Background Communication can be a tricky business, especially when the listener and speaker are from different linguistic backgrounds. There are pitfalls aplenty with poor word choice and improper inflection, and there are numerous reasons a student has difficulty reproducing the sounds of English correctly. Perhaps pronunciation had little focus in previous classes, or maybe the student has never had any formal language instruction. Even students with significant educational experience can have problems. Perhaps early pronunciation was taught by nonnative speakers who themselves have oral production problems. Maybe the student’s first language contains different phonemes and the student simply cannot hear the sounds, let alone accurately replicate them. A consideration of learner’s pronunciation errors and of how these can inhibit successful communication is a useful basis on which to assess why it is important to deal with pronunciation in the classroom. There are two key problems with pronunciation teaching. Firstly it tends to be neglected. And secondly when it is not neglected, it tends to be reactive to a particular problem that has arisen in the classroom rather than being strategically planned. 1
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Background
Communication can be a tricky business, especially when the listener and speaker are
from different linguistic backgrounds. There are pitfalls aplenty with poor word choice
and improper inflection, and there are numerous reasons a student has difficulty
reproducing the sounds of English correctly. Perhaps pronunciation had little focus in
previous classes, or maybe the student has never had any formal language instruction.
Even students with significant educational experience can have problems. Perhaps early
pronunciation was taught by nonnative speakers who themselves have oral production
problems. Maybe the student’s first language contains different phonemes and the student
simply cannot hear the sounds, let alone accurately replicate them. A consideration of
learner’s pronunciation errors and of how these can inhibit successful communication is a
useful basis on which to assess why it is important to deal with pronunciation in the
classroom.
There are two key problems with pronunciation teaching. Firstly it tends to be neglected.
And secondly when it is not neglected, it tends to be reactive to a particular problem that
has arisen in the classroom rather than being strategically planned.
A question we need to answer is how good our students’ pronunciation ought to be.
Should they sound like native speakers, so perfect that just by listening to them we would
assume that they were British or American or Australian? Or is this asking too much?
Perhaps we should be happy if they can at least make themselves understood.
Discussion
Difficulties in FL Pronunciation
Two particular problems occur in much pronunciation teaching and learning
What student can hear: some students have great difficulty hearing pronunciation
features which we want them to reproduce. There are 2 ways of dealing with this:
1. show them how sounds are made through demonstration, diagrams and
explanation.
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2. draw the sounds to their attention every time they appear on a tape or in our own
conversation
The intonation problem: Some of us and many of our students find it extremely
difficult to hear ‘tunes’ or to identify the different patterns of rising and falling
tones.
Material in pronunciation
There are various features of pronunciation.
A. Vowels
Vowels are articulated when a voiced airstream is shaped using the tongue and the lips
to modify the overall shape of the mouth. English speakers generally use twelve pure
vowels and eight diphtongs.
Sound should be dealt with in class as and when theneeed arises. This can be done
remedially as a reaction to a communicative difficulty which occurs in class, or because
the sounds are an important feature of the grammar or lexis being taught. Sounds can
also be practised in their own right, as a way of focusing on a particular area of
difficulty for examples:
1. Using Phonemic Chart.
2. Drilling, repetition and associating sounds with ideas
Some samples of practice lessons; bingo cards, noughts and crosses, snap, etc.
The eachers should involve their students in deciding on priorities for classroom
pronunciation work, through helping them to be aware of their pronunciation
difficulties.
B. Consonants
Consonants are formed by interrupting, restricting, or diverting the airtflow in a variety
of ways. There are three ways of describing the consonant sounds:
1. the manner of articulation
2. the place of articulation
3. the force of articulation
Teachers focus on individual sounds usually as a response to communicative difficulty
which arises, or becaause they are an integral feature of the language being taught.
Teachers should always integrate pronunciation aspects into lesson planning and
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language analysis, in order to raise students’ general awareness. Onee of the best
methods of helping students to master pronuunciation in the classroom remains that
drilling, the repetition of the sound giving learners the opportunity to practise the correct
movements of theeir speech organs for themselves. This, combined with ‘learner-
friendly’ explanations of the movements, can be very effective in raising awareness of
how sounds are produced. Some samples of practice lessons; Hangman, I’m going to
the party, Phonemic Word Search,etc
C. Word and Sentence Stress
1. Word
a. Stress and unstress
In order for one syllable to be perceived as stressed, the syllables around it need to be
unstressed. For stressed syllables, three features were identified; loudness, pitch change
and a longer syllable. Unstresse may be described as the absence of these.
Ex: syllabus, banana, understand, etc
b. Levels of Stress
Many commentators settle on a three-level disstinction between primary stress,
secondary stress and unstress, as seen in the following examples.
2. Sentences
a. Stress timing and syllables timing
(e.g. they LIVE in an OLD HOUSE)
b. Sentence stress and tonic syllables
(e.g. he LIVES in the HOUSE on the CORner)
c. Sentence stress and weak form
(e.g. She’s from /frəm/ Scotland. Where are you /fr m/? )
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The first from is the weak form, and the second from is the full form
Teachers should try drilling words in a natural manner, first. Other techniques are
beating out the pattern of stress with your hand or finger, or tapping with a pen on the
table, speaking or singing the stress pattern (DA da da) and so on.
Word Stress and Sentence Stress
Normally when we say "I feel stressed" it means "I feel anxious". Stress is a kind of
worried feeling about life or work. But there is another kind of stress that actually helps
us understand. This other kind of stress is an accent that we make on certain syllables
and words when speaking English.
In some languages, for example Japanese, people say each syllable with equal force. But
in English, and some other languages, we put a big force (stress) on some syllables and
no force on other syllables or words. This can make it difficult for speakers of other
languages to understand English that is spoken quickly. Of course, for native speakers it
is not difficult - in fact, stress actually helps native speakers understand each other. So it
is very important.
WORD STRESS (stress on a syllable inside a word) and SENTENCE STRESS (stress
on words inside a sentence).
WORD STRESS
Word stress is like a golden key to speaking and understanding English.
If you do not already know about word stress, you can try to learn about it. This is one
of the best ways for you to understand spoken English - especially English spoken fast.
What is word stress?
Take 3 words: photograph, photographer and photographic. Do they sound the same
when spoken? No. Because ONE syllable in each word is STRESSED (stronger than the
others).
PHOtograph
phoTOgrapher
photoGRAPHic
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This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables: TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa,