Developing students’ receptive and productive pronunciation skills in the context of higher education and distance learning

The paper focuses on developing students’ pronunciation skills in conditions of distance learning in higher education. The authors analyze the specifics of online EFL lessons (their advantages and disadvantages), list the main mistakes in teaching pronunciation and suggest the ways for teachers to avoid making them. The authors applied several methods during their research, i.e. comparative historical analysis of the up-to-date approaches to teaching pronunciation in English Teaching Methodology, observation, learning experience and project-based learning method. Special attention in the paper is given to the most efficient forms of student work during an online lesson in the aspect of acquiring natural English pronunciation and to the right way for teachers to motivate students and organize their unguided pronunciation practice activities. The importance of fostering students’ pronunciation skills is proven along with the vital role of pronunciation aspect in students’ communicative competence. The aim of teaching pronunciation is established with the term «threshold level of pronunciation». The article also concentrates on specific stages of online listening exercises and on the importance of doing them in the right order. Several options of facilitating the process of acquiring pronunciation skills during distance learning are offered in the article, i.e. shadowing technique, scaffolding, project work and individuallyoriented approach.