make informal communication and while in writing formal
words are more appreciated. At this point, teaching students on
contractions may misguide them along with confusing them as
Spanish speakers may not understand the real importance of
pronouncing full words by depending too much on contrac-
tions. For this purpose, only a brief idea on contractions can
be considered as of great importance rather than going into
the intricacies of contractions. At first simple exercise leading
to the pronunciation of will with pronouns and “wh” sounds
will be taught. For this purpose, students will be taught how
to place their tongue tip in front of the teeth to produce “th”
sound along with placing the tongue tip forward to gum ridge
to produce /l/ sound. This will help in pronouncing “There’ll”
in a clear manner by eliminating the “w” sound. In the same
manner, other contractions will be taught just to give a basic
idea over the use and formation of contractions rather than
teaching contractions in-depth (Edwin, 1995).
Students will be asked to listen to the correct ways of pro-
nouncing contractions along with repeating them in order to
form correct pronunciation. There is no doubt that practice
is the key in terms of correct pronunciation of contractions.
Contractions play a minor rule in English pronunciation and
can be taught for a basic understanding. However, complete
understanding over vowel sounds and production of speech
sounds will help in English pronunciation along with enhanc-
ing written and oral skills of Spanish speakers. Moreover, stu-
dents are not going to learn English pronunciation overnight
and practice is the key here. So, the major focus will be on of-
fering a platform where students can learn the basics of English

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pronunciation in the form of understanding vowels and conso-
nants along with identifying different vowel sounds with ease.
4.5: Measurable Tools
In order to measure the improvement of students in terms of
assessing their English pronunciation, it is important to under-
stand that students are not going to improve overnight in terms
of English pronunciation. For this purpose, I wish to employ
above discuss initiatives in terms of enhancing the pronunci-
ation of vowel sounds along with offering an insight over the
contractions in English language. The purposed framework
will help in teaching the intricacies of vowel sounds to Spanish
students along with assessing their improvement and develop-
ment by keeping a close eye on regular basis. This will help
in ascertaining their overall improvement. In the first week,
students will be taught on vowel sounds and kinds of vowel
sounds that have been discussed in the literature review and
proposed framework. In the following weeks, a profound in-
sight over syllables, short and long vowels and pronunciation
of vowels will be offered along with teaching the importance
and usefulness of tongue and lips movement and position in
the production of speech sounds. At the same time, voices will
be recorded and played in front of students to make them un-
derstand their pronunciation issues and loopholes along with
offering feedback to mitigate identified loopholes and pronun-
ciation issues.
A pilot study has been conducted on few Spanish students
that helped in ascertaining that the purposed framework was
good enough to teach English pronunciation in an effective
manner. The usefulness of the purposed framework can only
be realised once students start speaking English in a correct
manner by pronouncing basic words correctly along with hav-

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

ing an idea of recognizing the difference between English and
Spanish vowels. Moreover, a series of questions based on Ken-
worthy’s English Pronunciation will be offered to students to
understand their attitude and response towards understanding
English pronunciation. These questions are based on multiple
choices aimed to understand the mindset of students.
Moreover, the idea is to involve the entire class in discussion
along with discussing statements and evaluating the pronun-
ciation skills of students. There may or may not be agreement
or disagreement among students but the final assessment will
be based on offering logical feedback in a critical manner. The
questions have been clearly stated in the Appendices along with
aim, resource, purpose, evaluation and outcomes. At the same
time, Tape based Activity will be conducted to make students
listen to foreign accents along with identifying errors. Each
student will be asked to identify errors along with writing on
a sheet of paper. This will help in discussing errors along with
stating correct pronunciation and ascertaining students under-
standing correct pronunciation. The aim, purpose, resource,
outcome and evaluation have been well documented in the
Appendices. Overall, it can be said that the proposed frame-
work can be considered as of great help in teaching English
pronunciation to Spanish students in a systematic and zealous
manner using a number of tools. Additionally, few activities
were conducted in the form of charts and graphs and students
were asked to understand the importance of lips positioning,
tongue movement, and mode of articulation. This chart was
used to explain the pronunciation of few words as stated.

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Reference: Eva M. Fernández and Helen Smith Cairns (2011).
Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 178-
182

Reference: Eva M. Fernández and Helen Smith Cairns (2011).
Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 131-
134.
This chart was shown to offer an overview and understanding
over the speech organs. This also helped in analysing the role
and importance of all these organs in correct pronunciation of
words to be used while speaking and communicating.

