Journal of Arts. Vol. 1, 2013. 17 Teaching speech work: The Nigerian . experience Isaac Eyi Ngulube Abstract As we, in Nigeria, struggle for international intelligibility in our spoken English, one area of emphasis is in the teaching and learning the pronunciation of English sound segments. What goes on in the classroom today in the name of teaching phonetics and phonology is dismal. The teacher can hardly, properly and distinctly, artirnlate and transcribe the sounds of English, let alone the students. For some of these teachers the charts, production, approach and emphasis on the English segments are all wrong. This paper seeks to correct the charts, the approach, and emphasis and suggest how best the teacher should go about the teaching of the sounds of English. The paper, therefore, addresses the English language teacher, although English language, Linguistics and- Communication students will equally benefit from it. The plan and organisation of this paper is simple. First, it tackles decisions about priorities in pronunciation and answers three basic questions: What type of pronunciation is to be taken as a model? How does tlze model of pronunciation used as a target differ from what obtains in the country presently? What teaching methods should be used in the teaching of the various sounds of English? Second, it examines 'priorities and tolera11ccs' in teaching Nigerian English Ascent (NEA) segments and tlze accompanying prosodic features. Third, it focuses on 'teaching methods' drawing on the works of Kenworthy (1987, 2000) and Brown