ID2EAS For Teaching Pronunciation by Robin Walker

Pronunciation has long been seen as a feared area in ELT. Like many teachers, I have dealt with this skill superficially, whether because of teachers' insecurities about phonics, lack of time or curriculum content. However, I realized that Robin Walker's "ID2EAS for Teaching Pronunciation" placed the pronunciation teaching on a more applicable and communication-oriented basis.

First of all, the ID2EAS model not only aims to make students pronounce sounds correctly; it also aims to make students notice, distinguish, understand and use these sounds in their own speech. Thanks to this sequential structure, teaching becomes more systematic and students actively participate in the process at every stage.

What I found most impressive about Robin Walker's approach was his focus on intelligibility. In other words, the aim of pronunciation teaching is not for students to speak like native speakers, but to be understood by them. This aligns perfectly with the ELF perspective. This not only made me feel less pressured about my own pronunciation, but also allowed me to pay attention to setting realistic goals for my students.

Robin Walker also argues that teachers do not have to feel like "phonetic experts". Our job is not to show perfect sounds, but to make it easier for students to recognize and use them. This perspective has given me great self-confidence. Instead of postponing pronunciation, I now plan to work on this with simple but effective exercises in class. For example, when working on the difference between the sounds /ı/ and /:i/, I plan to implement activities such as listening and making making students notice during the "discrimination" phase, then examining mouth movements together during the "demonstration" phase, giving short explanations during the "explanation" phase, and finally reinforcing with mini-games. One of the most important advantages of this framework for me is its flexibility. It can be easily applied to both beginner and advanced students. From now on, pronunciation will be an interactive and meaningful part of my lesson plans, not the passive one.