What pronunciation work do you do at the moment?

 

Why is teaching pronunciation important?

 

How do you teach pronunciation?

 

Do you know the phonetic alphabet? and your students?

 

Does perfect pronunciation exist?

- accent

- dialect

- different versions of English

- English as a second language more widespread than as a first language (rise of 'globish')

 

 

 

 

 

Integrating pronunciation work into daily classroom procedures (NOTE - THIS WAS AN INSET SESSION DONE WITH ENGLISH TEACHERS IN A LONDON TEFL SCHOOL - IT NEEDS EDITING, SIMPLIFYING & ELABORATING ON THE PRACTICALS)

 

 

Things you can do on a regular basis:

 

Model new words in context – give vocab real meaning by putting it into a phrase and letting students repeat the phrase

Model intonation – say phrases as they should be said - don't overly slow down, for example

Look at the emotional content of language – use moods – angry, sarcastic, happy, etc.

Use dialogues - keep them as natural as possible

Integrate pronunciation issues into class tests & feedback sessions. Typical issues are: minimal pairs (cut vs. cat), diphthongs, vowel sounds, consonant sounds, the schwa, word stress, sentence stress, rising & falling intonation.

 

 

Pronunciation practice can be divided into 4 areas:

 

 

 

1. Phonemes

 

If learners are introduced to the phonemic chart one phoneme at a time, it can be introduced at any level, including elementary, and students are quick to appreciate its value.

 

Some exercises

 

• Hold up phoneme symbols – drill, test

• Match spelling & sound

• Do the above as a board race

• Work on the mechanics: model mouth/tongue etc. movement and ask sts to copy

• Sts write words which illustrate a particular phoneme – organise into lists

 

	/e/
'e'	'ea'	'ai'
bed	dead	said
pen	head

 

• Odd man out (breathe feel pill we’ll)

• Use a dictionary to look at phonemes & spelling

• Take words from the dictionary, write phonetic transcript – see if other sts can say what the word is

• Give sts phonetic transcripts of words covered in vocab learning; sts say what they are (good warmer)

• Play phonetic hangman

• Play phonetic bingo

• Phonetic anagrams – words, sentences, dialogues

• Chinese whispers – T whispers a phoneme into the 1^st st’s ear, who then goes to the next… see what is produced at the end

• Minimal pairs – say ship, ship, ship, sheep, sheep.. sts raise hand when they hear the difference.

• As above, but with longer utterances – ‘I saw a big ship, I saw…’

• Memory game – lay cards with pairs of words which rhyme, but have different spelling, on the table; sts take 2 cards, try to remember where the pairs are, and eventually select them

• As above, but with homophones

• Tongue Twisters

• Categories: give 5 categories – eg. food, body, sports, animals, clothes – and then write a phoneme on the board. Sts must write down a word in each category containing that phoneme.

 

 

 

2. Word Stress

 

Look at patterns:

 

2 syllables:

 

• nouns, adjectives – stress 1^st syllable

 

• verbs (1) – stress 2^nd syllable when it contains a long vowel or dipthong, or if it ends in more than one consonant (apply, behave, complete)

 

• verbs (2) -stress 1^st syllable when the 2^nd syllable is short and ends in a consonant (enter, open, profit)

 

(exceptions: admit, permit)

 

3+ syllables:

 

• Stress on the final syllable: words ending in:

-ain (entertain)

-ee (refugee)

-eer (mountaineer)

-ese (Portuguese)

-ette (cigarette)

-esque (picturesque)

 

• Stress on syllable before the following:

-ion (decision)

-ious (contentious)

-eous (courageous)

-ity (simplicity)

-ive (extensive)

-graphy (photography)

-meter (thermometer)

-logy (biology)

 

 

Compound words

 

a. 2 syllables:

 

• generally balanced, with a slight emphasis on 1^st syllable

 

b. 3+ syllables:

 

• If 1^st part of the word is a noun, then the 1^st element will carry more stress (typewriter)

 

• If the 1^st part of the word is an adjective, then the 2^nd element will carry more stress (loudspeaker)

 

 

Some additional exercises

 

• Use notation on the board – eg. small/big circles, or lower/upper case letters

• Mark the schwa

• Use a dictionary to look at stress patterns

• Make lists of words which follow the same stress pattern

• Play odd man out

 

 

 

3. Sentence Stress

 

In general, raise awareness of English as a stress-timed language. Here’s a useful number chant for sts which will help you

 

1	2	3	4
1 and	2 and	3 and	4
1 and a	2 and a	3 and a	4
1 and then a	2 and then a	3 and then a	4

 

Some exercises

 

• Drill sentences, stress content words

• Change stressed words and look at change in meaning

• ‘I asked him for two pints of Guinness.’

• Use cuisinaire rods to highlight stress

• Mark the weak forms in connected speech – look at schwa and /i/ in particular

• Look at what kind of words are not stressed - auxiliary verbs, pronouns, articles, linkers, prepositions

• Play a dialogue; sts mark stress & then analyse

• Give sts a tapescript; asks sts to mark stress before listening; listen & check; feedback & discuss

• Play short dialogue: sts learn and copy; compare with original & discuss

• Use poetry, limericks, songs, and chants – think of all the clichéd US army films you’ve ever seen

• Dictate sentences for sts at normal speaking speed – count no. of words, analyse strong & weak forms

• Compare contractions with fully expressed forms, eg. ‘I’ll do it’ vs ‘I will do it’, and analyse meaning

 

Also:

 

Do some work on elision (when sounds get ‘lost’ in connected speech)

And assimilation (when sounds change in connected speech)

 

Eg. transcribe ‘where do you want to go?’ or ‘What do you want to do about it?’ into phonetic script (a) in full, or ‘citation’, form and (b) in realistic, connected speech form

 

 

And finally…

 

Don’t forget that sometimes we create a sound to link different words together in connected speech, especially /w/ (‘How are you?’, ‘go away’, ‘argue about’), /j/ (‘coffee or tea?’ ‘weigh about 5 kilos’ ‘it’s his birthday on..’), and /r/ (‘is the door open?’ ‘an hour and a half’ ‘a year ago’).

 

These sounds connect words which end in a vowel sound and start in a vowel sound.

 

 

 

4. Intonation

 

Some metalanguage for your amusement.

 

When you listen to someone talking, their speech has the following features:

 

It’s divided into phases called ‘tone-units’.

Its tone moves up and down, within a ‘pitch range’. English has a particularly wide pitch range.

In each tone-unit, the ‘pitch movement’ (rise or fall or a combination of both) happens on the most important syllable. This is known as the ‘tonic-syllable’. It’s usually a high-content word, near the end of the tone-unit.

 

 

Some exercises:

 

Drill sts, using you as a model

As above, but following a CD/tape

Compare flat & natural language; sts analyse & discuss

Ask sts to have a 2-minute conversation in monotone, then when they go back to ‘normal’ speaking, they can see the difference that intonation makes.

Sts imitate your intonation, but without words, just humming

Look at patterns associating intonation and grammar

Wh-questions: falling intonation

Y/N qs: rising

Q-tags: ‘chat’- falling; ‘check’ - falling

Statements: falling

Lists: rising, rising, rising, falling

Do lots of speaking exercises to practise the above – always try to provide realistic and clear contexts

Say sth, eg. ‘Thank you’ using different intonation and ask sts to describe your mood. Sts then do the same for each other.

Avoid banging on about theory