Bio
John M. Levis, (M.A. and Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana Champaign), Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESL, studies second language pronunciation and speech intelligibility, with a focus on how second language pronunciation research affects the teaching of pronunciation. He is the author of the book Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation (Cambridge, 2018). He is co-author of the new OER book Teaching Pronunciation with Confidence: A Resource Book for Teachers and Learners (2024).
He is also the founder of the annual Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching conference and is the founding editor of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. He is co-editor for the Phonetics & Phonology section of the Encyclopedia for Applied Linguistics (1st and 2nd editians), and four books, Social Dynamics in Second Language Accent (DeGruyter, 2014), the Handbook of English Pronunciation (Wiley, 2015, 2019), Critical Concepts in Linguistics: Pronunciation (2017, Routledge), and Second Language Pronunciation: Bridging the Gap Between Research and Teaching (Wiley, 2022).
I also have been the Director of the Undergraduate Linguistics Program since 2010, and I was the co-creator (with Greta Muller Levis of the Annual Linguistics Challenge for Iowa High School students.
Courses I am teaching:
- In 2024-2025, I am on sabbatical, including a Fulbright semester in Ankara, Türkiye. Usually, I teach a selection from the following courses.
- WLC/LING 1190: Introduction to World Languages
- ENGL/LING 2190: Introduction to Linguistics
- ENGL/LING 3190: Topics in Language and Diversity (e.g., Dialects in American Literature)
- LING 3710: Phonetics and Phonology
- LING 4710: Language and Reading Development in Children
- ENGL 5250: Research and Teaching of L2 Pronunciation
- ENGL 5300: Technology and Oral Communication
- ENGL 6300: Seminar in Applied Linguistics and Technology
Degrees:
PhD, Educational Psychology/Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MAT, Teaching English as a Second Language, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
BA, English Literature, University of Wyoming
BS. Business Administration/Marketing, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Research areas:
My specialty is second language pronunciation. This specialty has led me to explore a wide variety of topics, including teaching pronunciation, the use of technology in teaching, accent conversion techniques for teaching and learning pronunciation, intonation, and examining what makes accented speech intelligible. I started the annual Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching conference, the first annual specialized conference for L2 pronunciation. I’m also the founding editor for the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, published by John Benjamins publishing.
About my teaching
I have been teaching ESL for around 40 years, mostly at the university level. For 35 years I have worked with teachers, teaching them, supervising them and presenting workshops on how to teach. My goals in teaching have always been to help students learn to think beyond the information in the textbook, and to consider ways to make the information relevant to their own knowledge.
How I came to teach what I teach
I found out about teaching ESL while studying for a second bachelor’s degree in English literature. I had thought I would become a high school teacher, but ESL teaching grabbed my imagination. Within ESL, I fell in love with pronunciation teaching and learning.
Some publications (since 2019)
Books
Reed, M., & Levis, J. M., Eds. (in progress) The Handbook of L2 Listening. Wiley Blackwell.
Levis, J. M. (in progress). Suprasegmentals: Research and Pedagogy for English Pronunciation. Cambridge University Press.
Levis, J. M., Munro, M., Nagle, C. & Huensch, A., Eds. (in progress). Phonetics and Phonology section (60 articles). Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 2nd ed. Carol Chapelle, Editor in chief. Wiley Blackwell.
Guskaroska, A., Zawadzki, Z., Levis, J., Challis, K., & Priazchikov, M. (2024). Teaching Pronunciation with Confidence: A Resource for ESL/EFL Teachers. Iowa State University Digital Press.
Levis, J. M., Derwing, T. M. & Munro, M. J. (2022). The Evolution of Pronunciation Research and Teaching: 25 years of Intelligibility, Comprehensibility and Accentedness. John Benjamins.
Levis, J. M., Derwing, T., & Sonsaat-Hegelheimer, S., Eds. (2022). Second Language Pronunciation: Bridging The Gap Between Research and Teaching. Wiley Blackwell.
Reed, M., & Levis, J. M., Eds. (2019) The Handbook of English Pronunciation. Wiley Blackwell. (paperback of 2015 book)
Levis, J. M. (2018). Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation. Cambridge University Press.
Articles and Chapters
Levis, J. (forthcoming). Does this technique work? Establishing a research agenda for the effectiveness of pronunciation activities. In A. Kirkova-Naskova & E. Tergujeff (eds.), Achievements in L2 pronunciation. Cambridge University Press.
Levis, J. & Nagle, C. (2024). Bridging the gap between bilingual phonetics and phonology research and pronunciation teaching. In M. Amengual (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge University Press.
Levis, J. M. (2024). Challenging native-speakerism: embracing the intelligibility principle in pronunciation and spoken language instruction. JALT Journal, 46(2), 213-227. https://doi.org/10.37546/JALTJJ46.2-4
Duris, M., Neiriz, R., Levis, J., & Silpachai, A. (2024). Methodological influences on word stress identification: Implications for research and teaching. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2024. 7
Sonsaat Hegelheimer, S. & Levis, J. (Revise and resubmit, Language Teaching Research). Is intonation learnable in the classroom? Evidence from Turkish learners of English.
