Developing intonation skills in English: A systemic functional linguistics perspective

Abstract

This paper expl ores whether the teaching of English intonati on wi thin the framework of sys temi c functional linguisti cs (SFL)contributes to the development of intona tion skills of Argentine Spanish speakers to become teachers of English as a Foreign Language . The findings of the study tha t focused on the oral produ ction of s tudents in the fi rs t course of phoneti cs in theprogramme offered a t the Na tional Uni versi ty of Rio Cuarto are presented. This paper reports the anal ysis of recordings of fi rs t-yea r s tudents reading an English text aloud and the resul ts obtained in the pre- and pos t-tes ts reveal tha t there wasimprovement in students ’ oral production such as in tone sys tem considering the three sys tems of intona tion i n SFL after aseries of training sessions. Hence , this approach seems promising for the developmen t of intona tion skills and oral skills in foreign language lea rners . These results favour for teacher trainers as well as for trainers Keywords: EFL, intonation, sys temi c functional linguis tics , teacher training.