Phonotactics ‘mean that the student cancelled the hones what the sentence io the recting or can sell the meeting? The ‘confusion here is all down to the student applying the wrong stress. | Lome from a background of | ‘caching English in France, and, true, pronunciation has found a role, indeed a dominant roe, in ELT but, especially in France sudentsdont tends. | | aeeneele fistening and are value in learning it. Tt seems, then, that Deeotegse ‘ we should try 10 emphasise its pee ay : | Importance ood,er aches mtegateit | |e E into the classroom, : eee i _ Phonotactics Problems i First of all, I must explain what I mean ‘We are already opening our eyes to the by phonological rules. Weare already issue of spoken grammar as opposed 10 | teaching the pronunciation of English written grammar, but we must also | vowels and consonamts, word stess, consider the phonotactics tonality and sentence stress, intonation and elsion, _ stress of English in tder to develop andthe subject is widely dealt with in’ listening and speaking skills fly. I is many ELT textbooks This is part of sometimes not enough to practise ‘what is referred to by phonological listening or speaking, a leatners don't rules, However, what is not dealt with is necesaily have time to do this ‘phonotactics, which works hand in hand regularly or don't have regular access to ‘with phonetics and is one of the most speakers of English, It becomes alot important parts of learning language; more beneficial tothe leamer, then, itis acquired naturally through listening particularly those studying inthe a and production, but never realy taught country of their first language, if they and certainly hardly ever focused on in can apply rules they already know to textbooks. new forms of the language. If students So, what is phonotactics? The word were to understand the phonotactics of is used to refer to natural groups of English, they would be able to bee | + eran. stprefessionat.com + ENGLISH TEACHING professional’ lave 6 Marc 2000+ 2 i ilPhonotactics ‘phonetically transcribe the written Janguage, which is predominantly how they have learnt the word, and also _move from the spoken to the written. ‘The problem of different phonotactics is what I call the ‘hierarchy’ problem. You will often find that a French speaker will pronounce this word fjeranfi/ and a Spanish speaker /hera:ktal. So, when they hear an English speaker say Mhatorarki, seven. times out of ten you will have Blank faces. You will bounce back and forth repeating the same thing and with the students’ expressions looking the same, ‘unl eventually you have to write it on the board and only then, you witl receive an ‘Ahh, “herarchy!, It does seem that this word is particularly problematic and contains a fair amount of tricky English phonotactics Resources Phonotactis is as important as phonetics and is part of the same field, fe knowing how letters or groups of letters are supposed to be pronounced in the target language. As native English speakers, we inherently know this, but it is something that could definitely be ‘taught more in the classroom, have found the best list of promunciation of letters or groups of letters atthe back of all levels of OUP'S English Fue. There is a more scientific and detailed approach to this subject in a book by Michel Ginésy, but this is only published in French, Swan and Walter have produced ‘the learner’ language’, which discusses the phonological characteristics of English which can cause problems for certain learners. word ‘pronunciation English English French French word pronunciation place, case, | /er/ eg /plers/ ate, age ‘une place ‘al eg iplas/ these, piece, | /:/ eg /éiz/ ‘compete une thse, une | /e/eg tex piéce, complete tout Jav/ eq /tavt/ tout (al 6g hur role foo @9 ious ol €9 ino bus Int og fons! Wf ea foys! Wi eg Nip! Jit eg ipl (abig problem for French leamers es they don't often hear the ifference between it and fa) ‘ou eg fk’splat/ cexpoiter, Il explote | /wa/ eg /eksplwa/ ‘fam’ eg /am'poitant/ Important Fel 0g fEpoata Pan/ ag /tvkacads) fencourager, Fa 09 Fakunas/ ‘encourage Jas! 09 (sarkoladstst/ la psychologic | /1/ 09 /psitalsi/ (main problem for French leamers, ‘even at high levels) Jax/ eg foast! un site fu sit ‘usl 6g fmjuzizom/ un musée ‘fy og Imyzer Method We can analyse the phonetcs/phonotactcs of the target language and the students’ first language and then try to identify ‘words which could be problematic. This method can be used with any language and then followed up by various classroom activities By doing this, we ‘would not only get the students ‘thinking about the differences between spoken and written English, but also allow them to enlarge their spoken word bank by being able to transcribe the ‘words they only know in written English. Ihave made a few suggestions here for use with French speakers, but you could adapt