Opportunities and Challenges of Teaching English Pronunciation to Primary School Learners

Abstract

The article examines age-related opportunities and practical challenges in teaching English pronunciation to primary school learners. The study aims to compare international, CIS and Uzbek scholarly perspectives, identify convergent and divergent positions, and establish methodological directions for primary education. A purposive corpus of 17 academic and methodological sources published between 1987 and 2021 was analysed through comparative critical review, content coding, classification and theoretical synthesis. The findings indicate that pronunciation should be taught as an integrated skill comprising individual sounds, word and sentence stress, intonation, rhythm and pausing. Children’s readiness to imitate, auditory sensitivity and preference for play and movement provide favourable conditions for pronunciation learning. However, first-language interference, the mismatch between English spelling and sound, limited attention span, insufficient aural input and undifferentiated assessment remain substantial constraints. The article proposes a methodological sequence consisting of diagnosis, auditory discrimination, articulation, controlled practice, communicative use and reflection.