Pronunciation Pegs

Résumé

An ESL instructor describes her experience of using pronunciation pegs, a method to foster the self-monitoring and self-correction of pronunciation mistakes with a view to helping university-level students deal with the ongoing challenge of producing target-like pronunciation. The appeal of pegs to students led the instructor to reflect on what makes adopting target pronunciation problematic, how pegs can be adapted to various learning styles, and how cultural differences can have an effect on the appreciation of pegs. Finally, the instructor sought a theoretical explanation for how pegs worked and found this in anchoring and covert rehearsal.