Pronunciation instruction and training in Hong Kong generally focus on enhancing communicative competence. The speaking and pronunciation is an integral component in the school curriculum; The communicative competence can be divided into a transactional and interactional components of the core English lesson. Transactional talk is the kind of talk to get thing done whereas the interactional language is produced for social purposes (Nunan 2003)
As a result, the enhancement work mainly helps raise the level of communicative competency that focuses on the functional training components. The 2007's English Language Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Secondary 4-6), suggests that English language education will help students: “present information, ideas, intended meanings, views, attitudes and feeling clearly, coherently and appropriately in a variety of context; participate effectively in an oral interaction.”
A typical pronunciation lesson adopts task-based approach conducting activities; such as, group discussions, role-plays, presentations, debates, or quizzes. The learning tasks mostly focus on getting the message across activities rather than getting the enunciation and intonation correctness. In fact, such speaking criteria or training elements can usually see in the assessment sheets prepared for assessing individual oral presentation.
