한국어 발음 교육의 현황과 과제

Abstract

Pronunciation training should be done continuously in the whole process of learning Korean, rather than in a certain period of time in entry level education. However, pronunciation training in actual education, compared to other training fields, is being dealt with in a very low proportion for a variety of reasons. This imbalance eventually makes it difficult for learners to train pronunciation properly. The introduction of Communicative Language Teaching(CLT) in the Korean education, focused on acceptability and fluency, has come to neglect accuracy; it manipulated not only grammar/ vocabulary but also pronunciation. To speak with correct pronunciation takes a lot of effort and time for it is very difficult for learners to identify and pronounce the consonants and vowels which are not in their mother tongues, and recognize phonological rules that vary with languages. It is, therefore, urgent to develop more efficient teaching materials and methodologies for classroom training, and teacher education to facilitate pronunciation learning and practice. Recent studies on pronunciation education have focused on fluency and understandable pronunciation which, at least, do not cause disability in communication, emphasizing conjunction with functions such as listening and speaking. They put more emphasis to focus not only segmental factors such as consonants and vowels but also suprasegmental factors which are important in the convey of meaning in pronunciation education. In the educational environment particularly engaged with communication, they argue that pronunciation training with real-life tasks should be carried out in concern of the needs of learners or learning objectives. It must be the ultimate purpose of pronunciation education that the learners, after learning and practicing over a period of time, will have autonomous learning abilities to monitor and correct their own pronunciation without teacher’s assist. This paper probes the current condition of Korean pronunciation education in terms of pronunciation training, teacher’s provision (teaching ability, preparation and etc), and its research environment in actual education. It thus addresses problems, their solutions, and several suggestions for better pronunciation education in future.