IIARD International Institute of Academic Research and Development

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES (IJELCS )

E-ISSN 2545-5702
P-ISSN 2695-2157
VOL. 10 NO. 2 2025
DOI: 10.56201/ijelcs.vol.10.no2.2025.pg12.22

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Pronunciation Patterns of Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Ekiti State: AI to the Rescue

Bankole, Mercy Adenike, PhD, A, Oluwadamilola Temitope, A, Dunsi Oyindamola

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Abstract

Pronunciation is a fundamental aspect of spoken language that affects effective communication in English. The teacher’s good pronunciation plays a critical role in learners’ ability to acquire the target language as they are expected to serve as models for the students. This research seeks to investigate the pronunciation patterns of Primary and Secondary school teachers in Ekiti State and to also explore the potentials of Artificial Intelligence in improving their pronunciation. The study was examined within the purview of Chomsky and Halle’s Generative Phonology, which was employed to generate rules which account for the patterns of the participants’ realizations of English sounds. A total number of sixty teachers were purposively selected from Ekiti State three senatorial districts for the study; thirty from Primary schools and thirty teachers of English from Secondary schools. The data for the study were collected through structured questionnaire and a prepared word list given to each participant to be read into recording device. The data collected were listened to and transcribed in order to identify patterns of the participants’ pronunciation and also subjected to phonological and descriptive analyses. The findings show the phonological features that characterized the pronunciations of the selected participants which are substitution, de-affrication, neutralization, de-dentalisation, devoicing and reduced vowels of English. The study, therefore, explored the potentials of Artificial Intelligence in improving their pronunciation as models for learners to emulate.

keywords:

pronunciation patterns, teachers, phonological features, AI potential

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