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Key Concepts: sounds, stress and rhythm and intonation, native models and accents, international English, the functions of intonation, elision, assimilation, weakening, intrusion, catenation, minimal pairs, phonetic notation/alphabet, exhortation
By the end of this unit you will be able to: operate with a basic working knowledge of English sounds, stress, rhythm and intonation; identify the ways in which these systems operate in speech; identify the problems your pupils are having in assimilating these systems, both from the receptive and productive points of view; apply the practical guidance and the techniques of teaching pronunciation. Quite a lot of things are known about the sounds of English and about how these work as a system. Something is known about the components of intonation (i.e. pitch height, tones and voice range), but only a little is known about how these work together as a system. In fact, intonation was not really seen as a system until quite recently. Discourse analysts put forward a theory that intonation, among various functions that it plays in language use (e.g. in helping to convey attitude), also has the function of structuring discourse. Intonation can be Anca Cehan 1
seen as a system for signalling openings, closings, contrasts, emphases, parentheses, backward linking, forward linking, and so on. In order to teach pronunciation, you need to be able to analyse it both from a theoretical point of view and from the point of view of your pupils difficulties. You need to be aware of its characteristics, so that you can make it manageable for your pupils. In other words, you need to have enough knowledge and awareness of pronunciation to make reasoned and flexible decisions in the classroom.
willingness to learn; possession of a good ear (i.e. good auditory discrimination); instinctive ability to mimic (i.e. good control of speech mechanisms and good monitoring of ones own performance); speed of learning; previous experience of foreign languages; changes brought about by age.
Our learners are frequently exposed to American usage via television, the cinema and other aspects of the mass media, and many children pick up an American accent from watching cartoons. But the choice between a British or an American accent remains an open question, and most often it is the individual choice of each learner.
The most obvious effect of this principle on your teaching is that you need to spend more time on developing your pupils appreciation of sounds, sound sequences, stress and intonation through listening skills activities than through speaking skills activities. A further implication of the principle is that your pupils need neither aspire to nor achieve perfection in their production of English pronunciation. If they are realistic, they need only attain an approximation of English sounds, and thereby retain something of their foreign accent. The aim of teaching pronunciation is not to achieve a perfect imitation of a native accent, but to get the learner to pronounce accurately enough to be easily and comfortably Anca Cehan 4
comprehensible to other competent speakers. Perfect accents are difficult if not impossible for most learners to achieve in a foreign language, and not always desirable. Many people even if often subconsciously feel they wish to maintain a slight mother-tongue accent as an assertion of personal or ethnic identity. This feeling should be respected. However, some pupils are concerned to sound like native speakers, and so you need to work on the accurate production of sounds.
Traditionally, the teaching of English pronunciation was concerned primarily with sound production. Pupils were encouraged to approximate as far as possible to a native speaker model. In recent years, a concern with fluency rather than accuracy has led to the recognition that perfect pronunciation is not absolutely necessary for a message to be conveyed effectively. Consequently, more attention is paid to intonation, stress and rhythm. EFL teachers concentrate on the production of sounds only when they identify sources of unintelligibility or confusion. For instance, your pupils may often have a false idea of what a particular sound in English is, based on the sounds of Romanian. The classic example is the confusion Romanian pupils make between [] and [s]. They may in fact need training to appreciate the difference. Failure to articulate the difference may make them sound foreign, but is unlikely to create a barrier to communication. Nevertheless, failure to discriminate between think and sink may create problems. An even greater problem can be the comprehension of stretches of language in which sounds have changed in connected speech. Therefore, it is useful for you to be able to list and define the sounds of English by writing them down using phonetic notation, and to organise practice in sound discrimination and articulation. Rhythm and stress
