Teaching Pronunciation

Pronunciation Issues

Many teachers will teach grammar, vocabulary, functional dialogues among other lessons in an ESL class, but give little attention to pronunciation lessons. It is possible that teachers feel nervous about dealing with teaching sounds and intonation because they can be difficult or perhaps they feel they have other lessons that are more important and more complex and teaching pronunciation will only make things more complicated. They also may feel that their students acquire enough pronunciation skills in the course of their studies. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, thus, pronunciation lessons are important because not only do they make the students aware of different sounds and sound features, but they also improve their speaking immensely.

Concentrating on sounds, showing where they are in the mouth, and making students aware of these words, should be emphasized in any lesson at any level. Furthermore, all these factors give students extra information about spoken English and the help they need to improve their comprehension and intelligibility.

Teaching these types of lessons allow students to get over serious intelligibility problems. Simply by helping students articulate and position the tongue in a certain way, students are more likely to obtain a clearer sound. For example, in the Cantonese language, vowels occur towards the back of the mouth, whereas, English vowels are frequently articulated near the front or the centre of the mouth. If teachers can get Cantonese speakers to bring their vowels further forward, increased intelligibility occurs. Spanish speakers, on the other hand, have problems with consonants such as b/v because their language does not have these two distinct sounds. They cannot differentiate the two, therefore, will find it impossible to use them correctly in the English language. The Japanese are known for confusing r/ and l/ as their language contains neither of these, but instead their language has one sound between the two. Another reason why students are not able to sound words correctly is because it is physically difficult to make certain sounds using particular part of the mouth, uvula or nasal cavity because these sounds may not exist in their own language. Moreover, for many non native speakers, it is very difficult to hear correct intonation or stresses, or to identify the different patterns of rising and falling tones. Most people can hear when someone is surprised, enthusiastic or bored, or if they are asking a question or making a statement, but when English speakers slur words or phrases together in casual speech, common expressions such as “what are you going to do?” becomes “Whatcha gonna do?” Teachers can help with these problems by considering the following tips:

• Draw simple diagrams of tongue and lip positions as well as show your students your mouth and the position of the tongue in relation to the teeth, the shape of the lips when making a certain vowel sound. Have students use a mirror while imitating you.
• Draw attention every time the sounds you are teaching appear on a recording or in conversation this way you train the student’s ear and when they hear it correctly, they are able to use it correctly.
• Hang phonetic charts that have symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in your classroom.
• Use a feather to demonstrate aspirated/voiceless sounds (p/t/k/ch/f…) by holding it in front of your lips as you say the word.
• When teaching voiced/un-aspirated sounds, (b/v/g/z/…) have your students touch their throats while pronouncing these sounds. They should feel their throat vibrate.
• You can demonstrate varying vowel lengths within a word by stretching a rubber band on the longer vowels and letting it contract on the shorter ones. (fifteen vs fifty; sheep vs ship etc.)
• Help your students differentiate between minimal pairs (differ by only one sound) by reading phrases for them to draw. For example have them draw sketches that depict: “a ship is on the sea” vs “a sheep is on the beach” or “the children are playing” vs “the children are praying“
• Keep your lessons fun with lots of activities and games.

Obviously, we don’t expect our students to be perfect with their pronunciation and obtain a British, Canadian or American accent, nor we expect them to completely eliminate their Korean, Italian or Russian accent. What we want our students to do is to notice how we use the language and hopefully improve their pronunciation which in turn will increase their self esteem and facilitate communication which might lead to a better job.

When to Teach Pronunciation

Indeed, effective communication is important, for this reason, a teacher must first choose to work on problems that significantly hinder communication for his/her students and then plan the lesson accordingly. Some teachers devote entire lessons on pronunciation while others choose to insert shorts separate bits of pronunciation work into lesson sequences. Either one is fine at any level. If you decide to make pronunciation the main focus of the lesson, remember that it does not mean that every minute has to be spent on pronunciation. Ensure the lessons are communicative, useful and fun which include dialogues, puzzles, games and TPR activities for pair and group work.

If you decide to include a short pronunciation lesson within another lesson (listening/reading/speaking lessons), think about what your focus is on: intonation; contrast between two or more sounds (sh/ch); working with stress; open/closed vowels; voiced/voiceless consonants and other aspects. These types of lessons provide a welcome change of pace and activity during a lesson and many students find them both useful and enjoyable. In conclusion, pronunciation lesson help students recognize and pronounce English sounds correctly, and students not only learn how to produce these sounds, they also practice the skills needed to communicate in real life.