Ancient and modern pronunciations
Ancient and modern pronunciations
Annotation
This
course paper deals with new ways and methods of correcting students’
pronunciation mistakes. Teaching English pronunciation is important and actual
nowadays, so problems of teaching pronunciation and correcting students’
mistakes in pronouncing are discovered in this course paper. There are a
variety of good methods and techniques suggested for correcting learners' errors on the
spot. Mistakes are part of our life; we all make mistakes now and then. There
is nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as we learn from them and avoid
repeating them over and over. Additional information has been obtained from the
literature on the subject, to verify and assess the findings of the present
study.
Introduction
deals with the description of such items as: actuality of the problem, the aim,
the objects, the subject, the tasks, the methods, the sources.
Theoretical
part deals with the perceptions of The importance of teaching English pronunciation, Modelling
pronunciation, Aspects of pronunciation, The Role of Teaching
Pronunciation in FLT.
Practical
part deals with the correcting learners’ pronunciation mistakes, the ways and
methods of correcting students pronunciation mistakes, Correcting Without
Hurting, Exercises for the Pronunciation of Plurals for English second
language.
Conclusion
deals with the summary of all practical materials concerning the correcting
learners’ pronunciation mistakes.
Contents
Introduction
1. The importance of teaching English pronunciation
1.1 Ancient and Modern Pronunciations
1.2 Listening and
pronunciation
1.3 Modelling pronunciation
1.4 Performance of a text
1.5 Aspects of pronunciation
1.6 The Role of Teaching
Pronunciation in FLT
2. Correcting learners’ pronunciation
mistakes
2.1 New ways of correcting spoken errors
2.2 Correcting Without Hurting
2.3 Mistakes Made During Discussions and
Activities
2.4 Problems of correcting students’
pronunciation
2.5 Exercises for the Pronunciation of Plurals
for English second language
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix
Introduction
Actuality
of the research work.
A lot
of time and effort is spent on training courses and beyond in encouraging
teachers to consider whether immediate or later correction of student errors
during oral work is appropriate. There are a variety of good methods and
techniques suggested for correcting students' errors on the spot. Mistakes are
part of our life; we all make mistakes now and then. There is nothing wrong
with making mistakes as long as we learn from them and avoid repeating them
over and over.
To
correct students’ errors has always been, and will always be the concern of
most teachers. Some teachers are in favor of immediate correction, while others
are in favor of delayed correction. Some would even go further to consider the
whole process as time–consuming. In this article, I would like to dwell, based
on my practical experience, upon this controversial issue to offer some
suggestions for both immediate and delayed correction.
When
students are corrected in front of their classmates, they feel offended and get
discouraged. They expect teachers to continually correct them during classes.
Failure to do so is likely to create confusion and suspicion on the part of the
students. As such, teachers are expected to strive to find most creative ways
to deal with this problem that most typically arises. They need to encourage
and stimulate their students to participate in class without any fear of making
mistakes.
Most
students refuse to answer to the teacher in the classroom on the ground that
they are most likely to be the laughingstock of their class fellows.
Consequently, they get discouraged and feel humiliated. They refrain from
responding to the teacher’s questions which may deprive them of a valuable
learning opportunity.
Generally
speaking, there are three types of oral mistakes that need to be corrected
during class-discussion. These are: grammatical, vocabulary, and pronunciation
mistakes. This leads us to a very important question: should we interrupt our
students during discussion or avoid interrupting them as much as we can? To
answer this question we need to ask ourselves whether the focus is on accuracy
or fluency. In fact, to save our students the embarrassment and in order not to
distract them, we can employ less provocative approaches. One way is to make
notes of the most common mistakes made by a student to be discussed later.
Write them on the board without revealing the name of the student in order not
embarrass him/her. Ask the rest of the class to identify these mistakes and
correct them. Another way is to raise an eyebrow, or say, “Excuse me?” Or the
teacher can ask for repetition without indicating the mistake.
Also
we can employ another approach called, ‘selective correction’. In this case,
the teacher decides to correct only certain errors. These errors can be decided
by the objectives of the lesson, or the exercise that is being done. In other
words, if students are focusing on past simple tense, then only errors related
to this grammatical area need to be corrected. Other mistakes are ignored.
In
conclusion, the teacher can decide which is the most beneficial and effective
approach to error correction based on the situation itself. It will help
students overcome their shyness and play an active role in class discussions
without being afraid of making mistakes. In this case, they would acknowledge
and accept their mistakes as part of the learning process instead of being
offended when they are corrected by their teacher.
The
aim of the research work is to consider what benefits correction of
any kind might have for learners, as well as to present some ideas for
conducting later correction (correction slots).
The
object is theoretical phonetics of the English language.
The
subject of the research work: correcting students’ pronunciation.
The
tasks of research:
1. To analyze theoretical material on the
problem of the research.
2. To reveal peculiarities of English
pronunciation.
3. To investigate new ways and methods of
correcting students’ pronunciation.
Following
methods of the research were used during the writing of the work:
1. study and analyze of methodical
literature;
2. determined observation on usage of
studying materials.
The
source consists of scientific, phonetic materials, teaching aids,
articles on phonetics.
1.
The importance of teaching English pronunciation
Contributing this
particular gift can occasionally be a bit tricky, for several reasons. First,
your students have already studied English for years and their pronunciation
habits are not easy to change. A second problem for those of you who are native
speakers of English is that you produce sounds so naturally that you may not be
aware of how you do it, so even when you know that your students' pronunciation
is wrong, you may not know what the problem is or how to correct it. Finally,
the overwhelming majority of Amity teachers are not native speakers of the
British "RP" accent ("Received Pronunciation", also known
as "BBC English" or "the Queen's English") which is the
accepted English standard in Kazakhstan in most textbooks, including Junior and
Senior English for Kazakh. (Even in the UK, this accent is spoken by only
a fairly small minority.) The upshot of all this is that teaching pronunciation
may a more complicated issue than it seems.
The
good news, however, is that through dint of hard effort it is possible for
students to make some improvement in their pronunciation, particularly when
they are attending to their pronunciation. (In other words, even future
teachers with fairly heavy accents can learn to pronounce words accurately
enough when paying attention that they provide an acceptable model for their
own students.) If you pay attention to your own pronunciation, and spend a
little time browsing through typical Kazakh English textbooks, you
should also be able to learn enough about the mechanics of pronunciation to be
able to help students. Finally, as long as you are aware of the differences
between your own accent and RP, you can provide a useful pronunciation model
for your students.
In
class, speak naturally using your own accent, although if there are marked
regional features to your speech you might lean as far in the direction of a
more broadly accepted standard as is comfortable for you.
Learn
the differences between your accent and RP. If you are not familiar with the
International Phonetic Alphabet and the accepted RP pronunciation of words.
When
teaching pronunciation, in places where your accent differs from RP, don't
insist that students follow you rather than the standard. (Future teachers will
need to teach the standard in textbooks.) Rather, point out the difference
between your accent and the standard so that students are aware of it.