Intelligibility in English depends more on the correct use of stress and rhythm than on the correct pronunciation of individual sounds. English speech rhythm is characterised by tone units. A tone unit is a word or group of words that carries one central stressed syllable. Stress is most commonly indicated by a slight rise in intonation. The rhythm of English is, then, mainly a function of its stress patterns; these may also affect such aspects as speed of delivery, volume and the use of pause. Romanian learners encounter difficulties, as the notion of stress is alien to them. Romanian is a syllable-timed language: each syllable takes up approximately the same amount of time in an utterance. English is a stress-timed language, which has stressed syllables occurring at approximately equal time intervals, irrespective of how many unstressed syllables occur between them. English teachers who are relatively uninformed about phonetics give little importance to mistakes due to rhythmic inaccuracy. However, a clear understanding of the phonetic aspects of the spoken language is important, not only for a correct evaluation of the pupils oral performance, but also for providing them with the most accurate model of the spoken language. Intonation
The rises and falls in tone make the tune of an utterance. Intonation is an important aspect of the pronunciation of English, deciding differences to meaning or implication. Anca Cehan 5
Pupils usually perceive their learning in terms of sounds, words, sentences, and do not concentrate on intonation. This results in an oral production that is very monotonous. Moreover, Romanian has a narrower voice-range than English. Hence our pupils may sound unwittingly aggressive or rude when speaking English. Such errors of intonation may cause irritation in listeners, since the intended function is likely to be misinterpreted. The importance of intonation is crucial especially at beginners level, when language production is minimal, and intonation is the best vehicle for social appropriacy. Its importance as a language system cannot be denied. As such, the least we can do is to make pupils aware of it, as we do with grammar. This suggests that making pupils aware, at a very early stage, of the importance and the system of English intonation is desirable. Exposure to the language should be constant and this should lead to an increased sense or feel for the music of English.
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The way a sound is articulated is influenced by what other sounds are next to it: e.g. the -ed suffix of the past tense may be pronounced [d], [t] or [id] depending on what comes immediately before. Intonation affects how we hear stress. In fact, stress is not usually expressed by saying the stressed syllable louder: it is more often a matter of a raised or lowered tone level, with a slight slowing-down. A change in the stress pattern of a word will change its sounds as well: e.g. the word record has the stress on the first syllable when it is a noun, on the second syllable when it is a verb; and this makes a noticeable difference to the sound of the vowels.
Elision
Elision (the suppression/omission of a sound) occurs frequently at the boundary between two words, usually when the end of one word and the beginning of the next create a consonant cluster, e.g.: pounds is reduced to [panz] and and to [n]. You must analyse model sentences and vocabulary very carefully before teaching them, to give your pupils an accurate model. Assimilation
Assimilation happens when a sound changes, because it is affected by the sound that follows it: What words or phrases can be transcribed like this? [imput] .. [ikm] .. [hf t] . [i gri:s] .
Weakening Prepositions, articles (before consonants), and auxiliary verbs (including modals) tend to be shorter and softer, and to have the neutral vowel [ ] when they occur in normal speech. It is only when these parts of speech are given particular emphasis or when they are the final word in a sentence that they are found in their strong form: Should I go? ] Yes, you should. Vowels often get weakened to the schwa [] sound or disappear altogether, as in I wonder if you could [ wndr if j kd]. Weakening is the most difficult proble m for foreign learners of English, a problem that you need to help them to become aware of and to overcome. You need to teach your pupils first of all, to recognise natural pronunciation, and if possible, to produce it accurately.
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Intrusion
Go away. [gwwei] Intrusion happens when an extra sound is introduced to lubricate the flow from one vowel to another. The sound is not indicated in the written form. Catenation
This happens when a consonant at the end of one word is carried over to connect with a vowel at the beginning of the next word: Hes out. [hizat] cup and saucer [kpns:s] Catenation presents problems of aural understanding for pupils because it interferes with their ability to hear word boundaries. Thus [greiteip] can be either grey tape or great ape. Intrusion does not seem to pose problems of understanding, but elision, assimilation, weakening and catenation do. Having learned the words and their pronunciation in isolation, your pupils may fail to recognise them when changes take place in connected speech. That is why, it is important that you raise their awarereness of the way sounds, stress and intonation interact within entire utterances to produce easily comprehensible pronunciation. However, most words have a stable sound, stress and intonation pattern that can be confidently taught in isolation.
