8th February 2017   Therea     Chineseyoyo

"Pronunciation" refers to the way in which we make the sound of words.

To pronounce words, we push air from our lungs up through our throat and vocal chords, through our mouth, past our tongue and out between our teeth and lips. (Sometimes air also travels through our nose.)

To change the sound that we are making, we mainly use the muscles of our mouth, tongue and lips to control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air. If we can control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air correctly, then our pronunciation is clearer and other people understand us more easily.

Speakers of different languages tend to develop different muscles of the mouth for pronunciation. When we speak a foreign language, our muscles may not be well developed for that language, and we will find pronunciation more difficult. By practising the foreign language pronunciation, our muscles develop and pronunciation improves.

As well as creating correct vowel and consonant sounds using the muscles of our mouth, tongue and lips, there are other important aspects of pronunciation, including:

word stress - emphasis on certain syllables in a word

sentence stress - emphasis on certain words in a sentence

linking - joining certain words together

intonation - the rise and fall of our voice as we speak

intelligibility    achievability     fluency

pitch  tone  pausing  stress   intonation etc.

Label the sections of the Phonemic Chart above

Discuss together and try to complete the table below

Your language English

Pronunciation Diagnostic Test

1.Read the following passage to yourself once or twice to understand the meaning. Check any words you are unsure of.

Have you observed the ways people from different cultures use silence? Have you noticed that some people interrupt conversations more than other people? All cultures do not have the same rules governing these areas of communication. Many Americans interpret silence in conversations to mean disapproval, disagreement, or unsuccessful communication. They often try to fill silence by saying something even if they have nothing to say! On the other hand, Americans don’t appreciate a person who dominates a conversation. Knowing when to take turns in a conversation in another language can sometimes cause difficulty. Should you wait until someone has finished a sentence before contributing to a discussion, or can you break into the middle of someone’s sentence? Interrupting someone who is speaking is considered rude in the United States. Even children are taught explicitly not to interrupt.

2.Now read it to a partner. Listen carefully to your partner and underline any words or extracts which do not sound right to you. Listen for these features:

Individual sounds

Word stress

Sentence stress, e.g. strong and weak forms

Intonation, e.g. rising intonation in questions

Linking between words to make a ‘stream of speech’

Pausing to make sense of groups of words

3.Discuss your pronunciation issues together.

4.Make a list of features to improve.

5.Record yourself saying the extract again on your phone. Listen and try to make improvements

6.Record yourself again. Listen for improvements.

Phonemic Script

What is it?

The phonemic alphabet is a system of symbols designed to represent the pronunciation of our language in a more complete manner. Each symbol represents one phoneme (one particular sound), and by using them in combination we can accurately translate any utterance.

Why do we have it?

English pronunciation is difficult for most nationalities, as we have more sounds than in many other languages (though less than some others!) and our written alphabet does not represent sounds accurately – many letters can represent several sounds. Apparently, native-speaking children take up to one year longer to learn how to spell than Spanish children, for example. Adults also often have problems.

What are the advantages of using it?

For Teachers:

To provide students with an accurate record of pronunciation of words

To show relationships between sounds and spelling

To teach certain rules dependent on pronunciation rather than spelling (e.g. -ed endings in past simple verbs)

To correct pronunciation

To help with particular sound problems have (such as minimal pairs like ‘ship’ and ‘sheep’)

For Students:

To be able to copy spelling and pronunciation into their notebooks

To be able to revise vocabulary independent of the teacher

To be able to use dictionaries to find out pronunciation of words they want to know

To improve pronunciation dramatically

To help students with listening skills over a period of time

Introducing the Phonemic Chart

Consonants:

1.Give students the chart of the consonants.

2.Give a handout where students must match the symbols to the words, underling the letter(s) which give the relevant sound.

3.It can help to get students to focus on the symbols whose sound is the same as the expected letter, therefore narrowing down the symbols to the few ‘strange’ ones.

4.Concentrate on voiced/unvoiced, mouth shape and position of tongue in order to deal with any problematic symbols.

5.Get students transcribing words (providing you have done some/all of the monopthongs).

6.Write up a short text on the board in phonemic script which the students try to read as fast as you can write it (they normally can).

Monopthongs:

1.Introduce a sound using a gesture which shows the students how the mouth forms the sound

2.Elicit the sound made by the gesture (without consonants)

3.Relate this gesture to a symbol

4.Relate this symbol to common words

5.As you add more sounds, keep reviewing previous ones

The moustache

The opera singer

The chewing gum

The disgusted look

The squid face

The karate chop

All the above symbols are suggestions only – you will probably want to use your own!

The hiccup

The pensive chin

The monkey call

The hand sweep

The hypnotising hand

The schwa

Diphthongs:

Show students how monopthongs can be ‘joined’ together to make the remaining sounds:

Give students cut up monopthongs and complete diphthongs on different coloured cards

Dictate to the students where to put the monopthong cards (“Find the sound / /. Put it on the table. Now find the sound / /. Put it next to the / /...”)

Pick up a pair of cards and show how the sounds can be joined.

Let the students continue on their own.

Put the 8 symbols on the board and elicit example words for each sound.