Many
of the pronunciation problems you encounter in students will have less to do
with the fine tuning of a particular English accent than with simply getting
them to pronounce words in a way that is more or less acceptable in any variety
of English, so focus your efforts on the many areas where you can help students
in their pronunciation. [1,52]
1.1
Ancient and Modern Pronunciations
We
cannot be sure exactly how the ancient Romans pronounced their Latin, although
the discipline of Historical Linguistics has given us a reasonably good idea of
their general spoken practice. The early borrowings from Latin into various
languages give some idea of the Roman pronunciation, for example Gothic
"wins" meaning 'wine' was borrowed from Latin "vinum"; this
shows the -w- pronunciation of -v- in Latin clearly, at least at the time that
the borrowing took place.
In
English speaking countries, two problems arise: First, are we to pronounce -v-
as -w- is pronounced in English, or like English -v-? And then are we to say
-ch- for Latin -c-, palatalizing the consonant before the fronted vowels, as in
Italian, or pronounce it like English hard -k-? Teachers trained in the tradition
of the Catholic Church will generally use the fricative -v- and the palatalized
-ch-, others will use the other sounds, which the majority of modern scholars
feels to be more authentic. A great deal of heat, if not light, has been spent
on the problem of the "correct pronunciation of Latin". Probably most
students will go with the method that their teachers use., but whichever way
you follow, remember that this is a matter of scholarship, not of religion or
faith. If there is any overriding parameter of judgment, it should probably be
on the side of convenience, but in the last analysis the student who is really
concerned with the way Latin may have sounded, as a part of his esthetic
appreciation of a poet like Vergil, must try to find out the best way, so far
as he can determine it, and follow it.
One
person finds it ludicrous to read Vergil with an accent which appeared a
thousand years after the poet's death; but another reads Vergil the way Dante
read him, thinking this is good enough for him. Here as elsewhere de gustibus
non disputandum est.
But
if you are going to try to read Latin authentically, be sure you do not
aspirate the stop-consonants, which is one of the oddities of English which
makes the study of English so far for most others. It is virtually necessary to
say "arpor" for 'tree" in order to avoid the Anglicized
"arbhor". We know from grammarians that the Romans said
"urps" for the city of Rome, and this is probably typical of their
general pronunciation of the stop consonants. Furthermore, you should not use
that nondescript English -r-, but roll your -r- broadly, as most of the Romanic
language do. Whether it is a tongue trill, or a throat rumble is not important,
so long as it isn't an English vanishing- consonant with a tongue flap (like
"berry" pronounced 'Betty') or an American hybrid.
More
important is the matter of the pronunciation of verse, for which see Section
14) of this supplement for a full discussion. The substitution of stressed
accent in the place of genuinely LONG vowels is arbitrary and quite against the
nature of both Greek and Latin poetry, which was length-conscious without any
special attention to stress. If this process is justified by saying that it is
a habit, understand that it is a bad habit, and please cut it out. Substituting
STRESS for LENGTH is about as sensible as tapping your foot every time you hear
a Chinese rising tone. [2,56]
Incidentally
much the same misfortune has accrued to the sensitive and lovely Classical
Greek language, where a perfectly attested pitch inflection of a musical fifth
(marked by an acute accent in the Alexandrian period for the benefit of
benighted foreigners like us) is regularly replaced by a heavy stress. This
identical stress is also used for the circumflex, which loses its double-length
and up-and-down musical inflection, so reminiscent of Swedish. And (believe it
or not!) this same stress is used for the grave, which is nothing more than the
replacement of an acute by a low (barytone) at base level, and is so marked in
some extant papyri on every syllable for real dunderheads in the Alexandrian
schools. But for the pig-headed, caution to the winds!
If
you did these thoughtless things to modern Bengali, people would fail to
understand you, or jeer if you persisted. But since the Classical peoples are
not around to defend themselves, it look like a case linguistic open-season on
whatever is around. But the bottom line: You are losing authenticity, and more
important a large measure of esthetic appreciation.
1.2
Listening and pronunciation
Unless
you are fortunate enough to have very small classes, it will be difficult to
give much individual attention to students' pronunciation. Students must
therefore learn to rely on their ears to tell them whether their pronunciation
approximates that of native speaker models. However, many students are not in
the habit of listening carefully before attempting to repeat. In fact, they
have often been trained for years to immediately repeat whatever the teacher
says, no matter how vague their impression is of the jumble of sounds they are
trying to reproduce. Another problem is that while students are listening to
the teacher's spoken model, their attention is often focused more on preparing
to repeat than on listening. The teacher's sentence consequently serves less as
a model for pronunciation than as a starting shot announcing that students
should try to speak.
The
first approach to pronunciation is thus helping students develop the habit of
listening carefully before they speak. To do this, the first time you say a
word or sentence, ask students to listen just listen. They should not murmur
the utterance quietly after you; instead they should concentrate on fixing the
sound in their memories. It is helpful if you repeat the model utterance
several times before asking students to repeat; this not only allows them more
chances to listen but also helps students break the habit of blurting out a
response as soon as you finish.
Exercises
which require listening but no oral response may also help sharpen student
listening skills. Minimal pair drills are particularly good for helping
students learn to hear the difference between similar sounds. Minimal pairs are
words that are pronounced exactly the same with the exception of one sound (Ex:
pin--pen, bid--bit). Sample exercise: To help students learn to hear the
difference between the short "i" and "e" sounds, ask
students to raise their pen when you say the word "pen" and a pin
when you say "pin."
Training
students' ability to hear sound distinctions will not necessarily result in
good pronunciation. However, students who have not clearly heard a sound
obviously have less chance to produce it correctly than those who listen
carefully. [3,47]
1.3
Modelling pronunciation
Most
native speakers of English have not formally studied the mechanics of English
pronunciation, so this is an area in which it would be helpful to do some
homework so that you are prepared to explain how sounds are made if called on
to do so. However, you will almost certainly be expected to serve as a model
for pronunciation, and for this purpose a limited amount of choral drill can be
useful. Steps for such a drill would be as follows:
1)
Choose a text that represents normal spoken English (as opposed to more bookish
language). A dialog from your textbook would be a good choice.
2)
Read sentences aloud, clearly but at a fairly normal speed. Have students
listen to each sentence once or twice before attempting to repeat it. Remind
them that they should be listening to and trying to mimic the rhythm, stress,
and intonation patterns of your speech as well as your pronunciation.
3)
Build up longer sentences from the end, starting with the last few words, and
then adding the previous ones. Ex: "...give you money?"
"...expect me to give you money?" "Do you really expect me to
give you money?" (This approach tends to preserve sentence intonation
better than working from the beginning.)