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6. Voice. Is there enough variation in pitch? 7. Eye gaze. Does the learner use eye-gaze behaviour appropriate to the context (e.g., facing a conversational partner or looking at the audience if delivering an oral presentation)? 8. Expressive behaviour. Does the learner overuse gestures? Does the facial expression match the utterance? Intonation 1. Is the learner using appropriate intonation patterns in utterances? Can the learner use intonation contours to signal whether utterances are statements, ;lists, whquestions or yes/no questions? 2. Is the learner changing pitch at the major stressed words? Stress and rhythm 1. Word-level stress. Does the learner produce the schwa in unstressed syllables? Does the learner use loudness and length to differentiate between stressed and unstressed syllables? 2. Sentence-level stress. Does the learner stress each syllable equally? Is she able to produce appropriate strong and weak stresses? Are lexical words stressed and functional words unstressed? Does the learner place the tonic stress on the appropriate words? 3. Linking. Is the learner linking words appropriately? Are identical consonants linked (e.g. top position)? Are vowels linked (e.g. pay up)? Are consonants linked to vowels (e.g. top of)? Segmental level Consonants 1. Substitution. Is the learner substituting one phoneme for another? 2. Omission. Is the learner omitting consonants? 3. Articulation. Is the consonant being articulated properly (e.g. is /p/ aspirated wordinitially)? 4. Clusters. Are consonant clusters articulated properly? 5. Linking. Are consonants linked to each other? Vowels 1. Substitution. Is one vowel being substituted for another? 2. Articulation. Is the learner articulating vowels correctly (e.g. lip rounding)? 3. Length. Do vowels have their appropriate length? 4. Reduction. Are vowels reduced in unstressed syllables? 5. Linking. Are vowels properly linked to other vowels across word boundaries? After you analyse the data, you can identify the problems common to the majority of learners and you can provide feedback to individual learners. You have to make some decicions concerning what you can achieve in the time you have available, the areas that should be given priority, the source of the problems (perception or production?) and the types of activities that will help the learners improve their oral producation. Probably, with lower level students, the focus should be on improving the learners intelligibility, that is the focus should be on the suprasegmental level. Where the articulation of particular phonemes is Anca Cehan 9
causing problems, these should be dealt within the context of the word. Activities that help the learner to perceive and produce utterances should be given equal weight.
While perception of sounds can be done using single words or even syllables, work on stress and intonation nearly always needs to be based on longer units. 2) Using some explicit exhortation: you give the pupils instructions to initiate and mimic, to make such and such a sound, without further explanation. Exhortation requires no special training on your part and no special understanding on the part of the pupils. This may involve the use of: imitation drills: repetition of sounds, words and sentences choral repetition of drills varied repetition of drills (varied speed, volume, mood) dialogues (using choral work, and varied speed, volume, mood) learning by heart of sentences, short poems, etc.
3) Systematic explanation and instruction (including details of the structure and movement of parts of the mouth). For sound formation, for instance, you can use a sketch with a description of the organs of speech, and descriptions of the articulation of sounds in terms of lips, tongue, teeth, a description of stress and rhythm etc. These can be supplemented by the use of phonetic notation, ear training (i.e. practice in auditory discrimination, see (1) above) and speech training exercises (i.e. practice in making particular sounds, words and sentences, in isolation or in nonsense sequences (see (4) below). Anca Cehan 10
4) Using special games and exercises for speech training that entail the use of words or sentences to practice particular sounds, sequences of sounds, stress patterns, rhythm, intonation, such as: rhymes, jingles jazz chants tongue twisters, etc.
However, for most aspects of pronunciation a brief explanation is sufficient, followed by demonstration and an invitation to imitate and practise.
