TEACHING

PRONUNCIATION
Why is it important to teach
pronunciation?
• Confidence to interact with natives

• No masking good skills

• Learners’ intelligibility

• Choice in accent choosing

APPROACHES
• INTUITIVE-IMITATIVE
– Learners’ skill
– Models

• EXPLICIT-ANALYTIC-LINGUISTIC
– Descriptive
– Aids to supplement skills
EVOLUTION WITH EFL
• Grammar-Translation
• Reading-based approaches

• Direct Method
• Naturalistic approaches

• Reform movement
– Creation of IPA
• Audiolingual method
• Oral approaches

• Cognitive approach (1960s)

• Silent way
• Community Language Learning

• Communicative method
How to teach and how not
to teach
• Effectiveness : Individual experience

• Ineffectiveness: Drilling phonemes, stilted

dialogues, descriptive lessons.

• It is important “for teachers to have insight into

the kinds of problems learners face in
pronouncing English and the tools to provide
for their needs at different stages” (Goodwin et al.
1996)
 LEARNER VARIABLES
• Biological factors

• Socio-cultural factors: Cultural identity preservation

• Personality factors: Gregarious/Individual

Out-going/Introverted

• Attitude

• Aptitude
COMMON PRONUNCIATION
PROBLEMS
• VOWELS

– /iy/ vs. /ɪ/ (‘beat’ and ‘bit’)

– /ey/ vs. /ɛ/ (‘bait’ and ‘bet’)

– /ow/ vs. /ɔ/ (‘boat’ and ‘bought’)

– /uw/ vs. /ʊ/ (‘boot’ and ‘book’)

– /ɛ/ vs. /æ/ vs. /ʌ/ vs. /a/ (‘bet’, ‘bat’, ‘but’ and ‘pot’)
• CONSONANTS
– Aspiration : /p/, /t/, /k/

– Aspiration: /x/ instead of /h/ (‘have’)

– /y/ vs. /dʒ/ (‘use’ and ‘juice’)

– Voicing of fricatives /v/ (‘vote’, ‘love’)

/ð/ (‘then’, ‘breathe’)

/z/ (‘zoo’, ‘rose’)

/ʒ/ (‘beige’, ‘measure’)

– Voicing of Final Stop Consonants /b/ (‘cub’)

/d/ (‘pad’)

/g/ (‘bag’)

– Initial Consonant Clusters /s/ + consonant

– Final Consonant Clusters /kt/ (‘worked’)

(paste tense –ed) /ʃt/ (‘washed’)

/dʒd/ (‘judged’)

/ld/ (‘filed’)

– /s/ instead of /ʃ/ (‘sells’ and ‘shells’)

– English /r/ (‘saturday’)

• STRESS, RHYTHM AND INTONATION

– Stress and schwa sounds (‘nature’ / ̍neɪtʃə/, ‘comfortable’ /̍kʌmftəbl/)

– Word stress (‘̍photograph’, ‘pho ̍tography’, ‘photo ̍graphic’)

– Rhythm

– Intonation

– Linking
EVALUATION
• DIAGNOSTIC
– General Speaking Habits
– Intonation
– Stress and Rhythm
– Consonants
– Vowels

• ONGOING
– Self-monitoring and correction
– Peer correction
– Teacher feedback and correction

• CLASSROOM TESTING
TESTS OF PERCEPTION

(Goodwin et al. 1996)

TEST OF PRODUCTION

(Goodwin et al. 1996)

• Oral presentations
 TEST OF PHONETIC KNOWLEDGE

(Goodwin et al. 1996)

COMMUNICATIVE M. TECHNIQUES
• Listen and imitate

• Phonetic training

• Minimal pair drills

• Contextualized minimal pairs

• Tongue twisters

• Reading aloud/Recitation

• Recordings of learners’ production

 NEW DIRECTIONS
• Three guiding principles (Gilbert 1994)

– Methods different than drills and rules

– Musical aspects rather than sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAYwoLZso7s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sotUp32mpOI

– Real speech patterns and practice in efficient

guessing