Native Teachers can't Fix Pronunciation - John Levis

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Learners can think a native teacher is a vaccine against poor pronunciation. Equally, native teachers can be misinformed in thinking that students should just follow them.

We dive into pronunciation, intelligibility, and teacher effects on learner performance with the great John Levis. 

John is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Technology at Iowa State University. He is founding editor of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation and the founder of the annual Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference. His research focuses on pronunciation, intelligibility, pronunciation, and accent. John has received university awards for Excellence in Graduate Teaching, for Career Achievement in Research, and was named Angela B. Pavitt Professor of English in 2018.

In our conversation, John talks about:

• accent vs pronunciation
• the nativeness principle vs the intelligibility principle
• how he coined "the intelligibility principle"
• high and low value features of pronunciation 
• why some vowel sounds don't matter
• native and non-native teacher effects on learner performance
• learners viewing native speakers as a vaccine for poor pronunciation
• some native teachers believing learners should just follow them
• getting "caught" with accent

For more from John Levis:

1. Pronunciation for Teachers

2. His faculty page

3. His publications 

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