Silpachai, A., Novotny, M., Neiriz, R., Levis, J, Chukharev, R, Gutierrez-Osuna, R. (2024). Corrective feedback accuracy and pronunciation improvement: Feedback that is ‘good enough’. Language Learning & Technology. 28(1), 1-16.
Levis, J. & Kochem, T. (2023). Pronunciation tutoring as teacher preparation, In V. Sardegna & A. Jarosz (eds.), English Pronunciation Teaching: Theory, Practice, and Research Findings (pp. 221-236). Multilingual Matters.
Levis, J. (2023). Teaching contrastive stress to lower-proficiency learners. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 9(2), 302-311.
Derwing, T., Levis, J. & Sonsaat-Hegelheimer, S. (2022). Bridging the research-practice gap in L2 pronunciation. In J. Levis, T. Derwing, & S. Sonsaat Hegelheimer (eds.), Second language pronunciation: Bridging the gap between research and teaching (pp. 1-18). Wiley Blackwell.
Levis, J. & Echelberger, A. (2022). Integrating pronunciation into language instruction. In J. Levis, T. Derwing, & S. Sonsaat Hegelheimer (eds.), Second language pronunciation: Bridging the gap between research and teaching (pp. 19-41). Wiley Blackwell.
Levis, J. (2022). Teaching pronunciation: Truths and lies. In C. Bardel, C. Hedman, K. Rejman & E. Zetterholm (eds.). Exploring language education. Global and local perspectives (pp. 39-72). Stockholm University Press.
Levis, J. & Rehman, I. (2022). Pronunciation and technology. In E. Hinkel (ed.), Handbook of Practical Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 296-311). Routledge.
Levis, J. & Silpachai, A. (2022). Speech intelligibility. In T. Derwing, M. Munro, & R. Thomson (eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and speaking (pp. 160-173). Routledge.
Quamer, W., Das, A., Levis, J. Chukharev-Hudilainen, E. & Gutierrez-Osuna, R. (2022). Zero-shot foreign accent conversion without a native reference Interspeech.
Alnifasah, M. Goodale, E., Rehman, I., Levis, J. M., & Kochem, T. (2022). The impact of functional load and cumulative errors on listeners’ judgments of comprehensibility and accentedness. System. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102906
Kochem, T. & Levis, J. (2022). Evolving teaching practices of pre-service language teachers in L2 pronunciation. Ranam (Recherches anglaises et nord-américaines).
Levis, J. (2021). Connecting the dots between pronunciation research and practice. In A. KirkovaNaskova, A. Henderson, & J. Fouz-González (eds.), English pronunciation instruction: Research-based insights (pp. 17-37). John Benjamins.
Levis, J. & McCrocklin, S. (2021). The pragmatic force of second language accent in education. In G. Planchenault & L. Poljak (eds.), Pragmatics of Accents (pp. 117-140). John Benjamins.
Zhang, W. & Levis, J. (2021). The Southwestern Mandarin /n/-/l/ merger: Effects on production in Standard Mandarin and English. Frontiers in Communication, 6, 1-21. Article 639090.
Silpachai, A., Rehman, I., Barriuso, T. A., Levis, J., Chukharev-Hudilainen, E., Zhao, G. & Gutierrez- Osuna, R. (2021). Effects of voice type and task on L2 learners’ awareness of pronunciation errors. Interspeech, Brno, Czech Republic, Aug-Sept 2021.
Ghosh, M. & Levis, J. (2021). Vowel quality and direction of stress shift in a predictive model explaining the varying impact of misplaced word stress: Evidence from English. Frontiers in Communication, 6, 1-18. Article 628780.
Levis, J. (2021). Conversations with experts – In conversation with John Levis, Editor of Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. RELC Journal, 1-14. 8
Chun, D. & Levis, J. (2020). Prosody in second language teaching. In C. Gussenhoven & A. Chen (eds.) The Handbook of Prosody (pp. 619-630). Oxford University Press.
Das, A., Zhao, G., Gutierrez-Osuna, R., Levis, J., & Chukharev-Hudilainen, E. (2020). Understanding the effect of voice quality and accent on talker similarity. Interspeech.
Rehman, I., Silpachai, A., Levis, J., Zhao, G., & Gutierrez-Osuna, R. (2020). The English pronunciation of Arabic speakers – A data-driven approach to segmental error identification. Language Teaching Research, 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820931888
Levis, J. (2020). A reconsideration of the nativeness and intelligibility principles. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 6(3), 310-328.
Levis, J. & Sonsaat, S. (2019). Quality teacher education for pronunciation teaching in L2 classrooms. In Martinez Agudo, J. (ed.), Quality in TESOL and Teacher Education. (pp. 213222). Routledge.
Ding, S., Liberatore, C., Sonsaat, S., Rehman, I., Silpachai, A., Zhao, G., Chukharev- Hudilainen, E., Levis, J., & Gutierrez-Osuna, R. (2019). Golden Speaker Builder – An interactive tool for pronunciation training. Speech Communication, 115, 51-66.