Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is an expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language; but few people are even fairly proficient at pronouncing foreign languages. Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the basic reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much better than they do native language is that they fail to understand the true nature of the problem of learning to pronounce. 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 gained by just leaving it to take care of itself. I think even teachers of language, while realizing the importance of a good accent, often 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 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. Besides this question of the time given to pronunciation, there are two other requirements for the teacher: the first, knowledge; the second, technique. It is also possible 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.
单选题
What does the author say about pronouncing foreign language?