How to teach pronunciation-handouts

[Type here] Teaching Pronunciation Marty Pilott

1 haʊ tɘ ti:ʧ prɘˌnᴧnsıʹjeıʃɘn

Why it seems to be so hard to teach

And so hard to learn

Illustration from Messum, P. (2010). Understanding and teaching the English articulatory setting. Does the audience agree?

2

PRONUNCIATION

SegmentalsProsodyFluency

Migrants

40 Interviews

Employers

[Acceptability]

95 Respondents

"Objective" Rating

5 Raters

This is the design of my research into acceptability of migrant pronunciation by migrants.

3 Something to think about

While the teacher is

explaining

the student isn’t learning

While the teacher is explaining, the student is learning about language but they are not actually developing any skills – these are learned through practice.

4 What is the goal of teaching?

Sounding like a native speaker

Being intelligible – so native speakers can

understand

Being acceptable – Employers as

gatekeepers

“Nativeness” used to be the goal, but it is unreasonable and impracticable. Intelligibility makes more sense, but is this enough in real life? Employer responses showed that Acceptability is a separate criterion. What do learners need to be acceptable?

6

WHY DON’T ADULTS?

If all children learn how to pronounce their native language without instruction

Adult and child learning is different. Adults have lost the ability to distinguish sounds of other languages, but can compensate using other abilities. Teachers need to help the adult break down their existing mental structure and build up a new one.

7 Mental Restructuring

LEARNING means

Keeping and losing distinctions

Distinguishing what matters from what

doesn’t

Gaining some abilities by losing others

Grammar is about rules; pronunciation is about distinctions Learning the pronunciation of a new language involves breaking down learners’ mental structures about what distinctions are important and building up a new one.


8 Other Barriers

Learning is SOCIAL as well as ACADEMIC

Embarrassment

Identity

Willingness to learn

Learning pronunciation is a PERFORMANCE skill, and not everyone likes performing. A new accent might threaten some learners’ identities. They might not want to be seen by their peers as adopting a new cultural identity Their reasons for learning might not include attaining a high level of pronunciation The teacher can only provide the OPTIONS

9 Three levels

Fluency

Intonation and stress

Sounds

All three levels were strong predictors of Employer Acceptability. For migrants to be accepted in terms of pronunciation, they need to develop proficiency at all levels We use all features of pronunciation at once, either by use or omission All features can be taught from early stages

10 Level 1: Sounds

Teach contrasts, not absolute sounds

Functional load

Essential role of consonants

Teach as part of an overall

communicative programme

• The important thing is NOT that students can say “bad, bed, bid, bead” exactly as I do, but that they can hear and say four different vowels which are close to these.

• Some sound distinctions are more important that others because they are more common and distinguish more words.

• We are used to dialects in which the vowels vary, but consonant tends to remain the same. They are also a problem for many of our language learners.

• Yes, you can pause to teach pronunciation separately, but then you can vary from accuracy to fluency, shifting the focus from getting it right to saying it smoothly.

11 The phoneme principle

/T/

As in

tops stop pots

post water post-test

English speakers hear all of these as a “T”. They are bundled into the English phoneme /t/, but in fact they are all pronounced differently. We don’t hear this difference because it is unimportant in English – in fact, it is important NOT to hear the difference when speaking English. But Hindi speakers have four kinds of “t”, only two of which appear in English.

त [t] Like English [t] but with no aspiration (breath)

थ [th] Like English [t] but with strong aspiration (breath)

ट [ʈ] Curl the tongue up and pronounce “t” with the underside of the tongue (no aspiration)

ठ [ʈh] Curl the tongue up and pronounce “t” with the underside of

the tongue (strong aspiration) 12

Learning new distinctions

Learner listens to develop the ability to

distinguish the sounds

Teacher explains how the mouth is used

to produce the sounds

Repeat as needed.

The student must practise outside of the classroom by using the language – even by making recordings.


13 Minimal pairs

Sounds are often taught using “minimal

pairs”. These are pairs like pin/bin which

have only one difference – the one you

are teaching. They can be used for

listening and speaking practice.

