The presence of pronunciation activities in English textbooks for Primary Education: A mixed-method study

Introduction: A careful analysis of the market for English textbooks for Primary Education in Spain reveals that, despite its breadth and variety, pronunciation teaching does not receive significant attention. In fact, it has often been neglected in favour of more traditional skills. Methodology: This mixed-method study employed a concurrent design, using a ten-question questionnaire developed by the researcher and validated by several experts. The sample consisted of textbooks from eight publishers, half Spanish and half international. The main objective was to identify how different publishers approached pronunciation activities in their textbooks. Results: The researcher conducted a Kruskal-Wallis test of the ten questions, analysing the results from the eight publishers for each question. The null hypothesis assumed that there was a normal distribution of data, while the alternative hypothesis posited that the means were different for each question. Discussion: The findings of this study confirm the research hypothesis, demonstrating that the publisher’s place of origin influences how pronunciation is treated in the textbooks. Conclusions: We examined how publishers included pronunciation in the textbooks. The study shows a clear relationship between the publisher’s country of origin and the emphasis placed on pronunciation in the textbooks.