One
fun way to practice the rhythm of English sentences is by taking a dialog from
a book, preferably one with short sentences, and turning it into a "jazz
chant." In essence, this means finding the natural rhythm of each sentence
and then chanting it with emphasis on the key words, something like a group
cheer at a football game or a chant at a protest rally ("Hell no, we won't
go" and so forth). Clapping or pounding desks adds to the festive nature
of the activity. This exercise is particularly good for driving home the point
that not all words in English sentences get equal stress.
Suggestions:
If
you want students to prepare choral drill of a dialog before class, it is best
if they have a taped model to work with. Without having heard a dialog before
they repeat it, they may wind up polishing an incorrect performance.
Choral
drill is best in small doses. It generally only takes a short period of drill
for students to get the point you wish to make, and drill beyond that point
rapidly turns into mindless parroting. [4,58]
1.4
Performance of a text
Once
students are able to repeat accurately after a spoken model, the next step is
to have them practice speaking from a written text. Keeping pronunciation
accurate while reading a text aloud is more difficult than repeating after a
teacher, but it is still easier for students than maintaining correct
pronunciation in free conversation because they can focus their attention on
pronunciation rather than grammar or word choice.
One
way to do this is to choose a text and copy it for students. If the goal is to
teach daily conversational English, it is best if the text represents normal
spoken English, though an argument can be made for sometimes including texts of
literary and cultural merit (famous orations, poems, etc.) that were also
intended to be read aloud or recited. Having chosen a text, go over it with
students in class and have them take whatever notes they need on pronunciation,
syllable stress, sentence intonation and stressed words. Next have students
practice reading the text aloud (either in class or at home). Students should
become very familiar with the text. Finally, either have students perform the
text in class or -- if the equipment is available -- have them tape a reading
of the text. The advantages of the latter approach are that students don't all
have to listen to each other read the same text, and that you can listen at
your leisure. [5,95]
1.5
Aspects of pronunciation
Many
students tend to think of pronunciation primarily as accurate production of the
sounds of English words, but this is neither the only aspect of the problem nor
the only important one. Consequently, one way in which you can help students
improve is by ensuring that they are aware of all of the important issues. (see Appendix
4)
1)
Accurate pronunciation of sounds: This is really two problems, one of ability
and one of knowledge. Students first need to learn to pronounce as many of the
sounds of English as possible accurately. The particular sounds with which
students will have difficulty depend to a large extent on students' first
language, but there are some sounds in English such as the "th"
sounds in "think" and "this", or the short vowels in
"head," "hit," and "put" which are difficult for
students from many language backgrounds.
The
second problem is making sure that students know what sounds they should
pronounce in a given word. Common pronunciation problems include omitting
sounds, adding extra ones, or simply pronouncing the wrong sound.
2)
Syllable stress: Unlike many other languages, English requires that one
syllable in each word be stressed more than others. The importance of putting
the stress on the right syllable in English cannot be underestimated; putting
the stress on the wrong syllable is more likely to make a word unintelligible
than is mispronouncing one of its sounds. For many students who are especially
hard to understand, misplaced syllable stress is the main problem.
3)
Sentence word stress: In English sentences, not all words are given equal
emphasis. Key words (usually the words that contain new or important
information) are stressed and pronounced more slowly and clearly than other
words. Take, for example, the question "Are you going to go to
Boston?" If the focus of the question is on where the listener will go,
the sentence will sound something like "Ya gonna go ta Boston"; the
word "Boston" would be pronounced clearly and with more emphasis. If,
in contrast, the emphasis is on who is going, the sentence would sound like
"Are you gonna go ta Boston?" While students don't necessarily need
to learn to reduce the unimportant words in sentence, they should learn to
stress key ones. (Students should also be made aware of English word reductions
for listening comprehension.)
4)
Sentence intonation: Intonation patterns in English sentences primarily
indicate the degree of certainty of an utterance, i.e. whether it is a
statement, question, or suggestion. Statements rise to a plateau, and then end
with falling intonation. Most questions end in rising intonation; however, Wh-
questions (who, what, where, when, why and how) end with falling intonation. It
is important for students to learn these patterns not only in order to
communicate meaning, but also in order to avoid unwittingly sounding rude or
indecisive.
5)
Enunciation: A final important aspect of pronunciation is clear enunciation.
Some students lack confidence in speaking or are unsure of their pronunciation,
and therefore speak either very quietly or unclearly. Obviously this makes them
more difficult to understand, and students should therefore be reminded that
speaking audibly and clearly is an important aspect of pronunciation.
The
ideal approach to student pronunciation problems is for you to work
individually with each student, listening for problems, explaining the proper
pronunciation (intonation, etc.), modelling correct pronunciation, and
listening to the student practice. However, this is usually not possible
because of time limitations and class size, so the discussion below will focus
on approaches which can be used with a class. [6,52]
1.6
The role of teaching Pronunciation in FLT
Teaching
English pronunciation is an area of language teaching that many English
teachers avoid. While there are many textbooks and instruction manuals
available, as well as books on the theories and methodologies of language
teaching there is comparatively little on learning pronunciation.
Why?
Is it because we don't need to teach pronunciation or because it cannot be
taught?
Certainly,
we need to teach pronunciation. There is a big difference between a ship and a
sheep and a pear and a bear! When teaching any language as a foreign or second
language, our first goal for our students is basic communication, and that
can't happen if no one can understand what they are saying.
How
NOT to Teach Pronunciation
When
teachers decide to focus on pronunciation practise many of them make the
mistake of trying to teach pronunciation along with introducing vocabulary.
This can work with students who have a "good ear," or who perhaps
speak a related language. However it can be hit and miss with students whose
mother tongue has no relation to the target language.
This
brings us back to the question of whether pronunciation can be effectively
taught at all? The answer is yes, of course it can be taught, it's just that
the way many textbooks tell us to teach it is actually one of the least
effective.
Most
textbooks will have you drill pronunciation with repetition of the vocabulary.
Some of the better ones will have you work on it with spelling, which is an
important skill, especially in English with its many irregularities and
exceptions. Very few will start you and your students where you need to start,
however, and that is at the level of the phoneme.
Start
with Phonemes (but not necessarily phonetic script)
The
dictionary defines "phoneme" as "any of the perceptually distinct
units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another,
for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat."
This definition highlights one of the key reasons that we must, as language
teachers, start our pronunciation instruction at the level of the phoneme. If a
phoneme is a "perceptually distinct unit of sound" then we have to
realize that before students can consistently produce a given phoneme, they
must be able to hear it. Thus the first lessons in pronunciation should involve
your students listening and identifying, rather than speaking. [7,85]
Introduce
your phonemes in contrasting pairs like /t/ and /d/. Repeat the phonemes in
words as well as in isolation and ask the students to identify them. In order
to visually represent the differences they are listening for, you may want to
draw pronunciation diagrams for each sound showing the placement of the tongue
and lips.
You
might also consider teaching your students the necessary symbols from the
phonetic alphabet, because although T and D are written differently in English,
the TH in "there" and the TH in "thanks" are written
exactly the same, despite the difference in pronunciation. This isn't
essential, and really works best with adults rather than children, but it is
worth it for any students who are highly visual or analytical learners.