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

Reference: Eva M. Fernández and Helen Smith Cairns (2011).
Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 161-
164.
This chart was shown to highlight the sound modification
places. For this purpose, the role and importance of nasal cav-
ity, oral cavity, and pharynx were explained in detail required
while pronouncing consonants and vowels. It was found that
few consonants and vowels are produced through nasal cavity
and this cavity helped in practicing that and thus helping in
learning active pronunciation skills in a fun manner. Kenwor-
thy’s Teaching English Pronunciation was also used to explain
the importance of vowels and consonants in a well defined
manner.

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CHAPTER-4: PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

In order to further enhance the overall learning procedure, as
stated before, questions were asked as per Kenworthy’s Teach-
ing English Pronunciation. Questions were asked to increase
the interest level of students along with instilling motivation
for better pronunciation in the long run. Two activities were
planned, filling questionnaire and recording voices for assess-
ing the pronunciation mistakes in a critical manner.

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Activity-1: Questionnaire
Aim- To increase the interest level of students along with mo-
tivating them for correct pronunciation.
Resource- Kenworthy’s Teaching English Pronunciation.
Time- At least 30 minutes
Language Used- English
Procedure- Filling questionnaires individually, comparing the
answers in pairs, creating statements based on questions, whole
class discussion over prepared questions in a critical manner.
Evaluation- to identify the involvement of students, to check
agreement or disagreement along with identifying reasons, to
ascertain more questions that can lead to interesting discussion
and to ascertain the motivation level of students.
Feedback- After evaluation, final feedback to be offered that
can result in proper learning and rectification of errors.
1. Suppose, you are talking to a stranger in your own language

with a foreigner and the person does not understand that,
what will you do?
A. Pretend that you understand everything
B. Ask him to repeat his words slowly and carefully
C. Try to ignore
2. How do you feel when someone pronounces your name
incorrectly
A. Very Angry
B. It bothers a lot

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

C. It bothers a little
D. It does not bother
3. Do you think, it is important to have a good pronuncia-
tion because
A. It makes things easy while talking to English Speakers
B. It makes things easy while talking to non-English
speakers
4. Below are some situation, when is it most important to
pronounce well?
A. Speaking on the Telephone
B. Meeting someone for the first time
C. Doing business in English
D. Talking to strangers
5. How often you try to correct your wrong pronunciation?
A. Every time Recording of Foreign Pronunciation
B. Occasionally
C.W oNrdos tMaistparollnounced
Based on the analysis, it was found that majority of the stu-
dents were motivated enough to seek positive changes in their
pronunciation. Though, the results have been analysed and as-
sessed in a general manner. However, detailed analysis will be
an on-going process and with the help of the both the activities
will help in the correct pronunciation.

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CHAPTER-4: PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

Activity-2- Tape Based Activity
Aim- To increase the interest and motivation level of students
to facilitate pronunciation through pre-recorded voice.
Resource- Kenworthy’s Pronunciation Tool
Time- 45 minutes
Procedure- Playing pre-recorded voice and asking students to
identify errors.
Output- Identifying pronunciation problems and rectifying
them.
Evaluation- Through discussion with the entire class

Source: Kenworthy, J. (2000) The Pronunciation of English: A
Workbook, Arnold London.
This activity can be considered as the most important one for
the fact that it offers instant overview of the issue along with
explaining ways of working on them in a well defined and crit-
ical manner. Wrong pronunciation of words need to be high-
lighted along with the help of vowel and consonant pronunci-
ation chart. Secondly, continuous work on the lip and tongue
movement along with regular recording helped a great deal in
dealing with the pronunciation task and issues.

117

4.6: Summary
The chapter presented an effective framework over teaching
English pronunciation to Spanish students by concentrat-
ing more on the production of vowel sounds. The framework
suggested that it is important to have a basic idea of English
vowel sounds along with identifying lips and tongue positions
while speaking these vowels. It was also found that speaking
and listening along with correct and honest feedback plays an
important role in enhancing the overall English pronunciation.
However, it is important to have patience as students will need
good amount of time to learn English pronunciation especial-
ly the production of vowel sounds. The next chapter presents
conclusions and recommendations based on the analysis and
understanding of the literature and proposed framework in an
illustrative way.

