3

Contents

1. Introduction-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3

2. Teaching pronunciation------------------------------------------------------------------------------4

2.1. Pronunciation issues------------------------------------------------------------------------4

2.1.1. Perfection versus intelligibility-----------------------------------------------------------4

2.1.2. Problems-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5

2.2. The phonemic alphabet: to use or not use? ----------------------------------------------6

2.2.1. When to teach pronunciation--------------------------------------------------------------6

2.3. Examples of pronunciation teaching------------------------------------------------------7

2.3.1. Working with sounds----------------------------------------------------------------------8

2.3.2. Working with stress------------------------------------------------------------------------8

2.3.3. Working with intonation-------------------------------------------------------------------8

2.3.4. Sounds and spelling-------------------------------------------------------------------------9

2.3.5. Connected speech and fluency------------------------------------------------------------9

3. Function -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9

3.1. Purpose---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9

3.2. Appropriacy--------------------------------------------------------------------------------10

3.3. Language as discourse--------------------------------------------------------------------12

3.4. Genre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13

4. Conclusion-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------14

5. Bibliography-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12Introduction

The present work aims essentially to approach the teaching pronunciation and functions-a very important topic for students and teachers on their process of teaching and learning, which makes them to deal with intonation and stress in order to make these students aware of different sounds and sound features even their speaking, but this is one of the areas of teaching which is often neglected. It will detail also the perfection versus intelligibility, problems such as what students can hear and the intonation problems, the phonemic alphabet, when to teach pronunciation, examples of pronunciation teaching and functions such as purpose, appropriacy, language as discourse and genre. Of course, the teaching of pronunciation should not solely focus on the production of sounds, but also on receptive skills, i.e. understanding when listening.1. Teaching pronunciationAccording to Carney at all (1996:839) states that pronunciation is the way in which something is pronounced, especially by somebody speaking a foreign language.1.1. Pronunciation issues

Almost all English language teachers get students to study grammar and vocabulary, practise functional dialogues, take part in productive skill activities, and become competent in listening and reading. Yet some of these some teachers make little attempt to teach pronunciation in any overt way and only give attention to it on passing. It is possible that they are nervous of dealing with sounds and intonation; perhaps they feel they have too much to do already and pronunciation teaching will only make things worse. Pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of different sounds and sound features (and what these mean), but can also improve their speaking immeasurably. Concentrating on sounds, showing where they are made in the mouth, making students aware of where words should be stressed-all these things give them extra information about spoken English and help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility. In some particular cases pronunciation help allows students to get over serious intelligibility problems.

5.1.1. Perfection versus intelligibility

The degree to which students acquire perfect pronunciation seems to depend very much on their attitude to how they speak and how well they hear. Frequently foreign language speakers want to retain their own accent when they speak foreign language because that is part of their identity.Under the pressure of such cultural consideration it has become customary for language teachers to consider intelligibility as the prime goal of pronunciation teaching. This implies that the students should be able to use pronunciation which is good enough for them to be always understood. If their pronunciation is not up to this standard, it is thought, then there is a serious danger that they will fail to communicate effectively.If intelligibility is the goal then it suggests that some pronunciation features are more important than others. Stressing words and phrases correctly is vital if emphasis is to be given to the important parts of messages and if words are to be understood correctly. The fact that we may want our students to work towards an intelligible pronunciation rather than achieve a native-speaker quality may not appeal to all; however, despite what we have said about identity, some may wish to sound exactly like a native speaker. In such circumstances it would be churlish to deny them such an objective.5.1.2. Problems

Two particular problems occur in much pronunciation teaching and learning:

What students can hear: some students have great difficulty hearing pronunciation features which we want them to reproduce. There are two ways of dealing with this: in the first place we can show students how sounds are made through demonstration, diagrams, and explanation. But we can also draw the sounds to their attention every time they appear on a tape or in our own conversation. In this way we gradually train the students ears. When they can hear correctly they are on the way to being able to speak correctly. The intonation problem: for many teachers the most problematic area of pronunciation is intonation. Some of us (and many of our students) find it extremely difficult to hear tunes or to identify the different patterns of rising and falling tones. In such situation it would be foolish to try and teach them.However, the fact that we may have difficulty recognising specific intonation tunes does not mean that we should abandon intonation teaching altogether. Most of us can hear when someone is being enthusiastic or bored, when they are surprised, or when they are really asking a question rather than students opportunities to recognise such moods and intentions either on tape or through the way we ourselves model them. We can then get students to imitate the way these moods are articulated, even though we may not (be able to) discuss the technicalities of the different intonation patterns themselves.The key to successful pronunciation teaching, however, is not so much getting students to produce correct sounds or intonation tunes, but rather to have them listen and notice how English is spoken-either on audio or videotape or from the teachers themselves. The more aware they are the greater the chance that their own intelligibility levels will rise.5.2. The phonemic alphabet: to use or not use?

It is perfectly possible to work on the sounds of English without ever using any phonemic symbols. We can get students to hear the difference, say, between sheep and cheap or between ship and sheep just by saying the words enough times. There is no reason why this should not be effectively.