You
can play all sorts of matching games with this material to make the drills more
fun and less stressful. You can have students play with nonsense sounds and
focus on the tiny differences between contrasted phonemic pairs, the key being
to get them to hear the phoneme.
All
these games are included in the English Language Games Digital Book for adults
with 163 games and activities!
From
Recognition of Phonemes to Practise
Once
they can hear and identify a phoneme, it's time to practice accurate production
of the sound. For this, pronunciation diagrams are useful. Your students need to
be able to see where to put their lips and tongues in relation to their teeth.
Most sounds are articulated inside your mouth and students have no idea what
you are doing in order to produce that particular noise. If you have ever tried
to teach a Japanese student how to say an American /r/, then you have
experienced the frustration of trying to get a student to produce tongue
movements they can't see. There are books out there with diagrams, and with a
little practice you can probably produce sketches of them yourself. If you
can't, get hold of a good reference book so that you can flip to the relevant
pages. Your students will thank you for this insight into the mouth, especially
since there is no danger of the embarrassment of bad breath with a drawing. [8, 26]
While
this may sound time consuming and unnatural, you have to realize that you are
in the process of reprogramming you students' brains, and it is going to take a
while. New neural pathways have to be created to learn new facial movements and
link them with meaning.
In
the classroom, we are recreating an accelerated version of the infant's
language learning experience. We are providing examples and stimulus through
grammar and vocabulary lessons, but with pronunciation lessons we are also
breaking down language to the point of babbling noises so that our students can
play with the sounds, as infants do, and learn to distinguish meaningful sounds
on an intuitive level while making use of more mature analytical skills that an
infant doesn't have.
If
you regularly take ten minutes of your lesson to do this kind of focused
phonemic practice, your students articulation and perception of phonemes will
see improvement after several weeks, and you will get them all to the point
where you can practice pronunciation on a word or even a sentential level.
Pronunciation
games for children can be found in this English Language Games for Children
book: English Language Games for Children
Moving
on to Pronunciation of Words
The
progress will be more pronounced with younger students, but even adults will
begin to give up fossilized pronunciation errors when reciting vocabulary words
in isolation. It's time to make the next leap – correct pronunciation in the
context of natural conversation. Make no mistake; this is a leap, not because
it is more physically challenging, but because you are about to address a
completely different set of barriers.
When
we teach on the phonemic level, we are struggling to expand physical and
neurological limitations. We are taking irrelevant noises and making them
significant to our students, while trying to teach them a greater range of
articulation with their mouths, tongues, and lips. But when we work on
pronunciation at a lexical or sentential level, we are dealing with complex emotional,
psychological, and cultural motivations that require their own kind of
re-education.
Three
Big Barriers to Good English Pronunciation
Anxiety,
learned helplessness and cultural identity are the three biggest barriers to
students' successful adoption of a second language. Not every student will have
all of these problems, but it is a sure thing that all of them will have at
least one of these problems to a greater or lesser extent. As English teachers
we have to find ways to bring these problems to our students' attention in
non-threatening ways, as well as suggest tools and strategies for dealing with
them.
Anxiety
is a fairly straightforward problem to discover. Students who feel a lot of
anxiety in speaking are generally well aware of the situation and they know
that it is impeding their progress. The impact on pronunciation specifically
can be seen in their unwillingness to experiment with sounds, a general lack of
fluency that makes it hard to blend sounds correctly, and poor control of the
sentential elements of pronunciation, such as intonation and syllable stress.
The best remedy for anxiety is highly structured, low- pressure practise. In
other words – games.
Jazz
chants, handclap rhymes, reader's theatre, and dialog practise from textbooks
can all be helpful. Structure and repetition reduce the pressure on the
students and allow them to focus on pronunciation and intonation. Classroom
rituals, like starting the lesson with a set greeting and reading aloud a
letter from the teacher are also excellent ways to integrate pronunciation
practise into the rest of the lesson while reducing stress for the student.
Rote phrases, drilled for correct pronunciation, will eventually be
internalized and the correct pronunciation will improve overall pronunciation. [9,74]
Learned
helplessness is much harder to bring to a students attention, and may be
difficult for the teacher to recognize. The term "learned
helplessness" comes from psychology and refers to the reaction people and
animals have to a hopeless situation. Basically, after trying something several
times and consistently being unable to get a positive result, we shut down. We
stop trying. If students are getting negative feedback on their English skills,
especially pronunciation, and if they try to improve but feel they haven't,
then they stop trying. You might think they are being lazy, but in fact they
simply don't believe they can improve. They have already given up.
Luckily,
once it is recognized, the fix is pretty easy: stay positive, praise frequently
and specifically, and periodically tape students speaking so that they can hear
the difference after a few months. If you can coax even a little progress out
of a student, then tell the student exactly what they just did right (For
example: The difference between your short /a/ and short /e/ were really clear
that time! Let's do it again!). Tape the students reading or reciting a passage
at the beginning of the year, then tape the same passage every couple of
months. Play the tapes for you student and let them hear how much they have
improved over the course of a few months. They will probably impress
themselves, and you!
Finally,
the question of cultural identity has to be dealt with. Students that don't
want to be assimilated into an English speaking society aren't going to give up
the things that mark them as different. An accent is a clear message about
one's roots and history, and many people may be unwilling to completely give it
up. As teachers, we need to ensure that students' can be easily understood by
others, but we don't have to strive for some hypothetical Standard English
pronunciation. In fact, we should highlight for our class that after a certain
point, accents don't matter much at all.
Some
fun activities that can help your students become more sensitive to the subject
of accents are doing impersonations, listening to native regional accents and
teaching you a phrase in their own language. [10,58]
Impersonations
can be done as a class. Students can impersonate famous people, like John Wayne
or Nicholas Cage, or they can impersonate teachers – always a fun activity! The
idea is to have them take on a whole different identity and try out the
pronunciation that goes with it. Often, your students will produce the best
English pronunciation of their lives when impersonating someone else. Be sure
to tape them for this as well, since it proves that they can use English
pronunciation in a conversation or monologue.
2.
Correcting learners’ pronunciation mistakes
I had many students
who have obtained an amazing vocabulary and whose grammar is the envy of other
students. It is just too bad that no one can understand what they are saying.
As an ESL teacher, your first priority is to help your students develop their
pronunciation skills. Without proper pronunciation, other aspects of English
such as vocabulary and grammar become useless if a student cannot be understood
when he uses the language.
While
pronunciation is the most important component of any ESL class, it is usually
also the least interesting in the eyes of the students. Here are some tips to
help you make the most out of teaching pronunciation to your ESL students:
–Never
be shy to correct your students’ pronunciation in class. Wait until the student
has completed the thought and then ask the class to repeat words that you think
were not pronounced properly. Never interrupt a student in mid sentence.
