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Unit5 Teaching Pronunciation

Unit5 Teaching Pronunciation Aims of the Unit: 1. The role of pronunciation in language learning. 2. The goal of teaching pronunciation. 3.The aspects of pronunciation we need to teach. 4. The ways to help student to improve pronunciation. I. The importance of teaching pronunciation Correct pronunciation is needed for a speaker to communicate. If our pronunciation is incorrect, we will not be understood. The result will be that Chinese people will think you are speaking in a foreign language and English people will think you are speaking Chinese. It is more important for us language teachers to have a good pronunciation. If we have not a good pronunciation, who can we enable our students to pronounce correctly? e.g. I need some medicine for my cough.(cough[kof],caw[kau]) He is not a boy who is afraid of hardship and death. (with or without a pause before "who" is quite different.) As a means of communication by word of mouth, language is used in oral speech and in reading aloud. Therefore, in order to make oneself easily understood while expressing one's own or other people's thoughts in any language, one must be able to pronounce words and sentences in that language quite correctly. 1. The role of pronunciation Task 1: Read the statements in Task 1 about the views and methods of teaching English pronunciation and decide if you agree or disagree with them. 2. What should be taught to the beginners, pronunciation or phonetic? Pronunciation is more important than phonetic. Stress and intonation are as important as the sounds themselves and should be taught from the very beginning. Whether pronunciation needs special attention or focus in language teaching depends on many factors especially learner factors. l Learners whose native language has similar sounds to English are less likely to have problems with pronunciation l Learners who have more exposure to English need less focus on pronunciation l Adult learners need more focus on pronunciation because they are more likely to substitute English sounds with sounds from their native language. l Beginning Chinese learners of English should focus on pronunciation and their ability to identify and produce English sounds themselves, because phonetic transcripts are more abstract and less meaningful. 3. When should we teach phonetic? Phonetic rules regarding what sounds a letter or a cluster of letters should be pronounced are helpful for students to develop the ability to cope with English pronunciation and they should be introduced at a suitable stage. Beginners of English, specialty young learners, should be avoided to teach phonetic. Stress and intonation are as important as the sounds themselves and should be taught
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Unit5 Teaching Pronunciation

from the very beginning. II. The goal of teaching pronunciation 1. Whats considered as a good pronunciation? A good pronunciation means: 1) to pronounce correctly all the speech sounds of the language and all the combinations in their proper order not only isolated words, but also in sentences; 2) to pronounce sentences fluently at the speed required by the situation with correct stresses, linking of sounds, rhythm, pauses and intonation. As a matter of fact, most Chinese learners of English do not have enough exposure to English to acquire native-like pronunciation. 2. Critical period hypothesis l Critical period hypothesis states that if humans do not learn a foreign language before a certain age, then due to changes such as maturation of the brain and speech organs, it becomes impossible to learn the foreign language like a native speaker. l The amount of exposure to English is another factor that determines if the students can acquire native-like English pronunciation. l Individual ability. Due to biological and physiological difference, some students are more sensitive to and better at imitating sounds than others. 3. The realistic goal of teaching Pronunciation. As we know the ideal goal of teaching pronunciation is to acquire native-like pronunciation, however, its not easy to acquire such pronunciation. Then what is the realistic goal of teaching pronunciation? l Consistency: ()The pronunciation should be smooth and natural. l Intelligibility:() The pronunciation should be understandable to the listeners. l Communicative efficiency: The pronunciation should help to convey the meaning that is intended by the speaker. III. Aspects of pronunciation Actually pronunciation is an umbrella term covering many aspects besides sounds and phonetic symbols, such as stress, intonation, and rhythm. These aspects are not isolated from each other. Task 3: What are the most common problems that Chinese students experience with English pronunciation? IV. Practising sounds 1. Focusing on a sound When teaching pronunciation, we need to focus on individual sounds, especially those sounds that are difficult to learn. Task 4: Imagine that you are focusing on a sound which your students are having difficulty with. In what order would you teach and practice the sound? 2. Perception practice() Distinguish sounds l Using minimal pairs: willwell,
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Unit5 Teaching Pronunciation

Which order: The teacher reads each group of words in different order and the students mark the words with 1,2,3: pit-pet-bet, beard-beer-bear l Same or different: The teacher reads pairs of words and asks the students to tell if the pairs of words are the same or different: met-meet, meet meat l Odd man out:() The teacher reads a group of words a time and the students identify the different words or sound. l Completion 3. Production practice l Listen and repeatStudents repeat what the teacher says. l Fill in the blanks: Students fill in blanks in sentences with words which contain certain sounds. l Make up sentences: Students make up sentences using words containing the same sound or similar sounds the teacher gives them. l Use meaningful context: The sounds to focus on are embedded in a meaningful context. l Use pictures: practice sounds with the help of pictures. l Use tongue twisters. 4. The presentation of teaching pronunciation. 1). To introduce the sound. The first step in actual classroom instruction is to introduce the sound, to focus the students' attention on the teaching point. e.g. We can teach the words eat, he, she, seat, see, etc. with the help of learning A,B,C,D,E, 2). Imitation, description and comparison and contrast. The sound system is known to be learned best through imitation of the sound patterns, description of phonological systems and comparison and contrast of different sounds. l imitation Students learn a new sound by listening to the teachers modeling, following the teacher's model and trying to produce the sound in the way the teacher do. Since most of the teachers are not native speaker of English, tapes or records are very helpful for the students. l description For Chinese junior high students, however, mere imitation is not enough, because students at this stage have already passed their best age for imitation and they have also acquired some knowledge of the Chinese sound system and considerable ability to learn abstractly, besides, some consonants are so weak that it is very difficult for them to imitate. e.g. [F] [V] [dz] [ts] [dV] [tF] l Comparison and contrast Comparison and contrast have proved to be also very effective in teaching the sound system. Teachers should contrast the sound being taught with the nearby English sounds. e.g.
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Unit5 Teaching Pronunciation

[A ]--[e] [u]--[u:] [i]--[i:] [p]--[b] [f]--[v] [W ]--[T ] [l]--[n]--[r]

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