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Can you arrange these three stages in the correct order according to the objective of each stage? Number them from 1 to 3. to perceive the sounds as different to identify which is which to produce each of the two sounds Here is how you can organise work at each of the stages: Stage I. You ask the pupils to indicate when the sound changes in a string such as: bit, bit, bit, beat, beat, bit, etc. The pupils will have to shout out or show hands when they hear a change. It is important that the pupils identify the sound not only in isolation, but also in sentences, in both stressed and unstressed positions. You can give them examples such as The ship is old, the sheep is old, the sheep is old, etc. Stage II. The simplest way to train the pupils to identify which sound is which is to write each word of the minimal pair on the board, with a number by the side: 1) bit 2) beat
You give the word at random and the pupils shout out which number goes with it. This exercise should also be done with the sounds in different environments, and with the word in different parts of the sentence. Stage III. You can say the number or hold up a picture, and the pupils say the word. This can also be done in groups with one pupil saying one of the words (in context as well as in isolation) and the others have to identify it by number or by picture. In this variant, you will be monitoring and providing the pupils with feedback on their accuracy and progress.
Why use phonetic alphabet / notation / script? You may wonder whether a knowledge of the phonetic notation is of any practical help to you in your teaching. Certainly, a knowledge of what happens to sounds in the context of the utterance will help you to appreciate the difficulties your pupils face, especially in listening. An ability with the phonetic (tran)script helps you in the preparation of lessons and the anticipation of the pupils difficulties. Teaching and practising the phonetic script with pupils will also be facilitated. Also, a knowledge of the most characteristic phonetic differences between Romanian and English is helpful, too. The phonemic notation can be used for three purposes: to introduce the sounds of English to practise the sounds of English (in isolation and in combination) to teach the phonetic alphabet itself to pupils at various levels of study.
How to use the phonetic notation? First insist that the pupils have a copy of the phonetic alphabet attached to the inside cover of their exercise book or make sure that there is one in the textbook. This can be consulted individually, in class and outside. Then use it for activities such as: 1. Copying: you select the words which the pupils will look up in a dictionary, giving them the phonetic spellings. 2. Matching: you give the pupils a list of sound symbols along with a list of example words containing these sounds. You ask the pupils to match both sets, e.g.: [i:] [ai] [e] [i] [a:] [ ] [o:] [u] [u:] [ ] hat five too sit path cup saw see ten got
3. Sorting: you ask the pupils to categorise a list of example words into two or more groups, according to the vowel sound they contain, e.g.: [i] or [i:]
sit, see, ill, eel, kneel, will, etc. 4. Filling in: you present an example of a phonetic transcription entry, such as [si:] for sea to illustrate [i:] and then other sets with one of the columns blank, e.g.: [i:] [i] [] sea sit ? [si:] [ ? ], [s n]
Categorising, matching and sorting exercises can be devised for plural noun forms [z], [s], [iz] and irregular forms, for the -ed termination of the Past Tense Simple form. A number of familiarisation activities can be carried out with the whole class. Here are a few examples; Anca Cehan 13
1) Bingo. You write 10 15 phonetic symbols on the board, each of which is numbered. You read out some of the items to the class, and the pupils only jot down the corresponding numbers. You check at the end that the class has the correct combination of numbers. This game can be continued in pairs, with the pupils taking it in turns to read out a selection of items to each other. 2) Kims game. A number of items are written on the board. The pupils close their eyes while you rub off one of the spellings. When asked to open their eyes, the pupils try to remember what was in the space. 3) The letters of the alphabet. Phonetic information can play a useful role in teaching and learning the letters of the alphabet, if you arrange the letters according to the sounds their names contain: [ei] A H J K [i:] B C E G [e] [ai] [u] [u:] [a:] F I O Q R L Y U N W S P X T Z V (after Abbs and Freebairn, Opening Strategies, Longman, 1982, p. 24)
4) Delayed correction of pronunciation. Phonetic notation may also be exploited when monitoring pair or group work. Rather than interrupting immediately, you can hand the pupils slips of paper afterwards. These indicate the correct pronunciation in the form of a phonetic spelling. A knowledge of the phonetic alphabet is of great value to the teacher of English. It provides information and guidance about, as well as access to a potential learning aid. It may suit some pupils learning styles providing them with the means of solving some of the difficulties experienced with pronunciation independently.