–When
you are teaching an ESL class about a particular topic, always spend at least
10 minutes teaching the pronunciation of new vocabulary words to students. As
they use the vocabulary words, correct pronunciation as necessary.
–Use
fun methods to teach pronunciation. One such method is by using a stick (or
some kind of pointer) to point at each word. When you point, the students
should repeat the word. If you don’t point, there should be complete silence.
There will always be a student or two who will still say the word after you
have pointed three or four times and suddenly stop. You can make a competition
to see who is paying attention. Divide the classroom into five teams and give
each team pictures of the vocabulary words or actual objects if they are
available. When you call a word, the team that is responsible for that word
should stand up and say the word in unison. As the game progresses, you can try
to trick the teams by saying a vocabulary word but pointing at a team that is
not responsible for the word. You can grade each team (using stars on the
board) based on how every team member reacts, loudness, and togetherness.
–Always
focus both on the group and invididuals when practing pronunciation. Having the
group repeat after you is helpful, but it is also important to have individual
students repeat after you to make sure that bad pronunciation does not get
hidden in the group.
–Never
allow your students to laugh at one another during pronunciation practice.
Being laughed at can seriously damage a student’s inspiration to want to learn
English. It is important to promote an environment were students can feel very
comfortable with speaking outloud in class.
–If
your students are having trouble with a particular word or sound, ask them to
watch your mouth as you repeat the word. They can attempt to imitate the shape
of your mouth which will help improve their pronunciation. [14,78]
2.1
New ways of correcting spoken errors
1.
Collect the errors for later
You
can then correct them later in the same class (with a game like a grammar
auction or just eliciting corrections from the class) or in a future class (for
example writing error dictation pairwork worksheets or using the same
techniques as can be used in the same class). Make sure you give positive
reinforcement as well, e.g. “Someone said this sentence, and that is really
good.” (see Appendix 1)
2.
Facial expression
For
example, raise an eyebrow, tilt your head to one side or give a slight frown.
Most people will do this naturally, but there is a slight chance a teacher’s
expression will be too critical or too subtle for your students to pick up on,
and you can (amusingly) practice facial expressions in a teaching workshop by
participants communicating certain typical classroom messages (“move over there
to work with this person”, “work in pairs” etc.) using just their heads and
faces, including feedback on spoken errors in that list.
3.
Body language
The
problems with using body language to show errors could also be that it is taken
as very serious criticism or that it is too vague. Possibilities include using
your hands (rolling a hand from side to side to mean “so-so attempt”; making a
circle by moving your index finger to mean “one more time”; or a cross with
fingers, open palms or even forearms to show a very clear “no” or “wrong”-
probably only suitable for a team game etc where the responsibility is shared),
head (tilted to one side to mean “I’m not sure that sounds correct”), or
shoulders (hunched to reinforce “I don’t understand what you are saying”).
Again, practising this in a teaching workshop can be useful, as can eliciting
other body language teachers could have used after an observation.
4.
Point at the correct language
If
you have something on the correct form easily accessible on the whiteboard, in
the textbook or on a poster, just pointing at it can be a subtle but clear way
of prompting students to use the correct language. What you point at could be
the name of the tense or word form they are supposed to be using, a verb forms
table or the actual correct verb form, a grammatical explanation, or another
grammatical hint such as “future”, “prediction” or “polite”.
5.
Repeat what they said
This
can mean repeating the whole sentence, one section of it including the wrong
part, the sentence up to the wrong part, the sentence with the wrong part
missed out (with maybe a humming noise to show the gap that should be filled)
or just the wrong part. You can illustrate that you are showing them an error
and give some hint as to which bit is wrong by using a questioning tone (for
everything you say or just for the wrong part). This method is overused by some
teachers and can sound patronising if used too often or with the wrong tone of
voice, so try to mix up the different versions of it described here and to
alternate with methods described in the other tips.
6.
Just say the right version
The
students can then repeat the correct version or tell you what the difference
between the two sentences was and why their version was wrong. Because the
students don’t do much of the work in this way of being corrected, it might not
be as good a way of remembering the correction as methods where you give more
subtle clues. Its advantages are that it is quick and suits cultures, classes
and students that think of elicitation as shirking by the teacher. It can also
be more face-saving than asking them for self-correction, as trying to correct
themselves risks making even more mistakes. The “right version” could mean the
whole sentence or just the correction of the part that was wrong. In the latter
case, you can then ask them to put it into the sentence in the right place and
repeat the whole thing.
7.
Tell them how many mistakes
This
method is only really suitable for controlled speaking practice, but can be a
very simple way of giving feedback in that situation. Examples include “Most of
the comparatives were right, but you made two mistakes” and “Three words are in
the wrong position in the sentence/ are mixed up”. Make sure you only use this
method when students can remember what you are referring to without too much
prompting.
Other
useful language:
“Very
good, but you made just one mistake with the passive”
(For
a tongue twister) “Good attempt/ Getting better, but in two places you said
/sh/ where it should have been /s/. Can you guess which words?”
8.
Use grammatical terminology to identify the mistake
For
example, “(You used) the wrong tense”, “Not the Present Perfect”, “You need an
adverb, not an adjective” or “Can change that into the passive/ indirect
speech?” This method is perhaps overused, and you need to be sure that the
grammatical terminology isn’t just going to confuse them more.
Other
useful language:
“Because
that is the present simple, you need to add the auxiliary (verb) ‘do’”
“Say
the same sentence, but with the comparative form”
9.
Give the rule
For
example, “‘Since’ usually takes the Present Perfect” or “One syllable
adjectives make the comparative with –er, not more + adjective” This works best
if they already know the rule, and you at least need to make sure that they
will quickly understand what you are saying, for example by only using
grammatical terminology you have used with them several times before.
10.
Give a number of points
This
is probably best saved for part of a game, especially one where students work
together, but you can give each response a number of points out of 10. The same
or other teams can then make another attempt at saying the same thing to see if
they can get more points. If you don’t want students to focus on accuracy too
much, tell them that the points will also give them credit for good
pronunciation, fluency, politeness, persuasiveness and/ or originality of
ideas.
Useful
language:
“Very
good fluency and very interesting, but a few basic mistakes, so I’ll give your
team a score of (IELTS) 5.5. Practice your script in your team again for 5
minutes and we’ll try it one more time”
“You
got all the articles right this time, so I’ll give you 9 out of 10”
11.
Just tell them they are wrong (but nicely)
Positive
ways of being negative include “nearly there”, “getting closer”, “just one
mistake”, “much better”, “good idea, but…”,”I understand what you mean but…”,
“you have made a mistake that almost everyone does/ that’s a very common
mistake”, “we haven’t studied this yet, but…” and “much better pronunciation,
but…” With lower level and new classes, you might have to balance the need to
be nice with the need to be clear and not confuse them with feedback language
that they don’t understand, perhaps by sticking to one or two phrases to give
feedback for the first couple of months. It can also be useful to give them
translations of this and other classroom language you will use, for example on
a worksheet or a poster.
