Presentation

A MOOC for pronunciation teaching and research in the real world

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Abstract

Our paper explores data from the MOOC English Pronunciation in Global World (EPGW; Rupp, 2019). EPGW provides an environment where learners across the world can share their perspectives in an online community of currently over 140,000 users from 191 countries. We explore the nature of the data offered by EPGW and ask: What real-world issues regarding English pronunciation learning do EPGW data provide access to, and how might these issues be explored through them? Our work involves a qualitative thematic analysis of participant replies to the prompt “formulate concrete pronunciation goals for yourself”. We analysed a total of 600 comments, then selected keywords to design a coding system from which we determined recurrent themes. Our corpus reveals participants’ experiences, attitudes and beliefs regarding English pronunciation, such as the language ideology of native-speakerism. We discuss further sociolinguistic themes that EPGW data can demonstrate as well as apparent pedagogical implications of the data.

Keywords: MOOC, learners' lived experiences, English pronunciation, linguistic insecurity, native speakerism, phonetic ego, English pronunciation research, pedagogical implications

How to Cite:

Rupp, L., Simon, C., Henderson, A., Glain, O., & Wilson, A. (2026). A MOOC for pronunciation teaching and research in the real world. In P. Trofimovich, A. Bodea, T.-N. N. Le, R. Suzuki, & C. Teló (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference (pp. 1–12). Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, October 2025. https://doi.org/10.31274/psllt.21595