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Remember to integrate constantly intonation when teaching a new structure, or when doing imitation, substitution drills or communicative drills. For further practice, take advantage of semi-controlled dialogues. Rhythm Quite often, teachers tend to unconsciously distort the rhythm of English in order to make themselves understood by their pupils. They tend to speak so slowly that the sentence stress and rhythm are distorted. When the difference in the duration of stressed and unstressed syllables is lost, they will sound foreign. As rhythm is superimposed on the utterance, it may be difficult to concentrate on it without also paying attention to other aspects (pronunciation of sounds, word stress, pitch variation, meaning of individual words, the utterance as a whole). In the early stages, you could concentrate on rhythmic patterns with words that do not produce vowel and consonant difficulties. Different pitch variations can be presented on the same utterance for better aural discrimination: Hes coming tomorrow. This can be said with a low fall, a high fall, or a rising pitch in the last stressed syllable. What kinds of sentence are said with a 1) low fall, 2) a high fall, or 3) a rising pitch in the last stressed syllable, respectively? 1) 2) 3) As for the syllables, these can be replaced with ti (for the unstressed) and TA (for the stressed). A sentence can sound: a) . _ . _ . (ti TA ti TA ti) b) _ . . . _ (TA ti ti ti TA) Stressed syllables are louder than the unstressed ones. The slanted line marks pitch variation. The syllables can also be represented using smaller and bigger dots: a)
b) Length, a reliable marker of stress, is a variable that the pupils find easy to control. The dots and lines give an idea of the difference in length between stressed and unstressed syllables. This is the feature that differentiates most significantly syllable-timed and stresstimed languages. Stressed syllables in English are about three times longer than unstressed syllables. Pupils can be first asked to discriminate aurally the two rhythmic patterns, which you verbalise with the nonsense syllables ti and TA. A same different drill or a drill identifying the pattern with (a) or (b) can be used. The pupils then can proceed to imitate the patterns using ti or TA. A number of words, phrases and sentences are presented which contain the rhythmic patterns. Pupils identify the pattern writing (a) or (b), and then repeat a number of words, phrases and sentences that contain the patterns in question, e.g.: a) We started early. Well have a picnic. A piece of chocolate. Hes just a baby. Anca Cehan b) Tennis is a game. Do it after lunch. Why did you return? Susan must be there. 15
Can you arrange these phrases and sentences according to the given patterns (a) and (b)? Peter was with us. Another sandwich. Tell her not to come. Thirty of them left. Hes absent minded. A pound of apples. This mornings paper. What about a drink? I dont believe you. Its time for supper. Dont be such a fool. She couldnt help it. Write your answers in the columns (a) and (b) below. a) b) . . . . . . ..