12.
Tell them what part they should change
For
example, “You need to change the introduction to your presentation” or “Try
replacing the third word with something else”.
13.
Ask partners to spot errors
This
is a fairly well-known way of giving feedback in speaking tasks, but it can be
a minefield if the person giving feedback has no confidence in their ability to
do so or in how well the feedback (i.e. criticism) will be taken, and even more
so if the person receiving the feedback will in fact react badly. This method
is easier to do and easier to take when they have been told specifically which
language to use while speaking and so to look out for when listening, usually
meaning controlled speaking practice tasks. The feedback can be made even
simpler to give and collect and more neutral with some careful planning, e.g.
asking them count how many times their partner uses the target form as well as
or instead of looking for when it used incorrectly.
14.
Try again!
Sometimes,
students don’t need much help at all but just a chance to do it again. This is
likely to be true if you have trained them well in spotting their own errors,
if there was some other kind of mental load such as a puzzle to solve that was
distracting them from the language, or if they have had a chance to hear
someone else doing the same speaking task in the class or on a recording.
Useful
language:
“One
more time (but think about the grammar more this time/ but concentrating on
making less mistakes instead of speaking quickly)”
“Give
it another go”
“Do
you want one more chance before you get the final score”.
15.
Remind them when you studied that point
For
example, “Nearly right, but you’ve forgotten the grammar that we studied last
week” or “You’ve made the same mistake as everyone made in the last test”. (see Appendix
2)
2.2
Correcting Without Hurting
Many
teachers, especially if they are new to teaching ESL classes, may be a little
intimated by the prospect of having to teach pronunciation. But, just like
almost every thing else, if the process is broken down into small manageable
steps, the task is not all that daunting. This site is an attempt to do just
that- to break the process of teaching pronunciation down into smaller steps.
Why
is proper pronunciation important? Because without correct pronunciation- no
matter how vast the students vocabulary may be, no matter how well the student
understands and uses grammatical rules, no matter what their level of reading
or writing skills may be- if they don't use correct pronunciation it may be
very difficult for listeners to understand what they say. And that is a huge
hindrance to communication. In addition, some research indicates that if a
student can not pronounce a word correctly, they may not be able to hear it
when spoken by another person either, which furthers hinders communication.
Students
from different languages have different pronunciation difficulties. Not all
sounds in the English language are common to other languages. For example, some
languages do not have an 'r' sound, so students use a similar sound 'l'
instead. So when a students says "What a lovely libbon", the native
English is totally confused. Or maybe in a student's native tongue there is no
distinction between 'b' and 'p'. Just imagine the misunderstanding that will
result if a teachers says "I need to be on that bus" and the student
hears "I need to pee on that bus".
When
teaching pronunciation, teachers are giving feedback to their student about how
they are saying things. This feedback includes what the problem is and what
they need to do to correct it. This feedback may include where to place the
tongue in the mouth to say particular words, or how the lips should be formed,
or the action of the tongue when saying specific sounds.
Mastering
proper pronunciation is not just a matter of learning individual sounds. Many
students can hear and make the different sounds for all the vowels and
consonants in English. Unfortunately, they also have to contend with the sound
changes that occur with different letter combinations resulting from linking or
reduction of vowels and consonants, not to mention stress, pitch, and intonation
differences between their native tongue and English.
That's
basically all there is to teaching pronunciation- giving feedback and ensuring
that the student uses the feedback to improve their speaking skills. That along
with providing adequate practice to the students to hear the sounds and practice making
the sounds. Remember (as some research implies) if a student can't say a sound,
they won't be able to hear it either. [16,102]
2.3
Mistakes Made During Discussions and Activities
With
oral mistakes made during class discussions, there are basically two schools of
thought: 1) Correct often and thoroughly 2) Let students make mistakes.
Sometimes, teachers refine the choice by choosing to let beginners make many
mistakes while correcting advanced students often.
However,
many teachers are taking a third route these days. This third route might be
called 'selective correction'. In this case, the teacher decides to correct
only certain errors. Which errors will be corrected is usually decided by the
objectives of the lesson, or the specific exercise that is being done at that
moment. In other words, if students are focusing on simple past irregular
forms, then only mistakes in those forms are corrected (i.e., goed, thinked,
etc.). Other mistakes, such as mistakes in a future form, or mistakes of
collocations (for example: I made my homework) are ignored.
Finally,
many teachers also choose to correct students after the fact. Teachers take
notes on common mistakes that students make. During the follow-up correction
session the teacher then presents common mistakes made so that all can benefit
from an analysis of which mistakes were made and why.
Written
Mistakes
There
are three basic approaches to correcting written work: 1) Correct each mistake
2) Give a general impression marking 3) Underline mistakes and / or give clues
to the type of mistakes made and then let students correct the work themselves.
(see
Appendix 3)
Fuss
There
are two main points to this issue:
If I
allow students to make mistakes, I will reinforce the errors they are making.
Many
teachers feel that if they do not correct mistakes immediately, they will be
helping reinforce incorrect language production skills. This point of view is
also reinforced by students who often expect teachers to continually correct
them during class. The failure to do so will often create suspicion on the part
of the students.
If I
don't allow students to make mistakes, I will take away from the natural
learning process required to achieve competency and, eventually, fluency.
Learning
a language is a long process during which a learner will inevitably make many,
many mistakes. In other words we take a myriad of tiny steps going from not
speaking a language to being fluent in the language. In the opinion of many
teachers, students who are continually corrected become inhibited and cease to
participate. This results in the exact opposite of what the teacher is trying
to produce - the use of English to communicate. [17,52]
2.4
Problems of correcting students’ pronunciation
Look
at these statements about correction of students' oral work. What do you think?
Advanced
students need loads of correction, beginners hardly any. When you start to
learn a language you need to be able to communicate imperfectly in lots of
situations, not perfectly in a few. The teacher's job is to support learners as
they blunder through a range of communicative scenarios, not badger them
because they forget the third person -s. With advanced learners the opposite is
usually the case.
The
jury is out on the question of whether correcting students, however you do it,
has any positive effect on their learning. There is some evidence, though, that
time spent on correcting learners may be wasted.
Research
into Second Language Acquisition has suggested that it may be that some
language forms can be acquired more quickly through being given special
attention while others may be acquired in the learners' own time, regardless of
teacher attention. This helps explain, for example, why intermediate learners
usually omit third person -s just like beginners, but often form questions with
do correctly, unlike beginners.
There
is little point correcting learners if they don’t have a fairly immediate
opportunity to redo whatever they were doing and get it right.
Learners
need the opportunity for a proper rerun of the communication scenario in which
they made the error, if they are to have any chance of integrating the correct
form into their English. Whether the error was teacher-corrected,
peer-corrected or self-corrected in the first place is of relatively minor
importance.
Lots
of learners and teachers think correction is important.
Is
this because it helps them to learn and teach or helps them to feel like
learners and teachers?
