New approaches to teaching and marking pronunciation while teaching English: prosody, multimodality and technologies

Abstract

The objective of the present paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of innovative approaches to the teaching and assessment of English as a foreign language pronunciation in the context of the digital transformation of education. The paper focuses on the following key aspects: prosodic features of spoken language; the role of intonation in ensuring communicative intelligibility; strategies for overcoming interlanguage interference; the integration of multimodal and computer-assisted technologies into phonetics teaching practices The research methodology is based on an interdisciplinary approach that combines methods of contemporary linguistic analysis with empirical and experimental research in the fields of phonetics, pedagogy, and computational linguistics. It also incorporates an analysis of authentic pedagogical practices of both Ukrainian and international educators. The study employs a multifaceted framework that includes functional-communicative, systemic, and cognitive analysis, complemented by corpus phonetics and digital speech visualisation techniques. This comprehensive methodology ensures an in-depth examination of the components that constitute pronunciation competence. The scientific novelty of this approach lies in the structured synthesis of prosodic, cognitive-didactic, technical, and pedagogical perspectives on the development of intonational expressiveness and fluency. The article proposes a new model for integrating prosody into communicative-oriented teaching, emphasising the principle of functional intelligibility over the pursuit of native-like pronunciation. The results of Ukrainian research involving tongue twisters, intonation visualisers, automated assessment systems, and multimodal platforms are introduced into scientific circulation. In conclusion, pronunciation is widely recognised as a component not only of a speaker’s phonetic competence but also of their socio-communicative competence. Effective pronunciation instruction requires a balanced integration of segmental and suprasegmental features, an individualised approach, intersensory interaction, and digital support. Promising directions for further research include the development of adaptive digital learning environments, the expansion of phonetic corpora of student speech, the formalisation of comprehensibility criteria, and the creation of multimodal teaching materials.