However, since English is bedevilled, for many students (and even first language speakers), by problems of sound and spelling correspondence, it may take sense for them to be aware of the different phonemes, and the clearest way of promoting this awareness is to introduce the various symbols.

There are other reasons for using phonemic symbols too. Dictionaries usually give the pronunciation of their words in phonemic symbols. If students can read these symbols they can know how the word is said even without having to hear it. When both teachers and students know the symbols it is easier to explain what mistakes has occurred and why it has happened; we can also use the symbols for pronunciation tasks and games. The knowledge of phonemic script is of benefit to students.

5.2.1. When to teach pronunciationJust as with any aspect of language-grammar, vocabulary...teachers have to decide when to include pronunciation teaching into lesson sequences. There are a number of alternatives to choose from:

Whole lesson: some teachers devote whole lesson sequences to pronunciation and some schools timetables pronunciation lessons at various stages during the week.

Though it would be difficulty to spend a whole class period working on one or two sounds, it can make sense to work on connected speech concentrating on stress and intonation over some forty-five minutes, provided that we follow normal planning principles. Discrete slots: some teachers insert short, separate bits of pronunciation work into lesson sequences. Over a period of weeks they work on all the individual phonemes either separately or in contrasting pairs. At other times they spend a few minutes on a particular aspect of intonation, say, or on the contrast between two or more sounds. Integrate phases: many teachers get students to focus on pronunciation issues as an integral part of a lesson. When students listen to a tape, for example, one of the things which we can do is draw their attention to pronunciation features on the tape, if necessary having students work on sounds that are specially prominent, or getting them to imitate intonation patterns for question, for example.

Opportunistic teaching: just as teachers may stay from their original plan when lesson realities make this inevitable, and teach vocabulary or grammar opportunistically because it has come up, so they are good reasons why we may want to stop what we are doing and spend a minute or two on some pronunciation issue that has arisen in the course of an activity. A lot will depend on what kind of activity the students are involved in since we will be reluctant to interrupt fluency work inappropriately, but tackling a problem at the moment when it occurs can be a successful way of dealing with pronunciation.

Although whole pronunciation lessons may be an unaffordable luxury for classes under syllabus and timetable pressure, many teachers tackle pronunciation in a mixture of the ways suggested above.5.3. Examples of pronunciation teaching

The areas of pronunciation which we need to draw our students attention to include individual sounds they are having difficult with, word and phrase/sentences stress, and intonation. But students will also need help with connected speech for fluency and the correspondence between sounds and spelling. All these areas are touched on in the examples bellow.

5.3.1. Working with soundsWe often ask students to focus on one particular sound. This allows us to demonstrate how it is made and show how it can be spelt-a major concern with English since there is far less one-to-one correspondence between sound and spelling than there in some other languages-especially Romance languages.5.3.2. Working with stressStress is important in individual words, in phrases, and in sentences. By shifting it around in a phrase or a sentence we can change emphasises or meaning.

When students meet new words in class (and if the new words end up on the board) the teacher will mark the stress of those words (using a consistent system of stress marking).5.3.3. Working with intonation Intonation plays a key role in pronunciation. In many respects its not what we say, but how we say it that conveys meaning. However, its a bit silly to talk about intonation in isolation as it is often affected by stress, tone and rhythm. This can be seen on a word level when one syllable is stressed for emphasis, the pitch falls from high to low.

From pronunciation Tasks by M Hewings (Cambridge University Press)5.3.4. Sounds and spellingAlthough there are many regularities in English spelling (such as word roots and grammatical endings) the fact that there is no complete one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes causes many problems for learners. 5.3.5. Connected speech and fluencyGood pronunciation does not just mean saying individual words or even individual sounds correctly. The sounds of words change when they come into contact with each other. This is something we need to draw students attention to in our pronunciation teaching.Fluency is also helped by having students say phrases and sentences as quickly as possible, starting slowly and then speeding up. Getting students to perform dialogues and play extracts-if we spend some time coaching them-will also make them aware of speaking customs and help them to improve their overall fluency.6. Function

The issue that faces us here is that the words we use and what they actually mean in the context we use them is not the same thing at all. We choose words and phrases to have different effects from the surface meanings they appear to express, and we do this on the basis of a number of variables: purpose, appropriacy, language in discourse, and genre.

6.1. Purpose

Many years ago, the philosopher J. L. Austin identified a series of verbs which he called performatives that are verbs which do what those some words mean. Thus, if a speaker says I promise, the word promise itself performs the function of promising. If a celebrity says I name this ship Ocean 3 the use of the verb to name performs the function of naming.One major result of this interest in purpose led applied linguists to propose a category of language functions such as inviting, apologising, offering, and suggestion. Thus Would you like to come for a coffee? Performs the function of inviting where the purpose is to be a good host, whereas I cant go along with you there performs the function of disagreeing with the purpose of marking your own opinion quite clear. Why dont you switch it on? Seems to be performing the function of strong suggestion where the purpose is to provoke action, and Ill do it if you want is clearly offering help, with the purpose of being helpful.The study of functions and how they are realised in language has had a profound effect upon the design of language-teaching material, making language purpose a major factor in the choice of syllabus items and teaching techniques.

