Should Native Speaker Pronunciation Be Replaced by Intelligibility

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Korean EFL learners perceive the importance of pronunciation in English communication and to suggest more realistic and effective EFL pedagogical strategies. With the emergence of World Englishes, ELF advocates suggest that the traditional emphasis on native speaker pronunciation should be replaced with an emphasis on intelligibility in that variation in accent is acceptable unless conversation flow will be affected. Duplicating native speaker pronunciation is an unrealistic goal for EFL learners, and it should be shifted into providing students more opportunities to focus on the language skills which are deemed more essential for English communication. D. University students as EFL learners participated in this study and displayed various opinions regarding important elements for English communication, the importance of pronunciation and desirable English pronunciation instructions in the EFL context.