By:

Mrs.Badache Lynda University of Batna

May 2013

First impressions Pronunciation is definitely the biggest thing that people notice when you are speaking English.You can live without advanced vocabulary, you can use simple words to say what you want to say. You can use simplegrammar.But there is no such thing as "simple pronunciation . If the pronunciation is poor , neither Grammar nor vocabulary would help you ! Here is an anecdote about this: After coming back from a vacation in the USA, a friend of mine said:"Whenever I spoke to a person in America, they kept asking me What? What? I would repeat my sentence again and again. Finally they would say Ah-ha! and then say my sentence, using exactly my words! It was very humiliating. I knew my words and grammar were good, but nobody would understand me, just because of my Pronunciation.
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What to take into account when....

Content

Learners

Tasks

Goals

WHEN TO ACQUIRE ?

Should pronunciation be taught and acquired early? Or is it something we can worry about later?

In the absence of a good model and without guidance, the learner will perceive, produce and internalize sounds of the target language based on the native language sounds. For this reason, if not given emphasis at the very beginning, pronunciation will never be acquired well.

Since pronunciation habits are formed early, it seems obvious that it is at that point that the development of a good pronunciation should be emphasized. When accuracy is neglected, the result will be fossilized pronunciation errors.

HOW TO ACQUIRE?

Naturally: as a result of exposure and

interaction in the environment of the target language and its culture. model (instructors with native-like pronunciation, recordings, etc.), explaining differences, using phonetic symbols to make pronunciation visible, limited peer interaction, effective error correction, exercising accurate pronunciation.

By teaching: providing a good pronunciation

SPELLING INTERFERENCE
The written language is a significant source of input to EFL students. The higher the spelling inconsistency is, the more negative the influence on pronunciation will be. The English spelling does not serve as a guide to pronunciation. On the contrary, it can often be misleading. For instance:

SPELLING VS. PRONUNCIATION

s has got five different ways

of pronunciation:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. /s / as in basic, past, say /z / as in because, rose / / as in sugar, sure / / as in casual, usually, television /mute/ as in aisle, island

The frustration of the EFL learner never ends:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

bough / ba / cough / kf / dough / d/ rough / rf / through / ru / hiccough /hkp

/
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Foreign Speaker Convey message Positive face Expectations on the listener

Native listener Understand message

interaction

Tolerance Expectations on the speaker

threshold level

acceptability

accessibility

Comfortable Intelligibility
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1. Features of pronunciation

2. Criteria for selection

teachability

intelligibility

integration

differences with L2

perception - production

institutional requirements

time availability
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Factors affecting pronunciation learning Biological

Age
Closeness to L1 acquisition Phonetic coding ability

Psycho-sociological
Motivation Attitude View of the foreign country

Background
prior instruction
opportunities for practice outside the classroom

amount of exposure

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contextualised

Requirements

different learning styles integrated within the language class

communicative

learner-centred

Sequence

Presentation Practice Remedial work

Identification of feature: awareness raising

Description and analysis

Listening discrimination

Controlled and Communicative Guided practice Tasks

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What makes Pronunciation difficult to teach? The lack of adequate language teacher training in pronunciation, with the result that teachers may lack knowledge and confidence. Teachers are often left without clear guidelines and are confronted with contradictory purposes and practices for pronunciation instruction ,no systematic way of deciding what, when and how to teach it (Derwing & Foote,2011). A common problem is deciding whether to focus on segmentals or on suprasegmentals, and to what extent? A related challenge is how to address production and perception.

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Conclusion

It all brings us to the overall conclusions that:

1. Pronunciation is more important than it seems to be and has always been acknowledged that it is a fundamental part of ones oral ability in the target language. 2. The students need intensive contact with good pronunciation models in the beginning of the learning process. 3. The goal of teaching pronunciation is to enable students to become not perfect pronouncers of English but intelligible , communicative, confident users of spoken English for whatever purposes they need. 16

Thank you for your attention !

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