118

CHAPTER-5:
CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

119

TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

120

CHAPTER-5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

Conclusions and recommendations

5.1: Introduction

The chapter presents conclusions and recommendations
based on the understanding and interpretation of lit-
erature on teaching English pronunciation to Spanish
speakers. The chapter also offers recommendations on improv-
ing English pronunciation of Spanish speakers and also for fu-
ture research endeavours.
5.2: Conclusion
English and Spanish alphabets have certain similarities but the
way of pronunciation is somewhat different. English speak-
ers have different ways of pronouncing alphabets while Span-
ish speakers have different ways of pronouncing the same. In
terms of vowels, (A) is pronounced as “ay”, (E) as “ee”, (I) as
“aye”(O) as “oh” and (U) as “you”. This is a basic way of pro-
nouncing English alphabets for any English speaker. However,
for a Spanish speaker, there is a difference in pronouncing the
same vowels. For them, (A) is pronounced as “ah”, (E) as “ay”,
(I) as “ee”(O) as “oh” and (00) as “you”. So, it is quite evident
that there is a huge difference in terms of pronouncing vowels
in Spanish and English language that often changes the entire
pronunciation of words creating confusion. For Spanish speak-
ers, it is quite obvious to pronounce “bus” as “boos” and “tip”
as “teep” as they strongly rely on the Spanish pronunciation. It
can be believed that in order to teach English pronunciation to

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CHAPTER-5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Spanish speakers, it is important to work on their vowel and
consonant pronunciation in order to offer them an idea over
the correct way of pronouncing English alphabets. Spanish is
a syllable timed language while English is a stress-times lan-
guage. Oftentimes, Spanish speakers find it difficult to recog-
nise the end consonant in a correct manner and thus causing
problems in pronunciation.
There are ten basic vowel sounds that need to be understood
in order to form an understanding over the production of
vowel sounds. Vowels are produced with free passage of the
air stream where articulators do not touch each other. There
is no obstruction in the flow of air from lungs. Much of the
production of vowel sounds is dependent on the position and
movement of lips and tongue. Different shapes and movements
of lips, tongue and jaws produce different vowels sounds. The
tongue can be moved up and down and also front and back and
lips can be rounded or unrounded. Students need to practice
these words and understand these vowels to have a proper un-
derstanding of pronouncing words correctly. It is important to
understand vowels in order to differentiate them from conso-
nants. In every language there are consonants and vowels that
are easy to distinguish. However, it is important to distinguish
vowels from phonetic and phonological point of view. From
phonetic point of view, one way to identify vowel is to ascertain
sounds having the higher degree of obstruction. It needs to be
mentioned that vowels have least obstruction and some conso-
nants have higher degree of obstruction.
The teeth also play an important role in the production of
speech sounds as many sounds are produced when the tongue
touches the front or back teeth often termed as dental sounds.
At the same time, lips also play an important role in speech
sounds as when they are pressed together, p and b sounds

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TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO SPANISH SPEAKERS

are produced and when brought into the contact with teeth,
sounds like f and v are produced. At the same time when lips
are rounded, sounds like o and u are produced. All these ar-
ticulators play an important role in the production of speech
sounds. Pronunciation can be termed as the most difficult part
of learning especially for non-English native speakers as they
tend to speak and pronounce words in their native language
that may affect the level of understanding based on different
pronunciation. The critical period theory suggests that when
the learning takes place after the critical period, learners find
it difficult to pronounce correctly. This affirms that learning
should happen at an early age to grasp correct accent and pro-
nunciation.
Overall, it can be said that teaching English pronunciation to
Spanish students requires great deal of dedication. On the basis
of the proposed framework, it was found that initially, Spanish
students faced issues in pronouncing vowels and contractions.
However, they were offered lessons on vowels and contractions
that helped in improving their pronunciation to an extent. By
the end of two weeks, there were major signs of improvements
in terms of pronouncing basic English words in a correct man-
ner. The voices of students were recorded that were further
used to assess their level of improvement and that also helped
in continuing the proposed framework. In between the learn-
ing period, few students showed signs of little interest based
on their assumptions of English as a tough language. However,
they were further motivated to understand English words and
its pronunciation.
It can be believed that the overall task of enhancing the pro-
nunciation level of Spanish students was a challenging one
considering the fact that English and Spanish languages are
very much different in terms of phonetics, phonology, diction.

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Though, the first part of the activity majorly concentrated on
making students understand the difference in the pronuncia-
tion of vowels and use of contractions. The later stage concen-
trated on making students read in front of others. The voices
of students were recorded and mistakes and loopholes in the
pronunciation were illustrated and dealt with correction and
modification of pronunciation. This further helped in enhanc-
ing the English pronunciation of Spanish students. The later
learning phase also included the use of Kenilworth’s English
Teaching Pronunciation materials where two sets of question-
naires were offered to the students. The first set of question-
naires included five questions based on ascertaining the atti-
tude and understanding over the English pronunciation. The
second set of questionnaires was based on motivating students
by recording their voices and making them listen along with
rectifying pronunciation errors. These activities further helped
in enhancing the overall pronunciation level of students along
with making them feel comfortable.
5.3: Recommendations for Enhancing English Pronuncia-
tion
Some of the recommendations for enhancing English pronun-
ciation of Spanish speakers are as follow:
- In order to enhance the English pronunciation of Spanish

speakers, it is important to offer great degree of insights on
English alphabets and kinds of vowels and consonants. In
English language, vowel sounds play an important role and
thus need to be taught in a clear and systematic manner to
help in correct pronunciation.
- The movement of lips and tongue also plays an important role
in the production of speech sounds and thus focus should

