Exploratory practice puzzling as praxis-oriented pronunciation teacher learning in Australian adult migrant EAL education

In Australia, the teaching of pronunciation is embedded in the curriculum of a national adult migrant English program offering English as an additional language (EAL) tuition to newly arrived migrants. Students in the program who have had limited opportunities to develop print literacy in English or their first languages are offered tuition in pre-level EAL classes. Teachers of these students lack access to relevant training or research on oral skills pedagogies but are expected to integrate pronunciation teaching into their lessons. This article examines pre-level teachers’ pronunciation teaching practices in the Australian adult EAL context. The study introduced teachers to a practitioner research approach of professional learning through a series of exploratory practice (EP) focus group sessions. Using the lens of the theory of practice architectures, this article describes how teachers engaged in the EP process of puzzling to foster a praxis orientation towards the teaching of EAL pronunciation with preliterate adults. Findings revealed that the practices of puzzling facilitated the development of teachers’ understandings and enabled practices of pronunciation teaching to be tailored to their local teaching context. The puzzling process, initiated by the researcher in the first session, was taken up by teachers in subsequent sessions and fostered a praxis-oriented approach to learning viewed as important by teachers. The study has implications for pronunciation teaching research as it puts forward an innovative, practice architectures theoretical framing of EP and offers new insights into pronunciation teacher learning in the adult migrant EAL context.