Teaching and

Asessing
Pronunciation
Pronunciation Issues

Pronunciation is one of the skills most of teachers do not focus on. It is

assumed that students acquire it with the language exposure only. On the
other hand, teaching or focusing on pronunciation may help students to a
wide range of production skills.
Advantages of teaching pronunciation

❖ Make students aware of different sounds and sound features

and what these mean.
❖ Increase speaking immeasurably.
❖ Concentrating in sounds, show them where they are made in
the mouth, making students sure of where words must be
stressed; all this gives students extra information about
spoken English and helps them to get the improved
comprehension and intelligibility.
Perfection versus Intelligibility
¿How good our student’s pronunciation ought to be. Should they
sound exactly as speakers of a prestige variety of English so that just
by listening to them we will assume that they were British, Australian,
American or Canadian?
-Or is this asking too much?
–Teacher’s pronunciation as a model.
–Understanding themselves as a goal.
‘Perfect’ pronunciation
This dependent on student’s attitude on how they speak and how well they
hear.

Psychological issues that indicate how ‘foreign’ a person sounds when

speaking English. To be surrounded by ‘native language’ background may
help to achieve pronunciation.

-Inner circle

-International global English

-Maintain their identity .

Intelligibility
Under the pressure of such personal, political and phonological it has become
customary for language teachers to consider intelligibility as the prime goal of
pronunciation teaching. This implies that:
● Students should be able to use pronunciation which is good enough for
them to be always understood.
● If not so, students will be in danger to fail to communicate effectively.
Intelligibility features
Some are more important than others.

● Some sounds must be right if the speaker is to get their message across.
● Others may not cause a lack of intelligibility if they are used interchangeably.
● In the case of individual sounds it depends a lot on: The context of the
utterance.
However,

● Stressing words and syllables correctly is important to emphasize and

transmit messages.
● Intonation, is a vital carrier of meaning.
Problems
What students can hear:
-Some students have certain difficulty hearing to pronunciation features we want
them to reproduce.

For Spanish speakers: /b/ and /v/ sounds

Solutions:

-Demonstration

-Draw the sounds to their attention, as a record of them

What students can say:

Physical unfamiliarity; physically difficult to make a sound using a particular part

of the mouth, uvula or nasal cavity.

Solution:

-To show where the sounds are produced. (Where is the tongue in relation to the
lips when producing some sounds, etc.
The intonation problem:
One of the most problematic areas of pronunciation is intonation. Recognising tunes
is one of the most challenging areas of learning a foreign Language. However, this
is not an excuse of omitting it on our teaching pronunciation altogether.

Listening and identifying when someone is surprised, enthusiastic or bored. Or when

they are asking a question or just confirming something they already know.
Solutions:

-To help students to recognise such moods and intentions, either on an audio track
or modeling them.

-Make them imitate sounds. Even we go deeply in their articulation process or not.

-The key is not make students to produce correct sounds but rather to have them
listen and notice how English is spoken. (video, audio, teacher’s own speaking)

-The more aware they are, the greater the chance their own intelligibility levels will
rise.
Phonemic symbols; to use or not to use?

Is it perfectly possible to teach sounds without using any phonemic symbols?

However, since English is bedevilled by many students, for an apparent lack

of sound and spelling correspondence, it may make sense for them to be
aware of the different phonemes and the clearest way to reach this
awareness is to introduce the symbols for them.
Other reasons:

● Dictionaries pronunciation
● It is easier to explain mistakes in pronunciation if both parts have
knowledge of phonemic system.
● We can use them for games or tasks.
Knowing phonemic symbols is great benefit to students.
When to teach pronunciation
Such as other skills, teachers must decide when and how to teach
pronunciation at various stages on their week lesson.
Whole lessons
Making pronunciation the main focus of the lesson doesn’t mean that every
minute of the lesson must be spent on pronunciation tasks. (45 minutes
lessons).

Remember to work on listening skills before going to pronunciation.

Aspects of vocabulary may be also addressed before going to aspects of word

stress and sounds and spelling.
Discrete slots
Inserting short, separate bits of pronunciation work into lesson sequences. (over a
period of weeks)

This separate slots can be extremely useful and provides a welcome change on
pace and activity during the lesson. It success it is attributed to the fact that we
do not spend so much on any one issue. However, pronunciation is not a separate
skill; it is part of the way we speak.
Integrated phases
Make students focus on pronunciation as an integral part of the lesson. To
draw attention to pronunciation features as they listen to a track, imitate
intonation patterns for questions, etc.

Pronunciation teaching forms a part of the sequences where students learn

language form. One of the things in which we pay close attention to is to a correct
pronunciation on a reproduction stage.
Opportunistic teaching
There is a good reason for teachers to stop what it is being done and spend one
or two minute on some pronunciation issue that has arisen from the course of the
activity being performed.
Helping individual students
Whole class work is usually held when pronunciation teaching, such as drills or
stress sentences.

Even in monolingual groups, some issues may arise, for example:

-different needs, problems and attitudes.

How to respond?
● Get the students to work on their own individual pronunciation difficulties,
rather than telling them, as a group, what they need to work on.
● We can make them bring difficult words and help them, then with them.
● It is vitally important when correcting students to make sure that we offer
help in a constructive and useful way.
● Provide words in a phonological context.
● Offering them continues opportunities to hear the sounds being used
correctly.
Examples of pronunciation teaching:
● Working with sounds
● Working with stress
● Connected speech