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 important that the teacher should be in possession of the necessary information. This can generally be got from books. It is possible to get from books some idea of the speech,and of what we call general phonetic rules. It is also possible in this way 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 explanations he makes on his students'prounciation are unlikely to be of much use,and lesson time spent on pronunciation may well be wasted.
      But it does not follow that you can teach pronunciation successfully as soon as you have read the necessary books. It depends,after that,what use you make of your knowledge;and this is a matter of technique.
      Now the first and most important part of a language teacher's technique is his own performance,his ability to show off the spoken language,in every detail of sound as well as in fluent speaking,so that the student's ability for imitation is given the fullest space and encouragement. The teacher,then,should be as perfect a model in this field as he can make himself. And to make his own performance better,however satisfactory this may be,the modern teacher has in his hand recordings and a radio,to supply the real voices of native speakers,or,if the teacher happens to be a native speaker himself,or speaks just like one,then to change the method of presenting the language material.
      However,the process of showing pronunciation,whether by personal example or with the help of machines,is only the beginning of teaching pronunciation. The technique of teaching each sound also needs to be considered.