An analysis of preservice English language teachers’ awareness of spelling rules and variations in pronunciation of possessive case

Abstract

This study primarily aimed to reveal what extent Turkish preservice English Language Teaching (ELT) teachers were aware of the spelling rules and pronunciation variations of the possessive case in English. The study involved the voluntary participation of ten undergraduate senior students in the department of ELT at a state university in Turkey. Based on a one group pretest posttest research design, the study investigated whether there were any changes in the participants’ awareness of the spelling rules and pronunciation variations of the possessive case after a remedial teaching designed to increase the participants’ awareness. The data were collected by the means of quantitative methods and analyzed employing non-parametric tests on the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 17.0 due to the small sample size in the study. The findings showed that the spelling and pronunciation of possessive case might be problematic for the pre-service ELT teachers, yet that the problems are likely to be overcome through the class instruction which is designed intentionally to increase the pre-service teachers’ awareness. The findings from the current study give a valuable insight into the necessity of attention on the instruction of spelling and pronunciation awareness for the preservice ELT teachers.