Teaching Pronunciation

Teaching Pronunciation

Aims of the unit1. What role does pronunciation play in language

learning?2. What is the goal of teaching pronunciation?3. What aspects of pronunciation do we need to teach?4. How can teachers help the students to practice pronunciation?

6.1 The role of pronunciation

Two points of views on teaching pronunciation: • Students do not need to learn pronunciation,

because pronunciation will take care of itself as the students develop overall language ability.

• Failure in pronunciation is a great hindrance in language learning. Therefore the teacher should spend some time in teaching pronunciation.

Whether pronunciation needs special attention of focus depends

on many factors, especially learner factors.

• for example:

• Learners whose native language has similar sounds to English vs. those whose native language has very different sounds from English;

• Learners who have more exposure to English vs. those who only learn English in the class;

• Adult learners vs. young ones.

• We should pay attention to the distinction between pronunciation and phonetics.

• The teaching of pronunciation should focus on the students’ ability to identify and produce English sounds themselves. Students should NOT be led to focus on reading and writing phonetic transcripts of words, especially young students, because phonetic transcripts are more abstract and less meaningful.

• Introduction to phonetic rules should be avoided at the beginning stage.

• Stress and intonation should be taught from the very beginning.

• e.g.

A: Would you please turn down the radio a little bit?

B: Sorry.↘ (with a sharp falling: No, I don’t want to.)

Or:B: Sorry.↗(with a rising: What did you say?)

6.2 The goal of teaching pronunciation

• Should we require the students to acquire native-like pronunciation? Or rather:

• Can the students achieve that goal?

To answer the second question, we must take into consideration three things:

*learner age, *amount of exposure, and

*differences of individual ability.

1. Learner age

The Critical Period Hypothesis: (pp. 92-93)

The hypothesis claims that if humans do not learn a foreign language before a certain age (perhaps around puberty 青春期 ), then it becomes impossible to learn the foreign language like a native speaker because of changes such as maturation of the brain.

• The hypothesis is still controversial/debated, because both positive and negative answers have been given by researchers.

• Most people agree, however, that those who learn a foreign language after puberty will have an accent.

2. Amount of exposure

• At the present time, most Chinese learners of English do not have enough exposure to English to acquire native-like pronunciation.

3. Differences of individual ability

• Students have different phonetic abilities due to biological and physiological differences. Some are more sensitive to sounds and are better at imitating sounds than others.

The realistic goals (p. 93)

• Consistency: Be smooth and natural. fluency）

• Intelligibility: Be understandable.• Communicative efficiency: Convey the

meaning that is intended.

6.3 Aspects of pronunciation

• Pronunciation covers more than just phonetic symbols and rules. It also includes stress, intonation, and rhythm, and all these are not isolated from each other.

• Stress and intonation are often neglected by many learners.

• Sometimes stress and intonation matter more than the individual sounds do.

• As far as pronunciation is concerned, students benefit from both mechanical practice and meaningful practice.

6.4 Practising sounds

• Pronunciation is difficult to teach without drills on sounds. However, drilling an individual sound for more than a few minutes a time may be boring and demotivating.

• It is important to combine drilling pronunciation exercise with more meaningful exercises. (e.g. A polliwog looks for his mom.)

• Sometimes we need to focus on some individual sounds,

e.g th [W] in theme, th [T] in them

Perception practice and Production practice

• Ways of perception practice: (pp. 95-96) • Aim: to develop the ability to identify

and distinguish between different sounds.

Ways of perception practice: (p. 54)

Ways of perception practice: (pp. 95-96)

• Using minimal pairs. e.g. “Which word is read?”

will, welltill, tellfill, fell

Ways of perception practice: (pp. 95-96)

• Which order?.

e.g. You hear: “…”

and you read: bit bet pet

You hear: “…”

and you read: bear tear ear

Ways of perception practice: (pp. 95-96)

• Same or different? e.g. You hear:

met, meetwell, wellwell, will

Ways of perception practice: (pp. 95-96)

• Odd man out. e.g. You hear:

bit, bit, bit, pit

Ways of perception practice: (pp. 95-96)

Completion. e.g. You hear: gate, late, fate, date, hate,

rate, Kate

and you write: ate, ate, ate, ate, ate, …

Perception practice and Production practice

Production practice (pp. 97 – 98) Aim: to develop the ability to produce

soundsWays of production practice:

Ways of production practice (pp.97-98)

• Listen and repeat. • Fill in the blanks. • Make up sentences. (last, fast, calm,dark…• Use meaningful context. • Use pictures. • Use tongue twisters.

A tongue twister

A big black bug bit the back of a big black bear.

The big black bear bit the back of a big black pig.

When the big black bug bit the back of the big black bear,

The big black pig bit back the big black bear.

6.5 Practising stress and intonation

Practising stress: • Use gestures. (by clapping hands or using arm

movements.)• Use the voice. (by raising the voice)• Use the blackboard. (by underlining or

colouring)

Practising intonation : • Use hand or arm movement.• Use arrows (↘ for falling, ↗for rising)• Draw lines under/above the words:

Did you get some | tic|kets for the |con|cert ↗?

Summary: some essentials of teaching pronunciation

• Create a pleasant, relaxed, and dynamic classroom.

• Use gestures.• Build-up Students’ confidence.• Bring variety to the classroom, e.g. Br. &

Am. • Use demo rather than explanation.• Use visual aids.

Homework

• What is the goal of teaching pronunciation?

• What aspects of pronunciation do we need to teach?

• What are the two practice activities suggested for teaching pronunciation?