Popular books: Tree or Three / Ship or Sheep. Employers consider segmentals to be the most important feature, even though they gave the highest acceptability rating to those with the best fluency. This shows that people are consciously aware of how people pronounce sounds.

14 An example

CHIMERAMonster / fabulous beast / unrealistic notion

I had read this word but never heard it, so I thought it was a French word and pronounced it “SHI-mer-a”. When I watched Mission Impossible II (we can even learn from action movies!) I learnt it was from Greek and pronounced “ki-MY-a”. I could say it after I heard it, but only because I already knew the English sound structure already. This doesn’t work for a language where I don’t already know the distinctions.

15 An example from Chinese

书 shū (book)

需 xū (to want)

Both sounds are different. The “U” sound is like English “shoot” in the first, but like French “tu” in the second. The “X” sound is like English in the first, but in the second it is retroflex – the tongue is curled back in the mouth. Both the differences are important, because either one would help a Chinese speaker hear the intended word. Tones are the same in both and can create another level of difficulty! This shows that “listen and repeat” does not work.

16 Sound systems

Each language has RULES about where

sounds can appear.

English allows consonant clusters such

as str, and pr at the start of words and

nk or lp at the end. Other languages may

not allow these, or allow others (such as

dv or zdr.

Once learners have learnt the sound of English they may still struggle to pronounce them in certain positions or combinations because they are forbidden by the rules of their own language.

17 Clashing systems

English: Maori initial /ŋ/

Somali: /p/ - /b/, sikis, two-ellif

Chinese: /r/ - /ʒ/

Spanish: I estudy at eschool

Korean: I learn Englishi

East Asian: Limited range of final consonant sounds allowed

You need to know about your learner’s language so you know which problems they are likely to have. You should also record your learner speaker so you know which problems they do have.

18 Finally (on sounds)

Sounds don’t exist in isolation.

In everyday speech, sounds are not pronounced as they are in the dictionary.

So we need to move on to the higher levels. If the teacher always speaks “correctly” the student will find it difficult to understand and use normal speech.


19 Level 2: Intonation and Stress

Word stress

Intonation

Contrastive intonation

Unstress

These are three key features of the second level, which is known as “prosody”. Stress in English has three elements: length, pitch and volume. They might not all be used all the time but if the learners is aware of them there is a better change that their stress will be recognised. Intonation is the speech pattern of emphasis which show whether a sentence is neutral, a question, a command, or aims at emphasising some information. Stress carried a lot of meaning in English. Learners may not be aware of this (e.g. Spanish has stress but it is not used so much in this way). UNTRESS is a key feature of English. Weak syllables are spoken rapidly with reduced vowels. This is often the feature which learners find hardest to hear and say.

20 Word Stress

A key feature of English

Must be taught along with all new vocab

Can use minimal pairs of stress in

communicative activities (e.g. REcord /

reCORD).

Not all languages put strong stress on certain syllables. English speakers “repair” what they can’t hear clearly using word stress, so if the stress is wrong then repair is impossible. South Asian (Indian, Sri Lankan, some Myanmarese) speakers use a different word stress pattern which is one of the main reasons these speakers can be hard to understand. EMPHASISE features which the learner may think unimportant.

21 Intonation

Teach typical sentence patterns

Then use them in normal conversation

(slightly slowed down)

Teach the difference between normal

statements, questions and orders.

Teach the emphasis on new v old

information.

Learners often make errors in intonation. For example, many learners wrongly stress final pronouns while English leaves them weak (unless contrasted): It was my husband’s birthday so I got him a present and gave it to HIM (that implies she gave it to some other man!). Intonation carries an important part of the meaning – the attitude we have towards what we are saying and towards the listener. Learners sometime use a peremptory tone which native speakers may find offensive, or constantly use one intonation pattern.

22 Contrastive intonation

For example,

Are you going to AUSTRALIA in May?

I’m going in JUNE.

Just YOU?

No, we’re ALL going.

Also:

JAMES isn’t going to Australia.

Not all languages use contrastive intonation, so learners may be unaware of its importance and regular use. New v old: - I’m going to study BUSINESS. - Do you think business will be INTERESTING?

