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Although the importance of pronunciation teaching has long been recognized (Celce-Murcia, Teaching pronunciation. A course book and reference guide, 2nd edn. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) introducing and practising acoustic and articulatory aspects of speech is not a common classroom practice. According to Baran-Łucarz (Wiedza fonetyczna a postęp w wymowie języka obcego. Zależność/niezależność od pola danych jako zmienna modyfikująca [Phonetic knowledge and progress in foreign language pronunciation. Field dependence/independence as a modifying variable]. In: Waniek-Klimczak and Sobkowiak (eds) Neofilologia, tom XVIII. Dydaktyka fonetyki języka obcego. Zeszyty naukowe Państwowej Wyższej Szkoły Zawodowej w Płocku, Płock: PWSZ, pp 23–37, 2006a), the underlying reason for the teachers' reluctance towards integrating phonetic elements into regular English lessons lies in their lack of knowledge of phonetics and pronunciation teaching. The paper reports the results of a study that provided teachers with the opportunity to share their views on the relevance of pronunciation instruction in upper secondary school education in Poland. Given the nature of the project, two research instruments were utilized. Firstly, written questionnaires were administered for the collection of quantitative data. This was followed by individual interviews with the teachers, used as a qualitative research method, which constituted a more direct interaction with the subjects of the study. The selection of the tools and the procedure employed allow for the analysis of the richness and validity of the data gathered by the means of qualitative and quantitative research methods.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-08353-7_12

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