Mechanisms of Assessment in Teaching Suprasegmental Phonology to 3 rd Year Pupils of Ibn Saad Secondary School : Case of Stress

Abstract

Teaching and assessing the suprasegmental phonology has become a thorny issue as it tends to be neglected by many secondary school teachers. To this effect, a research case study was carried out to investigate the reasons behind these misconceptions. A triangulation technique was adopted grouping three types of informants, teachers, pupils, and the general inspector of English. The research was qualitatively and quantitatively oriented. The hypotheses were positively verified , to demonstrate that the lack of teachers’ phonological knowledge, the irrelevance of the teaching time benchmark, and teaching phonology to the exams, are factors at the heart of the problematic.The research rounded off by suggestions about possible mechanisms to adopt in teaching and assessing the issue.