Using traditional board games in efl classes to focus on pronunciation

Abstract

[eng] Although the language teaching field has undergone a high number of changes in the last decades (the introduction of a more communicative way of teaching, the publication of the CEFR, the influence of ICTs, new approaches such as CLIL), pronunciation is still rather misplaced in EFL classes in Spain if compared to other language areas such as, grammar, vocabulary or writing (We i, 2006; Griffiths, 2004; Derwing, 2010; Underhill, 2010; Fouz and Mompean 2012 2012). Several reasons may explain this situation: 1) speaking and pronunciation activities are often regarded as time-consuming; 2) in the majority of cases, the number of students per class is unfortunately still too high; 3) the presence of pronunciation in EFL textbooks used in Spain is quite poor and the few activities suggested may be unappealing to the students since they share a similar format, i.e, repetitions and imitations (Calvo, 2013), and; 4) Spanish EFL teachers lack the necessary training to feel confident enough to teach pronunciation. In this study, we adapt traditional board games like Monopoloy, Twister or Battleship to emphasise different segmental problems Spanish students tend to have with English pronunciation.