For Romanian pupils, a good command of English rhythm is imperative. If they succeed in following closely the rhythmic patterns, an accent in certain features of intonation will not hinder intelligibility of their speech. Correct production of rhythmic patterns requires a prior teaching of the recognition of the patterns through adequate ear training. Remember that a pupil who is unable to perceive a phonetic aspect will also be unable to reproduce it in the spoken form, and do not neglect to teach aural discrimination of rhythmic patterns. Intonation It is sometimes said that the best techniques for teaching intonation are exaggeration and exhortation. This means that it is always useful to simplify ones teaching of intonation and to put a lot of encouragement into the models you give the pupils to repeat. It is also useful to ask them to repeat what you have said or what they heard on the tape, with as much enthusiasm as they can gather. Here are a few more techniques: Recognition and discrimination
a) Rise or fall?. Provide the pupils with cards of two different colours, or ask them to raise their left or right hands, and say or play a series of short utterances. The pupils must signal recognition by holding up the appropriate hand or card, e.g. right hand for rise and left hand for fall. Dont forget to give your pupils a model of what you intend them to do, before starting. At higher levels, pupils can hear a continuous dialogue and then describe the intonation on each line. They can even discuss why it is so. b) Isolated sentences said in different ways. For such sentences, ask the pupils to determine context and meaning. c) Tone of voice. At low levels, pupils can recognise obvious attitudes (e.g. happy, angry, bored, etc.); at higher levels, pupils can recognise more subtle attitudes (e.g. annoyed, rude, sarcastic, bossy, etc.) Anca Cehan 16
Back chaining One way to help pupils use natural intonation is to practise saying the sentence in sections, starting with the end of the sentence and gradually working backwards to the beginning, e.g., living here / been living here / have you been living here/ How long have you been living here? This technique is known as back-chaining. When you think that the pronunciation point has been satisfactorily perceived, and your pupils can produce an acceptable version, the practice stage follows: consolidating and establishing the habits of good pronunciation through exercises that provide repetition and reinforcement. Intonation and meaning in context After you set up a situational context, you can sing, hum or whistle some lines of a dialogue (i.e. intonation only). Ask the pupils to assess the meaning of each line. Then ask them to repeat the singing, humming or whistling, building a kind of dialogue without words, and then elicit the possible language of the dialogue. Follow this by practice and acting out. Semi-controlled production Pupils respond to cues, such as Try saying Thank you, Pardon, Excuse me or Really? politely/rudely/impatiently, etc. Free production The real test of learning will take place during free oral production. Most errors will go uncorrected, but gross errors will have to be fixed. Encourage peer correction. The teaching of intonation should be integrated into the teaching of structures and functional language, and given equal importance. Teach intonation through situation, and spotlight attitude besides grammar and discourse. Use taped materials, especially dialogues, as often as you can, for both receptive and productive practice. Dont forget that attitude is best suggested by either attitude cards or by your own facial expressions. Use hand gestures to show stress and intonation. Use intonation as a way of disguising revision of structure.
9. Correcting pronunciation
On the whole, you give feedback on oral work through speech, and on written work through writing. Although there are occasional situations where the other way round is possible, these are exceptions. It is recommended to refrain from correcting mistakes during fluency-oriented speech, and to correct only during accuracy-oriented exercises. Correcting a pupil when this is in midspeech would disturb and discourage more than help. But there are situations when correction is likely to be helpful. When the pupil is obviously uneasy or floundering, no correction or help can be demoralising. In such situations, supportive intervention can help. Conversely, even where the emphasis is on getting the language right, you may not always correct: in a grammar exercise, if the pupil has contributed an interesting or personal piece of information that does not use the target form, or when s/he has got most of an item right, you may prefer not to draw attention to a relatively trivial mistake.
You do not react at all. You indicate there is a mistake, but do not provide any further information about what is wrong. You say what is wrong and provide a model of the acceptable version. Can you add any other techniques to this list?
Summary
Although pronunciation is not always taught in an overt, explicit way, many pupils seem to acquire an acceptable pronunciation in school. However, this should not make us forget the benefits of teaching pronunciation in our lessons. The teaching of pronunciation makes the pupils aware of different sounds and sound features and this will improve both their speaking and their listening skills. Concentrating on pronunciation makes pupils aware of sounds, stress, rhythm and intonation, and of various accents. All these give pupils information about spoken English and help them achieve better comprehension of the spoken language and intelligibility in speaking.
Further Reading
Bradford, Barbara, 1988, Intonation in Context CUP Harmer, Jeremy. 2001, The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman, Chapter 2, pp. 28 33 Haycraft, Brita, 1975, The Teaching of Pronunciation, Longman Herbert, Julie PracTESOL: ts Not What You Say, but How You Say It! in Richards, Jack C. and Renandya Willy A., 2002. Richards, Jack C. and Renandya Willy A., 2002. Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP. Jones Rodney H. Beyond Listen and Repeat: Pronunciation Teaching Materials and Theories of Second Language Acquisition in Richards, Jack C. and Renandya Willy A., 2002.
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