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In this chapter, we explore the challenges in teaching and learning Spanish pronunciation from an instructor training perspective and provide suggestions. With an increased focus on teaching pronunciation, there exists a call for adequate teacher training in this area. We examine existing literature about different aspects affecting teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices toward teaching Spanish pronunciation. Examples are drawn from countries with a long tradition of Spanish studies, such as the United States or the United Kingdom, and from countries where the study of Spanish is more recent, such as Australia or Asian countries. The final part of the chapter is devoted to suggestions about resource development, student awareness-raising, and the integration of pronunciation at all levels.

This chapter explores the challenges in teaching and learning Spanish pronunciation from an instructor training perspective and provides suggestions. With an increased focus on teaching pronunciation, there exists a call for adequate teacher training in this area. The authors examine existing literature about different aspects affecting teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and practices toward teaching Spanish pronunciation. Examples are drawn from countries with a long tradition of Spanish studies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and from countries where the study of Spanish is more recent, such as Australia and Asian countries. The final part of the chapter, including the Appendix, is devoted to suggestions about resource development, student awareness-raising, the integration of pronunciation at all levels, and ways teachers can reflect on their experiences and continue to learn.

The research base of pronunciation teaching is enhanced by quantifying the differences between native and non-native pronunciation. The quantification allows teachers to target the specific differences that contribute to heavilyaccented Spanish. This case study compares the phonetic-acoustic features of a female Australian learner of Spanish with those of a native speaker of Spanish. Both speech samples are recordings of the same text, giving a like-with-like comparison. The speaker’s recording and a native-speaker recording will be compared for each word and environment. Voice onset time measures show less variation for the native speaker recording, while the non-native speaker shows variation more typical of English than Spanish. Vowel formant measures also show more variation in the speech of the non-native learner than of the native speaker, including neutralisation of unstressed vowels. In addition, several other non-native features occur in the learner’s pronunciation: obstruents where fricatives or approximants are expected; weak pronunciation of /r/ and voiceless vowels. Prosodic differences, notably in syllabification and vowel liaison but also intonation, were noted.

The number of Spanish students in Australia is increasing. This growth coincides with a period of revival in the teaching and learning of pronunciation in the foreign language classroom. However, unlike their peers in the UK and especially in the US, no specific materials are available for Australian students. In order to assist them, the first essential step must be examining their attitudes and beliefs, which is necessary to recognise the ways in which they conceive of learning pronunciation and thus shape further work, as the literature has long established. Therefore, we analyse here the results of an anonymous survey distributed among Australian university students of Spanish. The results show positive attitudes and loci of control towards the subject but also reveal the need for strengthening awareness and a number of tensions where action is still needed in order to ensure adequate pedagogical procedure for pronunciation success.

Acoustic and auditory data are presented for the citation tones of single speakers from nine sites (eight hitherto undescribed in English) from the little-studied Chuqu subgroup of Wu in East Central China: Lìshuǐ, Lóngquán Qìngyuán, Lóngyóu, Jìn