- Well, whether it’s interesting or NOT, I need to LEARN it.

- WHY do you need to learn it?

23 Teaching Intonation

Use DIAgrams or PICtures to illustrate

the intoNAtion pattern of an English

SENtence.

Bang the pattern on the table.

Ask the learner to imitate intonation

from a recording.

(Reed & Michaud 2011) Intonation adds the intention, mood and purpose to a statement. Unlike segmentals it isn’t right or wrong – just appropriate or not. Try using different intonation on the same sentence to produce different meanings (e.g. “I was going to use that one.”) Play videos. Learners imitate the statements and discuss what the intonation means. Read simple play scripts and focus on intonation.

24 Level 3: Fluency

Linking

Pausing, hesitancy

Variation

Smoothness

This level is often ignored in teaching, but it might be the most important. Unlike grammar, pronunciation teaching should not be sequential. Fluency broader level than segmental but it is not more difficult and should not be saved until later. As soon as learners can say something they can say it fluently and with appropriate intonation.


25 Fluency: Linking

Teachers tend to present “dictionary” forms, but they should then be given in context.

We do not use full, “correct” forms in normal speech.

Wodga want?

Zat you?

English words are intricately linked in fluent speech. They don’t sound much like their citation (dictionary) forms. Connected speech is not made of separate words. They are linked, and syllables and sounds are lost or added. It’s useful to shock students out of complacency.

26 From “Let Stalk Strine”

Hello! Dint note was ute first. Dint U U

Steffer beard? I thaw chetterlong beard.

Essa Dibbet me wife sediwer skettin twold

twearer beard. Shiss edit mimey look lichen

Noel office boy.

Can you decipher this? It is mocking Australian pronunciation but illustrates what colloquial speech is like.

27 Fluency: Pausing and hesitation

“Chunk” words into groups and pause

between chunks.

Avoid long, unnecessary pauses

Think in one language

Speed exercises

We can speak fluently because we process rapidly Fluency is developed by lots of speaking.

28 Fluency: Variation

Native speakers don’t like boring voices

which use the same intonation patterns

HEAR lots of language

Identify the meaning of intonation

USE it often

If learners know a range of intonation patterns they can use them to express attitudes and make emphasis.

29 Fluency: Smoothness

Speakers of some languages, especially East

Asian, have a “choppy” sound to their

speech, which is not attractive to native

speakers of English.

Practise linking

Take a deep breath and read out a

paragraph

The languages themselves aren’t necessarily choppy; they just sound this way because of their interpretation of English or because they have been taught words in isolations and not in flowing speech.

30 Mouth Position

Each language has a basic mouth position.

Changing this can make an instance

difference, but it is hard to teach. People

with the ability to imitate use this.

“What do English speakers sound like when

they speak your language?”

YouTube: Billy T James on how to speak Japanese. Look at actors who can put on foreign accents successfully, e.g. Peter Ustinov. Focus on mouth position of other languages such as Hindi and Chinese.


31 Three levels again

Which levels are important?

Which are necessary for acceptability by

native speakers?

Which should you be teaching?

My research shows that all three levels are important, but the Fluency level has more effect on acceptability. All three should be taught right from the beginning. As soon as the learner can say a sentence, they can start learning it as fluent speech.

32 A note on Reading

Reading text aloud is a separate skill from

speaking.

Words on the page override learnt

pronunciation rules.

Try to teach the learner to say words

aloud before reading them distorts

perception of them.

The presentation deals with pronunciation separately from reading. Decoding print is a different skill.

33 So what is the goal of teaching?

Native speaker level – Impossible for

most adults.

Intelligibility – Yes, but not enough.

Acceptability – Native speakers make

judgements about ways of speaking, even

if they understand.

Consider what people are likely to find acceptable.

34 Other criteria

Employers also rated a speaker as more

acceptable if they seemed to be hard

working. Presumably

From what they said, and

How they said it

35

While the teacher is

explaining

the student isn’t learning

The student may be learning ABOUT language, but the actual learning takes place when the learner is USING the language. That is why explanations and teacher talk should be kept to a minimum.

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How to teach pronunciation-handouts