Some
Techniques for Teaching Pronunciation
David F. Dalton . Chiapas, Mexico
Background
When I did my initial training as an E.F.L. teacher, one of the course
tutors always described pronunciation as "the Cinderella of language
teaching", i.e. she never got to go to the ball. By this he was referring
to the often low level of emphasis placed on this very important language
skill. We are comfortable teaching reading, writing , listening and to a
degree, general oral skills, but when it comes to pronunciation we often lack
the basic knowledge of articulatory phonetics (not difficult to aquire) to
offer our students anything more than rudimentary (and often unhelpful) advice
such as, "it sounds like this ; uuuh".
There is also a tendency for us to focus on production
as the main problem affecting our learners. Most research however, shows
clearly that the problem is more likely to be reception - what you don't hear,
you can't say. Moreover, if the "English" sound is not clearly
received, the brain of the learner converts it into the closest sound in their
own language . Thus the dental English fricative / th / (sorry, phonetic
symbols can't easily be displayed) in "those" ,becomes converted by
Spanish speakers into the denatlised Spanish /d/ , producing "dose"
as this is what the speaker hears. Given this reality , it would seem logical
to place a heavy emphasis on listening (reception) as a way into releasing
appropriate pronunciation (production).
Apart from using knowledge of our students and our
ears in order to be aware of their pronunciation problems, it is also useful to
have some prior knowledge of what elements of English phonetics and phonology
are likely to cause problems. This is one area of language learning where few
people would question the use of contrastive analysis. For instance, to give
some simple examples, we can predict that Arabic speakers will have difficulty
distinguishing between / p / and / b / , Japanese speakers will not perceive
the difference between / l / and / r / and Spanish speakers will hava a problem
realising consonant clusters like [ sts ]. Having informed him or herself of
some of the main areas of contrast between native language and target language
and what difficulties students have, it then remains for the teacher to build
this information into some meaningful classroom exercises.
Techniques :
Exercise should be simple, accessible , fun and
combine reception and production. Some students (usually adults) do feel
embarassed to pull ridiculuous faces when practising vowel sounds (this may be
personal or cultural or both) but I have generally found that this soon passes
and students enjoy the pronunciation work. Where possible, exercises should be
communicative in that they should (and do generate differences of opinion and
disagreement about what was said/heard. Below are two examples.
Exercise A :
After having taught or exposed the students to long
and short vowels through listening and oral work, the teacher can check
recognition, retention and ability to discriminate in the following way. This
could also be used simply for teaching.
Stage 1 :
The teacher writes a variety of words containing the
target sounds (long and short vowels) on the board. The following is just one
possible set.
PORT PIT
PAT PERT PET POT
PUTT PUT PART
PEAT
0 1
2 3 4
5 6 7
8 9
Here, the only difference in sound is that of the
vowel - familiar to anyone who has done minimal pair work. As in these
examples, the word should begin and end with the same consonant. 0, 3, 8, and
9, are long vowels and the rest are short.
Stage 2 :
The teacher then models each word and individal
repetition follows. The vowel sound can be isolated and the procedure repeated
until the teacher is reasonably sure that there are no major problems. He or
she then tells the students that they are going to hear one of the words and
must write the number which corresponds to the word they hear. What the
students have written is then checked and compared.
This automatically leads into a discussion of what
they heard and what sounds they are confusing. If student X heard1 when the
teacher said 9, they are confusing the short vowel / I / with the long vowel /
i: / . The teacher gives feedback and the sounds may then be modelled again and
practised.
Stage 3:
Two or three words are then presented together and
the procedure repeated. The teacher then tells the class they are going to hear
six words and that the numbers correspond to an important telephone number. The
teacher delivers the words and asks , "What's my number?". Again
there will be differences in what was heard. This allows a focus on which
sounds are not being discriminated effectively by which students and where
their problems lie. Later discussion may revolve aroud what strategies students
may employ to improve their discrimination skills - songs, minimal pair games
with friends, movies, radio, etc.
Stage 4:
Learners are then invited to model the telephone
number. This stage usually generates much discussion and disagreement along the
lines of - "You said ...... ", "No I did'nt ", "Say it
again" and so on and is usually very lively. The teacher is, of course,
the final arbiter of what was really said. The important thing is that the learners
are thinking actively about their pronunciation and how to repair it if
necessary. They also begin to hear themselves (often for the first time) and
this is of immeasurable importance in the retention of sounds.
Exercise B:
This exercise was designed for a multi-lingual
class, but is equally effective with monolingual groups. It is more
communictive in nature than Excercise A as it involves giving and carrying out
instructions.
Stage 1:
Having identified some problem areas for the class,
the teacher makes a list of instructions containing these. Below is such a
list.
1.
Draw a sheep on the board. (Spanish speakers often
draw a ship).
2.
Write the letter "P" above the sheep.
(Arabic speakers often write " B").
3.
Use the "P" as the start of the word
"pleasant" and write the word (Japanese speakers often write
"present ").
4.
Write "light" next to pleasant. (Japanese
speakers often write "right").
5.
Draw a mouse next to the word "light".
(Spanish and Japenese speakers often draw a mouth)
6.
Draw a pear next to the mouse. (Arabic speakers often
draw a bear)
Other examples can be added.
Stage 2:
After presentation and practice of the problem
areas, each student is given a piece of paper with an instruction containing
such sounds. The papers are given so that a student will hear an instruction containing
a sound which they have a problem hearing. The instruction is then whispered in
the ear of the receiving student and they carry out what they hear. They sit
down and read their instruction to the next student. This continues until all
the instructions have been carried out and there is something resembling a
picture on the board. No comments should be made as the work is in process.
Stage 3: Feedback
There will be reactions from laughter to dismay as
the students see how ther instructions were carried out. The teacher needs to
focus the students on what went wrong. Was the problem production or reception?
What did Miko say and what did Joel hear? The dilema pushes the students to
correct themselves and hear what they are saying. The discussions are often
very animated and again the teacher must abitrate. The learners also see the
real-life consequences of not producing or not hearing appropriate English
sounds as well as getting personal and class feedback on their problem areas.
As in exercise A, discussion can take place on strategies for pronunciation.
Some Conclusions
1.
The exercise allows clear practice in production and
reception and gives concise feedback to individual learners as to where their
problms lie in these areas and how to repair them. Often these are very simple
physical questions such as not roundig the lips as in / u: / in fool , which
the teacher can help them focus on.
2.
This, in turn, allows discussion on learning
strategies for pronunciation which can be drawn up it the classroom.
3.
It is a communicative exercise as it involves
disagreement, repair and ( hopefully !) agreement among other things.
4.
Many language learners feel self concious and
negative about their pronunciation . To effectively deal with this question in
the class and enable learners to see an improvement, is invariably a great
psychological boost.
5.
I have used these activities with learners from many
different cultural and language backgrounds and they have invariably been seen
as both very useful and fun.
6.
As teachers, we are often not the best judges of the
accuracy of our students' pronunciation . We are accustomed to it and usually
very tolerant when in general, native speakers are not. Such exercises help us
to be more aware of real problems learners have in their oral production and to
help to correct them.
7.
Such activities should be an integral part of any
language teaching programme as they make pronunciation an active element of the
learning process and focus learners on the language they are producing.
Thanks to Ray Parker of Sheffield Hallam University;
England for the gelephone Game. Some useful and very accessible constrastive
analysis can be seen in the " Ship or Sheep" and "Three or
Tree" series.
