3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies – Vol 24(1): 112 – 127 http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2018-2401-09 112 Tasks in Explicit L2 Pronunciation Instruction: FonF vs. FonFS in Improving Phonemic Accuracy and Comprehensibility FARHAD TABANDEH Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Iran AHMAD MOINZADEH Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Iran moin@fgn.ui.ac.ir HOSSEIN BARATI Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Isfahan, Iran ABSTRACT The effects of focusing second/foreign language (L2) learners’ attentions on phonological forms while communicating in meaningful discourse has recently attracted attention in L2 pronunciation research. One such treatment is focus-on-form (FonF) instruction wherein L2 learners practice and notice pronunciation features in communicative tasks rather than in decontextualized exercises and drills (i.e., focus-on-forms [FonFS]). Given this, the current study investigated the differential effects of FonF and FonFS instructions on improving Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ pronunciation of the most problematic English consonants. After identifying the problematic English consonants (i.e., /θ/, /ð/, /w/, /ŋ/) via remedial and expert judgment approaches, 45 pre-intermediate learners embarked on an 8-hour course. The experimental group received FonF, the comparison group received FonFS, and the control group had a free conversation class minus any feedback on the target consonants. Learners’ pronunciations were measured in terms of phonemic accuracy and comprehensibility in controlled and spontaneous tasks. The results of immediate and delayed post-test for phonemic accuracy revealed that whereas both FonF and FonFS were equally effective in controlled tasks, only FonF instruction proved effective up to the delayed post-test in spontaneous tasks; no such improvements, however, were observed for the control group. Results also showed that improvements in phonemic accuracy led to overall comprehensibility enhancements in EFL learners’ speech. The article concludes with some pedagogical implications of the findings. Keywords: Comprehensibility; FonF; FonFS; L2 pronunciation; phonemic accuracy INTRODUCTION One of the side effects of adopting communicative approaches in second/foreign language (L2) instruction is the limited attention to pronunciation based on the assumption that the focus of L2 pedagogy needs to be on the meaning and function rather than on the form (Derwing & Munro 2005). In the past decade, however, pronunciation instruction has found a more prominent place in L2 pedagogy (Thomson & Derwing 2015). Accordingly, a revitalized attention has been paid to the effectiveness of various instructional treatments in improving L2 learners’ pronunciations at both segmental and supra-segmental levels (Thomson & Derwing 2015). Nevertheless, despite the over-growing interest in embracing communicative approaches toward teaching and researching different L2 language skills, it seems that pronunciation is still mostly researched and taught in de-contextualized listen-and- repeat fashion (Celce-Murcia et al. 2010). Most of the recent research on L2 pronunciation instruction has focused on explicit instruction of problematic L2 pronunciation features (e.g., Dlaska & Krekeler 2013, Kissling 2013, Gooch, Saito & Lyster 2016, Saito 2011a, Wipple et al. 2015). According to DeKeyser