Historically, wi th the advent of the communicat ive approach, there may have been some confusion as to
the place and role of pronunciat ion in language learning. Terrell (1989), for example, suggests that those
teach ing from a communicat ive approach "have not known what to do with pronunciation" (p. 197).
Li kewise, Penn ington and Richards (1986) di scuss that pronunciation is often viewed as havi ng "I imited
importance" in commun icative curri cu la (p. 207). As a result of the perceived confus ion with regard to
the ro le of pronu nciation in the communicative approach, language teachers struggle to find ways to
pract ice pronunc iation in class (Lord, 2008). Further, Ell iott (1995) mai ntai ns that "teachers tend to view
pronunciation as the least useful of the basic language skills and th erefore they generally sacrifice
teach ing pronunciat ion in order to spend valuable class time on other areas of the language" (p. 531).