Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language, but few people are even moderately proficient at pronouncing foreign languages. Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the fundamental reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much better than they do is that they fail to grasp the true nature of the problem of learning to pronounce, and consequently never set about tackling it in the right way. Far too many people fail to realize that pronouncing a foreign language is a skill, one that needs careful training of a special kind, and one that cannot be acquired by just leaving it to take care of itself. I think even teachers of language, while recognizing the importance of a good accent, tend to neglect, in their practical teaching, the branch of study concerned with speaking the language. So the first point I want to make is that English pronunciation must be taught; the teacher should be prepared to devote some of the lesson time to this, and by his whole attitude to the subject should get the student to feel that here is a matter worthy of receiving his close attention. So there should be occasions when other aspects of English, such as grammar or spelling, are allowed for the moment to take second place. Apart from this question of the time given to pronunciation, there are two other requirements for the teacher: the first, knowledge; the second, technique. It is important that the teacher should be in possession of the necessary information. This can generally be obtained from books. It is possible to get from books some idea of the mechanics of speech, and of what we call general phonetic theory. It is also possible in this way to get a clear mental picture of the relationship between the sounds of different languages, between the speech habits of English people and those, say, of your students. Unless the teacher has such a picture, any comments he may make on his students' pronunciation are unlikely to be of much use, and lesson time spent on pronunciation may well be time-wasted. But it does not follow that you can teach pronunciation successfully as soon as you have read the necessary books. It depends, after that, on what use you make of your knowledge, and this is a matter of technique. Now the first and most important part of a language teacher's technique is his own performance, his ability to demonstrate the spoken language, in every detail of articulation as well as in fluent speaking, so that the student's latent capacity for imitation is given the fullest scope and encouragement. The teacher, then, should be as perfect a model in this respect as he can make himself. And to supplement his own performance, however satisfactory this may be, the modern teacher has at his disposal recordings, radio, television and video, to supply the authentic voices of native speakers, or, if the teacher happens to be a native speaker himself or speaks just like one, then to vary the method of presenting the language material. Notes: set about 着手，试图 articulation 发音 latent 潜在的，不明显的 at one's disposal供某人任意支配使用 authentic真实的，真正的 What does the writer actually say about pronouncing foreign languages?