On Using the Phonemic Script in Language Teaching

Do you use the phonemic script in teaching? If you say, "It depends", what does it depend on? What are the pros and cons of the IPA? What kind of students does it help, and how does it help them? These are some of the issues broached in this paper. It also reports on a piece of classroom research designed to evaluate the efficacy of the IPA in helping students record and remember the pronunciation of new words.

Although the paper is old, all of the observations are still relevant. One new question which has emerged since it was written, however, is the following: Does the fact that online dictionaries include a click-to-hear function render the phonemic transcription obsolete? Please add a comment below if you have an opinion on that!