125

be more on teaching the movement and shapes of lips and
tongue to enhance the English pronunciation of Spanish
speakers in a great way.
- Students need to speak and write in English in order to have
an idea over their pronunciation. This also helps in iden-
tifying major pronunciation loopholes that can be further
worked on to enhance correct way of pronouncing English
words.
- It is important to record the voices of students and make
them listen. This helps in understanding the overall de-
gree of improvement and drawbacks that can be worked on
through mutual support and cooperation.
- It is important to have high degree of patience and under-
standing of students mindsets in terms of teaching them
English pronunciation. Students need to be motivated in a
positive manner in order to guide them in the right direc-
tion in a systematic and planned manner.
- Moreover, it is important to understand that students are not
going to improve overnight and thus patience and under-
standing should be the priority
5.4: Recommendations for Future Research
Some of the recommendations for future research initiatives
have been discussed as follow:
- The present research is based on teaching English pronunci-
ation to Spanish speakers (students) of a particular univer-
sity. Future research should include Spanish students from
different Universities in order to assess their basic under-

126

standing and improvement in the context of English pro-
nunciation.
- Future research should involve a separate study on move-
ment of lips and tongue in enhancing the overall act of pro-
nunciation. Furthermore, focus should be more on articu-
lation and ways of determining the actual and correct mode
of pronunciation.
- Future research should also include an understanding over
production of sounds in a thorough manner to make the
study more concrete and purposeful. An understanding
over the production of sounds has been highlighted in the
current research also but future research should include
more of it.
5.5: Limitation of Results
Major limitations of the research can be identified in the form
of dealing with Spanish students having little idea and under-
standing over the English language and pronunciation. Even
though, few participants were having an understanding over
the English language, they lacked basic and correct pronuncia-
tion. I also faced issues in correcting their accents that was very
different from the English accent. Overall, the entire research
took some time but results would have been much better if ad-
vanced pronunciation techniques would have been used but
considering the level of Spanish students in terms of English
pronunciation; the overall initiative can be considered as good
enough in terms of results.
5.5: Final Conclusion
The chapter presented conclusions and recommendations in

127

the context of teaching English pronunciation to Spanish stu-
dents based on the understanding of the literature review and
purposed framework. On the basis of the understanding, it can
be said that Spanish students can be taught English pronun-
ciation by offering an idea over vowel and consonant sounds.
Moreover, it requires good amount of time and patience to
make students learn English pronunciation. It is important to
use wide arrays of learning tools like speaking, recording of
voice, reading and sharing of ideas and knowledge along with
effective and honest feedback. Additionally, the focus has been
on understanding the way of correct pronunciation for which
detailed study has been conducted on vowels and consonants.
It was found that both vowels and consonants hold greater de-
gree of importance in adding value to the speech. Consonants
are large in numbers and are used in wide arrays of words and
thus, in-depth illustrations of pronouncing them have been
presented. The proposed framework revealed that in order
to make Spanish speakers learn English, it is important to fo-
cus on each activity including phonetics, articulation, accent,
sound of speech, nasal sound, voiced sound, and un-voiced
sound. The entire set of activities may take good amount of
time but results will be quite fruitful and more importantly
will help Spanish speakers to learn English in a better manner.
Furthermore, the learning needs to be more fun and for this
purpose, use of pictures and emotive charts has been suggest-
ed. Overall, it can be said that English pronunciation requires
an understanding of syllables and production of sounds for
a non-English speaker to pronounce English words correctly
and for Spanish speakers an in-depth knowledge of vowels and
consonants is also required to make outcomes more significant
and interesting.

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JORGE HUMBERTO TAPIA CELI.
Master in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and Ap-
plied Linguistics. As a full time EFL teacher at Universi-
dad de Guayaquil, I work hard to create and maintain a
climate that is optimally friendly to activate learning, and I
encourage students to help them establish and protect this
kind of environment. I take teaching English as a Foreign
Language very seriously and receive great pleasure from it.
I am convinced that the material I teach always has some-
thing important and life-enhancing to learn from. And I
believe that my success with students has much to do with
my sincere commitment to my craft, my passion for the
material I prepare, and my desire to share this as fully as I
can with students.

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