my chart for the language spoken by your students It ‘must be noted that this is based on the lexical similarity of English and French. “There is particular confusion in European languages because of their similar origins, which makes the study ‘of phonotactics and phonetics al the ‘more important. For this reason, too, have used words waich are lexically similar in French but which would be pronounced different. ‘The list of words I have drawn up is by no means exhaustive, but they are ‘those which could potentially be ‘problematic for the French learner of English, and therefore also for the English leamer of French. I have also divided the different rules into vowels, and consonants to make them more ‘approachable for students. It should be noted that these are not universal spelling/prosunciation rules, as there are multiple exceptions ‘So that the students don't lose 2G + esue 61 March 2008+ ENGLISH TEACHING professional + warmetorotessionsl.com +pee eae English English French French word pronunciation word pronunciation social, ‘M69 /saujal/ social {1 eg /25)al/ commercial, station, information ‘cheque Gl 29 fe! la chaque Sshog fekt tissue, Mag Past fetissu, assurer, | /5/ 09 /tisy/ reassure, measure, | /s/ eg /mesa/ mesures, llmesure, | /2/ 0g /mazye/ pleasure le plaisir ‘theatre 781 09 /0xata/ lo theatre 181g fteata! ‘question —_| /kw/eg /kwestfon/ | ta question 1k/ 99 /kest/ “You may get overcorection with gu, as in guest, being pronounced /qwest ‘because the student is applying the rules of question. ‘motivation, its also important to show phonotactics which are similar between French and English, such as air asin chair, pair and air. Activities The students maich leter clusters with the sounds. For example: ae_| rw Written to spoken © The students match the sounds with words they might not have come across, 10 see if they can apply the rales they have just learnt to new vocabulary, For example: Jeu) | ousted Pew! | quest ‘© The students must choose from list, of words the odd one out phonetically: this makes them aware of the iference and complexity of English spelling and pronunciation. It also ‘draws their attention to exceptions to the rule and introduces the concept of homophones. For example: near | boar | clear | hear The teacher writes, om the board or ‘on a handout, a contrived sentence with a particular consonant or vowel cluster, such as A mouse ran out of the house in tho outback. ‘The students must attempt to read this sentence aloud, after having been made aware of the av! sound through an activity such as the ones above. © Athigher levels the teacher ean use authentic English with just afew examples of the consonant cluster in unknown vocabulary, to see ifthe students remember the rule. For example "From mine own earidom fouly ‘ousted mo’ (Tennyson) © Fora more interesting activity the teacher can either cut out pictures of the words or just the words themselves ‘which have the spelling ‘ou’, such as Jiowse and mouse, and the students ‘must make up a story and tell it to the rest of the lass, alvays remembering the pronunciation rule. Spoken to written © The teacher dictates authentic English and the students write what they ‘think they have understood, 10 see if + swurusetprofemaionalicom + ENGLISH TEACHING professional» love €4 March 2000 + 27 they can transcribe the spoken to the writen word. This can be individual words, or whole phrases or sentences. The activities which T have proposed could be used as part of any kind of skills or vocabulary lesson, Once the students are aware of the rules, certain ‘words could be dictated to them before they read a text, or the students could read the text aloud and errors ia pronunciation could be corrected, ‘Matching exercises could be done before 1 speaking or listening lesson and, ‘again, pronunciation errors corrected. There could be a dictation activity before a writing lesson and spelling ‘errors could then be corrected, ‘These are five or ten-minute activities which simply insti certain phonological rules in the minds of the students, which will allow them in the Tong term to build up a better ‘ear’ for the language. This basically means a better phonetic awareness and it ean often be the hardest part of learning a language to grasp and the hardest to teach. GD Ginésy, M Mémento de Phandtique ‘Anglaise Armand Colin 2001 Handbook ofthe Interational Phoneto ‘Association CUP 1998 Oxenden, ©, Latharn-Keanig, ©, Salgson,° and Hudson, J Eglsh Filo (uP 2008 ‘Swan, M and Walter © How Engish Werks OUP 1997 Laure ie erat = orn Oxford Unters Prague. she has worked Stirs dterant Tenguage sehaols and at the University ot Maras wi students ofreones, Taurens hrd@gralLcom Writing for ETp Wiuid you tke to we for ET? We are aways intrested In new wrtrs and fresh leas, For guidlines and ‘scvoe, it tous or eral editor@etprefessional.com