The
problem with some learners is they don’t make enough mistakes.
Accurate
but minimal contributions in speaking activities are unlikely to benefit
learning as much as inaccurate but extended participation. Learners can be
hampered by their own inhibitions and attitudes to accuracy and errors, the
teacher’s attitude and behaviour (conscious or unconscious) to accuracy and
errors or the restricted nature of the activities proposed by the teacher.
Teachers
spend too much time focussing on what students do wrong at the expense of
helping them to get things right.
When
giving feedback to learners on their performance in speaking English, the
emphasis for the teacher should be to discover what learners didn’t say and
help them say that, rather than pick the bones out of what they did say. This
requires the use of activities which stretch learners appropriately and the
teacher listening to what learners aren’t saying. That’s difficult. [18,74]
Correction
slot pro-forma
Here
is a sample correction slot pro-forma which has been filled in with some notes
that a teacher took during a fluency activity for a pre-intermediate class of
Spanish students:
Pronunciation
I go
always to cinema
She
have got a cat…
Does
she can swim?
Swimming
bath my fathers
“Comfortable”
“Bag”–
said “Back”
intonation
very flat (repeat some phrases with more pitch range)
Bodega
Ocio
Yo
que se
I
don't ever see my sister
Have
you seen Minority Report?
Good
pronunciation of AMAZING
Why
use this pro-forma?
It
helps teacher and students identify errors.
It
helps you as a teacher to listen and give balanced feedback.
And
how to use it ?
It
has been divided into four sections. The first two, Grammar/Vocabulary and
Pronunciation, are pretty evident and are what teachers look out for as
'mistakes' in most cases.
The
third slot, L1, means the words that students used in their own language during
the exercise. We believe that in a fluency-based activity, if a student can’t
find the right word in English, they should say it in their own language so as
not to impede the flow. An attentive teacher (who also knows her students' L1)
will make a quick note of it and bring it up later, eliciting the translation
from the class. If you are teaching a multi-lingual class, you can still use
this column. You don’t have to know the translations. You can prompt the
learners to come up with those. [19, 48]
The
'#' column reminds us to include successful language in feedback. Too often in
correction slots the emphasis is on what went wrong. Here the teacher can write
down examples of good things that happened. This is especially true if the teacher
notices that the students are using a recently taught structure or lexical
item, or if they have pronounced something correctly that they had trouble with
before.
Other
suggestions
You
can copy your filled-in version and hand it out to groups of students to save
writing on the whiteboard. Or simply use it to help you note down language in
an organized way.
You
can fill out separate sheets for each group of students as you listen or even
for each individual student (this would obviously work best with very small
classes!). You can pass them round, have students correct their own, each
others, whatever.
The
advantage of using a set form is that by doing this, you keep an ongoing record
of mistakes that can be stored and exploited for revision lessons, tests or as
a filler for the end of a class. [20, 48]
2.5
Exercises for the Pronunciation of Plurals for English second
language
One
of the most difficult parts of learning to speak English is the correct
pronunciation of plural nouns and verbs. Many of these words simply add a
suffix such as "s," "es" or "ed" to the original
word, and this can be challenging for many English as a Second Language, or
ESL, students to pronounce. The key to improving pronunciation of plurals is
consistent practice and correction combined with listening.
Plural
Noun Pronunciation with S Sounds
Plural
nouns will end in either "s" or "es," and can have an
"s" or "z" sound. This exercise focuses on the
"s" sound, which is used in nouns that end in an unvoiced consonant
sound (e.g., ducks, tops, cats). Depending on the students' native language,
the biggest problem with pronouncing these words correctly is the two
consonants that follow one another, like the "k" and "s"
sound at the end of "ducks." Many other languages consistently insert
vowel sounds between consonant sounds, so "ks" might sound like
"kuh-s" for some students. The key is to focus on flowing from one
consonant sound to the next with no vowel insertion.
Write
the words you wish to focus on for that day's lesson on the board. Underline
the consonant ending (e.g., underline "ts" in "cats") and
pronounce it for the students as if it is one sound. Have each student repeat
the sound. For fun, have them equate the sound to a sound effect. For example,
"ts" sounds like a cymbal on a drum set. Choose a rhythm like "1
2 3 rest," and have them make the sound around the room, keeping the
rhythm. When the sound is comfortable, introduce more words that end with that
sound until it becomes comfortable. [11,84]
Plural
Noun Pronunciation with Z Sounds
If a
noun ends in a voiced consonant sound, it will end with a "z" sound
(e.g., chairs, beds, frogs). Use the previous exercise as a guideline for this
one, but with a focus on the voiced z. To compare, have students place their
hands on their throats. Make the "s" sound, feeling no vibration in
the throat, then make the "z" sound, feeling the throat vibrate with
voice. Explain that these words will use that "z" sound.
Choose
words ending with a specific consonant like "d" or "g" that
will require the "z" sound when pluralized. Follow the exercise
above, creating a rhythm around the room with sounds like "gz," until
there is no vowel sound in between the consonants. When the students are making
the sound successfully, begin adding in the rest of the word.
Plural
Verb Pronunciation
The
problem with plural verbs is similar to plural nouns; while the ending contains
a vowel ("ed") the "e" is often silent. Most students will
be tempted to say "walk-eh-d" instead of "walk-d," for
example. The important thing is to explain to the students that while the
ending is spelled "e-d," it is usually not pronounced "ed."
In fact, the "d" is usually pronounced more like a soft
"t." For plural verbs, it's best to have the students practice saying
first the singular verb, then the plural in rhythm. Too often, ESL students
give up on pronouncing plural verbs because their ears can't hear the
difference. For example, they say "Yesterday, I walk to the store,"
because when a native speaker says the sentence, they can't hear the
"ed."
To
correct this, have the students perform repetition exercises with both singular
and plural verbs side by side. "I walk. I walked." Critical listening
is essential for students before they can master the pronunciation, so speak
and repeat constantly as a guide.
Below
are tips for pronunciation activities you can do with your students, including
links to printable resources and games and links to related web sites. Enjoy!
Poetry
Drama
Bingo
Contrastive
stress
Pronunciation
Partners
Humming
Pronuciation
Scavenger Hunts
Poetry
One interesting way to practice the rythmn or English, as well as such features
as linking is to use poetry. One of the poetry web sites that we like is
Academy of American Poets, which has a large collection of different poems,
many with audio recordings made by the poet.
Walt
Whitman's poetry has also worked well with my students. Try the Poetry of Walt
Whitman web site.
A
neat poetry web site which even includes audio is actually the page for English
88: Modern and Contemporary Poetry at University of Pennsylvania. Check out the
Gertrude Stein and Wi lliam Carlos Williams. [12,74]
Holly
is a big fan of Haiku. It is a good way to have your students practice the
concept of syllable. Holly not only has students read Haiku, but also write
them.
