Teaching Pronunciation

Pronunciation is a key to gaining full communicative competence.

The Communicative Approach holds that since the primary purpose of language is
communication, using language to communicate should be central in all classroom instruction.
This focus on language as communication brings renewed urgency to the teaching of
pronunciation, since both empirical and anecdotal evidence indicated that there is a threshold
level of pronunciation for nonnative speakers of English; if they fall below this threshold level,
they will have oral communication problems no matter how excellent and extensive their
control of English grammar and vocabulary might be.
Current approaches to pronunciation attempt more of a top-down methodology in
which the most relevant features of pronunciation stress, rhythm, and intonation are given
high priority. Instead of teaching only the role of articulation within words, or at best, phrases,
we teach its role in a whole stream of discourse.
Although it is important to mention that presently pronunciation instruction is moving
toward a more balanced view, this view recognizes that both an inability to distinguish sounds
that carry a high functional load (such as /I/ in list and /iy/ in least) and an inability to
distinguish suprasegmental features (such as intonation and stress differences in yes/no and
alternative questions) can have a negative impact on the oral communication and the
listening comprehension abilities of nonnative speakers of English. Todays pronunciation
curriculum thus seeks to identify the most important aspects of both segmental and
suprasegmentals, and integrate them appropriately in courses that meet the needs of any
given group of learners.
This approach puts all aspects of English pronunciation into the perspective of a
communicative, interactive, whole language view of human speech. Many learners of foreign
languages feel that their ultimate goal in pronunciation should be accent-free speech that is
indistinguishable from that of a native speaker. Such a goal is not only unattainable for
virtually every adult learner, but in a multilingual, multicultural world, accents are quite
acceptable. With the rapid spread of English as an international language, native accents have
become almost irrelevant to cross-cultural communication. Moreover, as the world
community comes to appreciate and value peoples heritage, ones accent is just another
symbol of that heritage.
Our goal as teachers of English pronunciation should therefore be more realistically
focused on clear, comprehensible pronunciation. At the beginning levels, we want learners to
surpass that threshold beneath which pronunciation detracts form their ability to
communicate. At the advanced levels, pronunciation goals can focus on elements that enhance
communication: intonation features that go beyond basic patterns, voice quality, phonetic
distinctions between registers, and other refinements that are far more important in the

overall stream of clear communication than rolling the English /r/ or getting a vowel to
perfectly imitate a native speaker.

There are some factors within the learners which affect pronunciation that are
important to consider and deal with:

1. Native language: This is the most influential factor affecting a learners pronunciation.
Being familiar with the sound system of a learners native language will enable a
teacher to better diagnose difficulties.
2. Age: Generally speaking, children under the age of puberty stand an excellent chance
of sounding like a native speaker if they have continued exposure in authentic
contexts. Beyond the age of puberty, while adults will almost surely maintain a
foreign accent, there is no particular advantage attributed to age. A fifty-year-old
can be as successful as an eighteen-year-old if all the other factors are equal.
3. Exposure: It is difficult to define exposure. One can actually live in a foreign country for
some time but not take advantage of being with the people. Research seems to
support the notion that the quality and intensity of exposure are more important than
mere length of time. If the class time spent focusing on pronunciation demands full
attention and interest of your students, then they stand a good chance of reaching
their goals.
4. Innate phonetic ability: Often referred to as having an ear for language, some people
manifest a phonetic coding ability that others do not. In many cases, if a person has
had exposure to a foreign language as a child, this knack is present whether the early
language is remembered or not. Others are simply more attuned to phonetic
discriminations. Although, strategies-based instruction, however, has proven that
some elements of learning are a matter of an awareness of your own limitations
combined with a conscious focus on doing something to compensate for those
limitations. Therefore, if pronunciation seems to be naturally difficult for some
students, they should not despair; with some effort and concentration, they can
improve their competence.
5. Identity and language ego: Yet another influence is ones attitude toward speakers of
the target language and the extent to which the language ego identifies with those
speakers. Learners need to be reminded of the importance of positive attitudes
toward the people who speak the language (if such a target is identifiable), but more
important, students need to become aware of and not afraid of the second identity
that may be emerging within them.
6. Motivation and concern for good pronunciation: Some learners are not particularly
concerned about their pronunciation, while others are. The extent to which learners
intrinsic motivation propels them toward improvement will be perhaps the strongest
influence of all the six of the factors in this list. If that motivation and concern are high,

then the necessary effort will be expended in pursuit of goals. You can help learners to
perceive or develop that motivation by showing, among other things, how clarity of
speech is significant in shaping their self-image and, ultimately, in reaching some of
their higher goals.

Overview of English Sound System

One of the characteristic features of the sound system of any language is its inventory
of sounds that is, the particular combination of consonants and vowels that make up the
inventory. In fact, all languages are somewhat distinctive in their vowel and consonant
inventories, and in the way that these components combine to form words and utterances.
Linguists refer to this inventory of vowels and consonants as the segmental aspect of
language.
In addition to having their own inventory of vowels and consonants, languages also
have unique features that transcend the segmental level. The suprasegmental features involve
those phenomena that extend over more than one sound segments, such as word stress,
sentence stress, rhythm and intonation

A Framework for Teaching Pronunciation Communicatively

Planning Stage

1. What the teacher needs to know

a. Information about the features (articulation rules, occurrences in discourse, etc.)

b. Potential problems for students (often based on typical errors by learners from
particular language backgrounds)
c. Pedagogical priorities (how important a given feature is for students vis--vis
their communicative needs)
2. What the student needs to know (of the foregoing information, what should be
communicated to the students?)

