An Analysis of Japanese Junior High School Textbooks as Pronunciation Teaching Materials

As a preliminary step towards conducting a teacher survey on pronunciation teaching in order to design a phonetics course for current and prospective English teachers in Japan, this paper analyses six governmentapproved English textbooks used in junior high schools. The purposes are to examine the types of pronunciation activities in the textbooks and to discuss the knowledge of phonetics required for Japanese teachers of English. The analysis reveals trends such as an emphasis on suprasegmental features and the incorporation of phonics. Although details of the textbook activities vary greatly, most of the textbooks cover core features of the English sound system and provide a satisfactory number of pronunciation exercises. To make effective use of textbooks as pronunciation teaching materials, however, teachers need to have a solid grounding in phonetics.