The Phonology of Contemporary English: usage, varieties, structure is a French research programme (Carr, Durand, Pukli 2004; Durand & Przewozny 2012) aiming at 1/ giving an appropriate picture of spoken English in its unity and diversity, from geographical, social and stylistic points of view, 2/ testing phonological and phonetic models with synchronic and diachronic approaches, 3/ favouring communication between speech specialists and phonologists, 4/ providing data and analyses to improve the teaching of English for non native learners of English, 5/ helping to document endangered or weakened dialects of the English language around the world.

The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly we define the programme in its theoretical and methodological approaches, enhancing its variationnist focus on contemporary spoken English (Durand & Przewozny 2015). We describe the PAC corpus (made up of recordings from 32 English-speaking locations around the world), its protocol and database (data and metadata, as available on the website). We then provide a demonstration of the web-based facility for teachers, researchers, learners and advanced students of English, using a selection of samples and PAC linguistic resources designed for the teaching and learning of English (from phonology to oral syntax).

Secondly we discuss the contribution of such a research environment to pedagogy. The multimodal treatment of the PAC corpus enables teachers to make use of a number of linguistic notions and their illustrative audio counterparts. Key principles such as the authenticity of the PAC audio data (thanks to sociolinguistic and ecological modi operandi) and the availability and comparability of the data across varieties of English are emphasized as forceful arguments for the teaching of English, the practice of comprehension and oral skills, for secondary education competitive examinations or in-service training for teachers of English. We also discuss and illustrate the advantages of such a corpus for a dynamic, accessible and customizable approach of teaching / learning contemporary English.

Future developments of the PAC-Teaching of English project (PAC-EA) in relationship to PFC-Enseignement du français (PFC-EF) (Detey et al. 2009, 2010) are explored as conclusive remarks.

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www.projet-pac.net

www.projet-pfc.net