Teaching Stage

1. Description and analysis (e.g. oral and written illustrations of when and how the
feature occurs in order to raise learner consciousness)
2. Listening discrimination (focused listening practice with feedback)
3. Controlled practice and feedback (e.g., oral reading of minimal pair sentences, short

dialogues, etc., with special attention paid to the highlighted feature)

4. Guided practice and feedback (e.g., structured communication exercises that enable
the learner to monitor for the specified feature, such as information gap activities,
cued dialogues)
5. Communicative practice and feedback (e.g., less structured activities that require the
learner to attend to both form and content of utterances)
Techniques for Working with Pronunciation (sample activities)
Exercise should be simple, accessible, fun and combine reception and production.
Some students (usually adults) do feel embarrassed to make ridiculous faces when practicing
vowel sounds (this may be personal or cultural or both), but generally this passes and students
enjoy the pronunciation work. Where possible, exercises should be communicative in that they
should (and do generate differences of opinion and disagreement about what was said/heard).
For Word Stress:

Exercise
1
Say these words with the stressed syllables (in bold) more prominent. Try to stress them by
lengthening
the
vowel.
Try
NOT
to
exaggerate
the
pitch
difference.
two
syllables
de.sign
a.bout
af.ter
three
syllables
va.nil.la
Ca.na.da
graf.fi.ti
four
syllables
in.dif.fe.rent
A.ri.zo.na
a.vai.la.ble
five
syllables
u.ni.ver.si.ty
ca.fe.te.ri.a
la.bo.ra.to.ry*
* Some native speakers (particularly British) pronounces this word la.bo.ra.t(o)ry (three
syllables).

Exercise
Group the following words so that
word
infamous
banana
dinosaur
imply
enjoyment
mountain
excel
passage
begin arrive worry history

pattern
word

they

match

the

patterns

calendar
cluster
eternal
before

..

..

in

2
the table.
list
statement
kingdom
countless
defeated

Inflection/Intonation
Skits
1) Explain that in English you have to give stress to certain words to deliver certain meanings:
review examples like "Oh" and give emphasis to disappointment, anger, surprise, grasp idea
etc...
2) Model a sentence like
You want me to give you money
Throwing emphasis first on MONEY? and then GIVE? and YOU? etc...
3)This moronically simple dialog can be committed to memory:
A: Hi, how are you?
B: Fine, thank you. And you?
A: Just great. What have you been doing lately?
B: Oh, not much. But I've been keeping busy.
A: Well...it's been good to see you.
B: Yes, it has...well, bye!
A: Goodbye.
Do group choral response till they seem to know it, then have them practice in pairs, still
keeping an uninflected normal neutral tone.

THEN: give each pair a situation, emphasizing that it's SECRET and they must not show it to
anyone else, that they will act it out and others will have to GUESS who they are by their
inflection, gestures and body language. (I suggest writing the situations on index cards, very
simply: "You are two people who have just met but don't really know each other, and feel
obliged to make small talk on an elevator"....)
Some situations (be creative!):
1) two athletes (boxers?) who will compete in a match tomorrow
2)a sick person in hospital and friend who visits
3) two old people who are all but deaf
4) a robot and his designer
5) a divorced couple
6) a couple who's love is doomed by marriage promised to others
7) a teacher and a student suffering from infatuation
8)two people who are angry at each other
9) a landlady and her overdue tenant
10) a teacher who has given a student a bad grade, they meet years later
11)two people who have met before, but can't remember where
12) two spies who are meeting late at night
13) two old friends who run into each other on a railway platform
14) Confucius meets Lao Tze in heaven?
15) A detective and a criminal

The idea is: they don't change the dialogue of A and B, just the inflection/intonation to suit the
situation...
4)After each pair has practiced about 5 min or so, hopefully they'll have committed the simple
dialogue to memory. Call each pair up and have them perform the dialogue. After each skit,
the class tries to guess the situation.

It's good to ask: "How does Shirley feel towards Joanna" in this skit? If it's not clear what's
happened in the skit. Then you give positive reinforcement to the actors by at least
acknowledging the emotion they were trying to convey.

References:
- SIT TESOL Certificate Course in Costa Rica Resource Pack, Varied Authors, Tesol
Training in Costa Rica, 2008, Costa Rica.
- Vocabulary, Semantics, and Language Education, Evelyn Hatch and Cheryl Brown,
Cambridge Language Teaching Library, 1995, U.S.A.
- Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, H. Douglas
Brown, Pearson Education, 2001, U.S.A.
- A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Penny Ur, Cambridge Teacher
Training and Development, 1997, United Kingdom.
- Teaching English Pronunciation, Joanne Kenworthy, Longman Handbooks for Language
Teachers, Longman Group UK Limited, 1987, U.S.A.
- Teaching Pronunciation, Marianne Celce-Murcia, Donna Brinton and Janet Goodwin,
Cambridge University Press, 1996, U.S.A.
- http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/curtis/index.html
- http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/teachingvocabulary.html
- http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/vocabulary3_kendall.htm
http://nancybirdy.wordpress.com/2006/03/14/about-%e2%80%9chow-toteachvocabulary%e2%80%9d/
- http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Dalton-Pronunciation.html
- http://www.homestead.com/prosites-eslflow/pronunciationlessonplans.html