Abstract
Since 2011, Japanese elementary schools have initiated English as a compulsory foreign language activity. Homeroom teachers play an important role in providing English education to pupils. However, teachers lack confidence not only in their teaching skills but also in their pronunciation of English. In an elementary English class, pupils listen to teacher's pronunciation as a model. This can affect the pupils' pronunciation. Therefore, universities should offer pronunciation instructions in pre-service teacher training courses for English and teach the fundamentals of phonetics to the trainee teachers in order for them to instruct pupils well. In this study, the author performed a pilot study that attempted to develop trainee teachers' pronunciation of English and enabled them to practice giving instructions as pronunciation teachers. In each of the six session training period, participants first received pronunciation instruction. They then reviewed the theory and practiced pronunciation in pairs. Finally, one teacher trainee checked his/her partner's pronunciation and provided some advice for improvement. As a result from the training, they significantly improved most of the target pronunciations and indicated that the pair exercise, in which one person played the role of teacher, was an effective means for understanding the fundamentals of pronunciation.