Limericks
can also be really fun and helpful. Their predictable stress pattern makes them
useful for practicing sentence stress. You can find some (clean) limericks on
the web at There once was a man from Nantucket. We've read some in class
(clapping out the rhythm helps students pronounce the stressed and unstressed
syllables), and for homework, they are working on creating their own limericks.
Drama
Drama is also something Sharon used often with my students to practice rythmn,
intonation, linking, etc. It's often a good idea to have students work in pairs
and focus on a particular aspect of pronunciation, su ch as intonation. Have
them decide on the correct intonation, then record the scene, and finally
listen and discuss their recording. The Dramatic Exchange Catalog of Plays is
one good web sites to find scenes to use with your students.
Bingo
One of our favorite activities for a change of pace is PRONUNCIATION BINGO!!!
To play pronunciation bingo, first you need to think up a bunch of words that
sound simiilar (bath, bass, Beth, Bess, bus, but, bat, path, pat, bit, pit,
etc, etc). Now, make up a stack of cards with all your words and bunch of bingo
boards (Sharon has a set of six, and she usually can use them with groups of
20-- it usually doesn't matter if some students the same board. Because it is
rather challenging to distinguish between similar sounds, we normally don't
have more than one winner). For the really adventerous teacher, you can have
the bingo winner read out the words for the next game. Here are word stress
bingo and final consonant bingo boards for you to download and print out.
Contrastive
Stress Practice. Here is another fun activity. Have students write 10 FALSE
sentences. They could be about anything, as only as they are not true. Next
have students read the statements to their pa rtner. The partner must correct
each of the incorrect statements.
For
example: "Christmas is in July." "No, Christmas is in December
."
My
students really like this game, especially when the false sentences are
outrageous!
Pronunciation
Partners. Put students in groups of 4-5. Deal 6 cards to each students and put
the rest face-down on the table. Students take turns asking for a card they
need to complete their set.
Get
cards and detailed instructions from our printable resource page. [13,84]
Humming.
Put students in pairs. Give student A a list of questions or statements. Give
student B a list of replies. Student A should hum the intonation patterns of
his utterances. Student B should reply with the correct response. We like to
make sure that all of the sentences have the same number of syllables so that
Student B really has to listen to the intonation to get the sentence. Example
utterances:
Student
A
Student
B
I
like pizza, pickles, and chips.
(list
intonation)
Not
all together, I hope.
Would
you prefer coffee or tea?
(choice
intonation)
Tea,
please.
Would
you like some ice cream and cake?
(double-rising
intonation)
No,
thank you. I'm not hungry.
Next
week we are flying to Rome.
(falling
intonation)
Really?
How long will you be there?
Is he
going to the dentist?
(rising
intonation)
Yes.
He has a toothache.
Pronuciation
Scavenger Hunts.
These
are so fun and successful that they deserve a section of their own.Segmentals. Ask students to
find as many objects as they can with a specific vowel or consonant sound. If
the weather is nice, send them outside. Bring in books or magazines with lots
of pictures to stimulate their minds.
Conclusion
Speaking
is so important in my opinion, in acquiring and using a language, and
language-competence covers so many aspects. Phonetics, both theory and practice
constitute the basis of speaking above all other aspects of language in my
opinion. Speaking is a tool of communication. Many teachers, especially if they
are new to teaching ESL classes, may be a little intimated by the prospect of
having to teach pronunciation. But, just like almost every thing else, if the
process is broken down into small manageable steps, the task is not all that
daunting. This site is an attempt to do just that- to break the process of
teaching pronunciation down into smaller steps.
Why
is proper pronunciation important? Because without correct pronunciation- no
matter how vast the students vocabulary may be, no matter how well the student
understands and uses grammatical rules, no matter what their level of reading
or writing skills may be- if they don't use correct pronunciation it may be
very difficult for listeners to understand what they say. And that is a huge
hindrance to communication. In addition, some research indicates that if a
student can not pronounce a word correctly, they may not be able to hear it
when spoken by another person either, which furthers hinders communication. The
students can then repeat the correct version or tell you what the difference
between the two sentences was and why their version was wrong. Because the
students don’t do much of the work in this way of being corrected, it might not
be as good a way of remembering the correction as methods where you give more
subtle clues. Its advantages are that it is quick and suits cultures, classes
and students that think of elicitation as shirking by the teacher. It can also
be more face-saving than asking them for self-correction, as trying to correct
themselves risks making even more mistakes. The “right version” could mean the
whole sentence or just the correction of the part that was wrong. In the latter
case, you can then ask them to put it into the sentence in the right place and
repeat the whole thing.
The
best way is: while they are talking or reading in class, you shuldn't interrupt
them in the middle of the conversation or text. Let them finish first and then
you can correct pronunciation mistakes by using those words and phrases frequantly
in different ways, making students take part in activities too. Don't directly
correct the student who's made a pronuncation mistake. This will cause him/her
to lose self confidence and be discouraged.
Students
from different languages have different pronunciation difficulties. Not all
sounds in the English language are common to other languages. For example, some
languages do not have an 'r' sound, so students use a similar sound 'l'
instead. So when a students says "What a lovely libbon", the native
English is totally confused. Or maybe in a student's native tongue there is no
distinction between 'b' and 'p'. Just imagine the misunderstanding that will
result if a teachers says "I need to be on that bus" and the student
hears "I need to pee on that bus".
When
teaching pronunciation, teachers are giving feedback to their student about how
they are saying things. This feedback includes what the problem is and what
they need to do to correct it. This feedback may include where to place the
tongue in the mouth to say particular words, or how the lips should be formed,
or the action of the tongue when saying specific sounds. One of the most
difficult parts of learning to speak English is the correct pronunciation of
plural nouns and verbs. Many of these words simply add a suffix such as
"s," "es" or "ed" to the original word, and this
can be challenging for many English as a Second Language, or ESL, students to
pronounce. The key to improving pronunciation of plurals is consistent practice
and correction combined with listening.
Mastering
proper pronunciation is not just a matter of learning individual sounds. Many
students can hear and make the different sounds for all the vowels and
consonants in English. Unfortunately, they also have to contend with the sound
changes that occur with different letter combinations resulting from linking or
reduction of vowels and consonants, not to mention stress, pitch, and
intonation differences between their native tongue and English.
That's
basically all there is to teaching pronunciation- giving feedback and ensuring
that the student uses the feedback to improve their speaking skills. That along
with providing adequate practice to the students to hear the sounds and practice making
the sounds. Remember (as some research implies) if a student can't say a sound,
they won't be able to hear it either.
Bibliography
1 Bell M. (1996). Teaching pronunciation and
intonation to E.F.L. learners in Korea. Retrieved on 14 October, 2004. – p.255
2 Brown H. Principles of language learning
and teaching. New York: Pearson Education. 2000. – p.365
3 Dalton D. Some techniques for teaching
pronunciation. The Internet TESOL Journal, Vol. III, No. 1, January. Retrieved
on 14 October, 2004, from
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