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Research Project Lit Review
Research Project Lit Review
If
it
can
be
claimed
that
pronunciation
seems
to
be
the
orphan
of
second
language
teaching
and
research
(Derwing
and
Munro
2005),
the
teaching
of
suprasegmentals
(generally
defined
to
include
stress,
rhythm,
and
intonation)
seems
to
hold
a
similar
title
within
the
teaching
and
research
of
pronunciation.
The
idea
that
suprasegmentals
affect
intelligibility
is
nothing
new.
Claims
about
the
importance
of
suprasegmentals
to
intelligibility
can
be
traced
back
at
least
to
structural
linguists
such
as
Nida
(1957):
How
often
we
have
had
the
experience
of
hearing
some
foreigner
speak
English
with
perfectly
intelligible
consonants
and
vowels
and
with
standard
grammatical
forms;
and
yet
we
had
the
greatest
of
difficulty
in
understanding
because
the
intonational
patterns
were
entirely
unnatural
and
strange
to
us.
Moreover,
we
may
completely
misinterpret
a
person
speaking
Englihs
Proper
intonation
contributes
a
high
percentage
to
the
total
intelligibility
of
speech
(qtd.
in
Hahn
2004).
Jenkins
(2002)
included
the
suprasegmental
production
and
placement
of
tonic
(nuclear)
stress
in
her
proposal
for
teaching
English
as
an
International
Language
(EIL).
She
does
determine
that
stress-timed
rhythm
is
unimportant
for
teaching
EIL,
though.
As
the
intended
audience
of
the
website
developed
in
conjunction
with
this
review
would
be
students
studying
English
as
a
Second
Language
and
would,
thus,
be
communicating
with
native
speakers
who
expect
stress-timed
sentence
stress
patterns,
I
will
contend
that
in
this
case
stress-timed
rhythm
is
an
important
feature
to
teach.
While
there
seems
to
be
little
debate
that
suprasegmentals
affect
intelligibility,
there
does,
appear
to
be
a
lack
of
pedagogical
focus
and
empirical
research
related
to
suprasegmentals.
Brown
(1995)
comments
on
the
lack
of
pedagogical
focus
when
he
writes
about
his
disenchantment
with
using
minimal
pairs
in
pronunciation
teaching
and
comments
that
writers
are
nowadays
convinced
of
the
importance
of
suprasegmentals
in
pronunciation,
although
the
priority
given
to
segmentals
in
course-books
may
lead
readers
to
overemphasize
their
importance
(172).
Not
only
does
this
appear
to
be
true
in
textbooks,
but
a
perusal
of
online
pronunciation
teaching
materials
illustrates
a
distinct
lack
of
emphasis
on
quality
teaching
materials
for
suprasegmentals.
Of
the
numerous
podcasts
for
English
Language
Learners
(ELLs)
available
on
iTunes,
the
Seattle
Learning
Academys
American
English
Pronunciation
podcast
series
and
accompanying
website
(www.pronuncian.com)
was
one
valuable
tool
for
ELLs
which
did
address
the
topic.1
The
website
does
provide
an
introduction
to
1
The
Seattle
Learning
Academys
podcast
series
and
accompanying
website
were
selected
for
comparison
for
the
purposes
of
this
project
for
the
incredibly
unscientific
reason
because
I
would
recommend
this
learning
tool
to
my
students.
Sifting
through
the
large
volume
of
ESL
podcasts
reveals
that
a
striking
number
are
akin
to
a
guy
sitting
on
his
couch
in
front
of
a
webcam
talking
about
English.
Any
further
work
on
this
website
and
project
would
require
more
stringent
guidelines
as
to
what
qualified
as
a
reliable
website
for
comparison.
such suprasegmental concerns as sentence stress and an accompanying podcast discussing the importance of sentence stress. Of the hundreds of podcasts available, though, one podcast on sentence stress and only a handful of others related to suprasegmentals hardly seems consistent with linguists claims that suprasegmentals are important in teaching English as a Second Language. It is also important to note that while many other podcasts have accompanying worksheets and drills, the sentence stress podcast does not. This omission implies to the learner that practicing sentence stress is unimportant. The BBC Learning English website (www.bbclearningenglish.com) takes an opposite, yet similarly ineffective approach. The small section that refers to stress at all deals exclusively with schwa and connected speech. Students can take a quiz testing their knowledge of word stress patterns, but sentence-stress and rhythm are not introduced. As Brown (1995) points out, there is a disconnect between what textbook writers claim to be truethat suprasegmentals are important to pronunciationand what is being done in the classroom (whether that classroom is physical or virtual). Hahn (2004) points out that little empirical research exists to supports claims that teaching non-native speakers (NNS) suprasegementals will improve the intelligibility of their speech. She then sets out to provide such an empirical study by examining listeners evaluations of the same NNS International Teaching Assistant who recorded the same sample lecture using a native-like sentence-stress pattern, an incorrect sentence-stress pattern and no sentence stress at all. That students identified the lecture with the native-like sentence-stress pattern as most intelligible and the lecture without sentence stress as the least intelligible supports the idea that teaching suprasegmentals to NNSs will, in fact, improve the intelligibility of their speech. Rationale This website was created to give students the opportunity to become aware of and practice sentence stress at their own pace. It combines podcasts with online activities. It is intended as a pilot website and the format may be modified after receiving feedback from target audience NNSs. Currently the decision to include the mini-podcasts as opposed to creating one, longer one, was so that students could work through the podcasts at their own pace and play each clip multiple times in one sitting. The activities are also interactive so that students are actively engaged, not listening passively to a long podcast. The scope of the lesson is narrow by design. As with the decision to create mini-podcasts, the lesson on sentence stress is designed to offer only an introduction to sentence stress. Too much information would likely overwhelm students. The activities presented in this website are manageable in one sitting. Students can always return for more lessons.
References Brown, A. (1995). Minimal Pairs: Minimal importance? ELT Journal, 49(2), 169-175. Gilbert, J. (1984). Clear Speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hahn, L. D. (2004). Primary stress and intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching of suprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, 201-23. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3588378 on 6 Mar. 2011. Jenkins, J. (2002) A sociolinguistically based, empirically research pronunciation syllabus for English as an international language. Applied Linguistics, 23(1), 83-103. Munro, M., & Derwing, T. (1999). Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning. 49(supp.1), 285-310.