Teaching English pronunciation to multi-dialect first language learners: The revival of the Lingua Franca Core (LFC)

Wafa Shahada Zoghbor, Zayed University

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

System

Publication Date

11-1-2018

Abstract

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd The global spread of English as the world lingua franca has an impact on the goals of teaching pronunciation, where ‘comfortable intelligibility’ should be the goal rather than native-like pronunciation. Jenkins (2000) proposed the Lingua Franca Core (LFC), a syllabus that includes a list of phonological features that are, arguably, the minimum required to result in intelligible communication among non-native speakers of English (NNSs). This study has rethought the contents of this list for Arab learners. To this end, the intelligibility of 50 L1 Arabic learners of English at post-secondary level was evaluated by 18 non-Arab speakers using the buzzer technique, and an index has been developed for unintelligible utterances in the speakers’ speech samples. The findings support most of the core features in the LFC except for the quality of the long vowel /ɜː/, rhotic /r/, and word stress in words of more than two syllables. These findings are used to propose a revised version of the LFC syllabus for Arab learners.

ISSN

0346-251X

Publisher

Elsevier Ltd

Volume

78

First Page

1

Last Page

14

Disciplines

Education

Keywords

English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), Intelligibility, L1 Arabic Learners, Phonology, The Lingua Franca Core (LFC)

Scopus ID

85053084741

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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