6.2. Appropriacy

A feature of language functions is that they do not just have one linguistic realisation; the following phrases, for example, show only some of the possible ways of inviting someone to the cinema:Would you like to come to the cinema? How about coming to the cinema? Dyou fancy the cinema?

I was wondering if you might like to come to the cinema tonight.

What about the cinema?

Are you on for the cinema?

Cinema?

Theres a good movie on at the cinema.

Thus, when we attempt to achieve a communicative purpose (such as getting someone to agree to an invitation) we have to choose which of these language forms to use. Which form, given our situation, is the most appropriate?There are a number of variables which govern our choice:

Setting: we speak differently in libraries from the way we do in night clubs. We often use informal and spontaneous language at home, whereas we may use more formal pre-planned speech in an office or work environment.

Participants: the people involved in an exchange- whether in speech or writing- clearly affect the language being chosen. However egalitarian we may want to be often choosing words and phrases in conversation with superiors which are different from the words and phrases we use when talking to friends, members of our families, or colleagues of equal status to us.

Gender: research clearly shows that men and women typically use language differently when addressing either members of the same or the opposite sex. Channels: spoken language is affected by the situation we are in. Are we speaking face to face or on the telephone? Are we speaking through a microphone to an unseen audience or standing up in a lecture hall in front of a crowd? Each different channel will generate different uses of language. Topic: finally, the topic we are addressing affects our lexical and grammatical choices. The words and phrases that we use when talking or writing about a wedding will be different from those we employ when the conversation turns to particle physics.These, then, are some of the factors that influence our choice of language. When we have our students study the way language is used in speaking or writing, we will want to draw their attention to such issues. We may ask why a speaker uses particular words or expressions. We may have our students prepare for a speaking activity by assembling the necessary topic words and phrases. We may discuss what sort of language is appropriate in an office situation when talking to a superior-and whether the sex of the superior makes any difference.

Language is a social construct as much as it is a mental ability. It is important for students to be just as aware of this in a foreign or second language as they are in their own.6.3. Language as discourse

Our description of language has so far taken in grammar, vocabulary, and language use (translated by applied linguists into a study of language functions). This has led some researches to describe conversations in terms such as turn-taking (how people take turns to speak in a conversation), and the patterns and routes which many typical conversations follow. The concern has been not so much to study the bits of language (words and grammar, for example) but to see how they are used in discourse (language used in context over an extended period), since it is at the level of discourse that we can really see how people operate.We use variety of devices to structure written discourse. Sometimes we repeat words (Mary Allen, the Mayor of X, is to stand for re-election. Allen says...), replace names with pronouns (Mary Allen, the mayor of X, is to stand for re-election. She...). Using such devices to refer to something earlier in the text is called anaphoric reference; in the case of reference anaphoric; reference outside the text is exophoric.6.4. Genre Discourse analysis allows us to make statements about typical paragraph organisation or the structure of conversation. But we can go even further than this, showing longer stretches of typical discourses which almost always behave in the same way. We can describe different types of film (e.g. film noir, animated cartoon, teenage horror movie) as different genres. In the same way, we can describe different types of writing- in different context and for different purposes- as different written genres, and we can look at typical speaking genres too. This then allows us to study different languages use in thriller or romantic fiction. We can show the way in which holidays postcards are normally written, or study scientific writing for its general patterning; we can show how typical exchanges take place at post office counters, or study the genres of social introductions. Students who have been helped to perceive these patterns will be in a much better position not only to understand what they read and hear, but also to produce their written and spoken language. (Harmer, 2006:23-27).7. ConclusionQuite clearly, pronunciation is both incredibly complex and an important area for teaching and learning. This task shows why it is important to include pronunciation in our lessons. Pronunciation is not just about producing the right sounds or stressing the right syllables, it is also about helping students understand what they hear.

The point that this work detailed made the researcher understand deeply what it means when is spoken about pronunciation in the process of teaching and learning-the way in which something is pronounced, especially by somebody speaking a foreign language. The sounds of words change when the students come into contact with each other-what we need to draw students attention to in our pronunciation teaching; therefore even this is one of the examples of pronunciation teaching. As well as with any aspect of language such as grammar and vocabulary teachers have to decide when to include pronunciation teaching into lesson sequences.8. Bibliography

1. HARMER, J, (2006). The practice of English language teaching, 3rd ed., Cambridge: UK, Longman.2. CARNEY, F, (1996). Larousse English Dictionary, didatica editora.Listen to these examples. Prominent words are in a capital letters. Notice how the voice FALLS at the end.

Its MINE. Shes from ROME. Is it YOURS? I MET him at a DISCO.

Now listen to these examples. Notice how the voice RISES at the end.

I THINK so. PROBABLY. Are they HERE yet? Is THIS the PARIS train?