Zur Unterrichtung der Deutschen aussprache von nicht-muttersprachlern: der fall von der Universität von Simbabwe.

Abstract

The underlying empirical research study is aimed at uncovering the challenges faced by Lecturers of the Department of German Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, the possible reasons for these challenges as well as the measures they take to overcome these challenges as they teach the correct pronunciation. Pronunciation is important when teaching a foreign language because the wrong pronunciation can cause the message to be distorted and can affect the confidence of the non-native speaker during conversation. Questionnaires were sent to the lecturers to assess the importance of teaching pronunciation and Interviews were to acquire the information relating to the challenges they are faced with when teaching pronunciation as well as the measures they take to overcome these challenges. Lastly students were asked to read out sentences with the letters and words suggested as the most difficult to teach their pronunciation by the lecturers to prove the difficulties they have with pronunciation. The Intonation and sentence melody were acknowledged. The Native Language Magnet Theory expanded proposed by Kuhl et al., (2018), was used to interpret the results. The results account for the challenges faced when teaching the correct pronunciation. Suggestions of ways to overcome these challenges were given.