Using Phonemic Script in Class

For presenting new vocabulary, start with the script

Board records of new vocabulary should include the full phonetic transcription

Write up phonetics for students to orally drill at their own speed

Write up for students to transcribe as a game

Make it into a kind of ‘code’ to send messages to your students

To show linking in connected speech

Useful Resources

Primary Pronunciation Box by Caroline Nixon & Michael Tomlinson

Pronunciation Games by Mark Hancock

Tree or Three? By Ann Baker

Ship or Sheep? By Ann Baker

Reference Material

Teaching Pronunciation

Pronunciation involves far more than individual sounds. Word stress, sentence stress, intonation, and word linking all influence the sound of spoken English, not to mention the way we often slur words and phrases together in casual speech. 'What are you going to do?' becomes 'Whaddaya gonna do?' English pronunciation involves too many complexities for learners to strive for a complete elimination of accent, but improving pronunciation will boost self esteem, facilitate communication, and possibly lead to a better job or a least more respect in the workplace. Effective communication is of greatest importance, so choose first to work on problems that significantly hinder communication and let the rest go. Remember that your students also need to learn strategies for dealing with misunderstandings, since native pronunciation is for most an unrealistic goal.

A student's first language often interferes with English pronunciation. For example, /p/ is aspirated in English but not in Spanish, so when a Spanish speaker pronounces 'pig' without a puff of air on the /p/, an American may hear 'big' instead. Sometimes the students will be able to identify specific problem sounds and sometimes they won't. You can ask them for suggestions, but you will also need to observe them over time and make note of problem sounds. Another challenge resulting from differences in the first language is the inability to hear certain English sounds that the native language does not contain. Often these are vowels, as in 'ship' and 'sheep,' which many learners cannot distinguish. The Japanese are known for confusing /r/ and /l/, as their language contains neither of these but instead has one sound somewhere between the two. For problems such as these, listening is crucial because students can't produce a sound they can't hear. Descriptions of the sound and mouth position can help students increase their awareness of subtle sound differences.

Here are some ideas for focusing on specific pronunciation features.

Voicing

Voiced sounds will make the throat vibrate. For example, /g/ is a voiced sound while /k/ is not, even though the mouth is in the same position for both sounds. Have your students touch their throats while pronouncing voiced and voiceless sounds. They should feel vibration with the voiced sounds only.

Aspiration

Aspiration refers to a puff of air when a sound is produced. Many languages have far fewer aspirated sounds than English, and students may have trouble hearing the aspiration. The English /p/, /t/, /k/, and /ch/ are some of the more commonly aspirated sounds. Although these are not always aspirated, at the beginning of a word they usually are. To illustrate aspiration, have your students hold up a piece of facial tissue a few inches away from their mouths and push it with a puff of air while pronouncing a word containing the target sound.

Mouth Position

Draw simple diagrams of tongue and lip positions. Make sure all students can clearly see your mouth while you model sounds. Have students use a mirror to see their mouth, lips, and tongue while they imitate you.

Intonation

Word or sentence intonation can be mimicked with a kazoo, or alternatively by humming. This will take the students' attention off of the meaning of a word or sentence and help them focus on the intonation.

Linking

We pronounce phrases and even whole sentences as one smooth sound instead of a series of separate words. 'Will Amy go away,' is rendered 'Willaymeegowaway.' To help learners link words, try starting at the end of a sentence and have them repeat a phrase, adding more of the sentence as they can master it. For example, 'gowaway,' then 'aymeegowaway,' and finally 'Willaymeegowaway' without any pauses between words.

Vowel Length

You can demonstrate varying vowel lengths within a word by stretching rubber bands on the longer vowels and letting them contract on shorter ones. Then let the students try it. For example, the word 'fifteen' would have the rubber band stretched for the 'ee' vowel, but the word 'fifty' would not have the band stretched because both of its vowels are spoken quickly.

Syllables

Have students count syllables in a word and hold up the correct number of fingers, or place objects on table to represent each syllable.

Illustrate syllable stress by clapping softly and loudly corresponding to the syllables of a word. For example, the word 'beautiful' would be loud-soft-soft. Practice with short lists of words with the same syllabic stress pattern ('beautiful,' 'telephone,' 'Florida') and then see if your learners can list other words with that pattern.

Specific Sounds

Minimal pairs, or words such as 'bit/bat' that differ by only one sound, are useful for helping students distinguish similar sounds. They can be used to illustrate voicing ('curl/girl') or commonly confused sounds ('play/pray'). Remember that it's the sound and not the spelling you are focusing on.

Tongue twisters are useful for practicing specific target sounds, plus they're fun. Make sure the vocabulary isn't too difficult.

The Sounds of English, American Accent Training, and EnglishClub.com websites below offer guidelines for describing how to produce various English sounds. You can find representative practice words for every English sound on the English is Soup site.

Here are some resources for teaching pronunciation.

Sounds of English

Mouth diagrams and photographs; instructions for producing selected English sounds, word stress, sentence stress, and intonation; many example sound clips to play with audio software such as RealPlayer (free).

American Accent Training: Pronunciation

The most common trouble sounds in English and how to pronounce them.

EnglishClub.com English Pronunciation - Pronunciation for ESL learners

Guides to word and sentence stress, linking, pronunciation of '-ed' and 'the,' and other topics.

Some Techniques for Teaching Pronunciation

Detailed instructions for two pronunciation activities.

English is Soup: A Phonics Resource For ESL Adults

Mouth diagrams and representative words showing various spellings for every English sound; short introduction to rules of pronunciation based on spelling; PDF format.

The Tongue Twister Database

Large collection of tongue twisters to practice specific sounds.