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Teaching Pronunciation - Why?
Learning to pronounce a language is a very complex
task, and the learning process can be facilitated if
the learner is aware of exactly what is involved. It
is obviously difficult for learners to do this for
themselves. So the teacher's job is to help learners
by dividing the language into its components, such as
sounds, syllables, stress, and intonation. The learner
needs to understand the functions of these components
as well as their forms.
Once learners are aware that English words have a
stress pattern, that words can be pronounced in
slightly different ways, and that the pitch of the
voice can be used to convey meaning, they will know
what to pay attention to and can build upon this basic
awareness. Learners also need to develop an awareness
of the way they pronounce words. Egyptian students
face certain problems related to pronunciation. Some
of these problems are related to stress, others are
related to intonation. However, most of these problems
can be attributed to the differences in pronunciation
between English and Arabic.
Myths and Facts about Learning and Teaching
Pronunciation:
Many students and teachers have myths about what it
means to learn and teach the pronunciation of English.
These are four most commonly held ones:
Myth #1:
Learning the pronunciation of English means learning
how to pronounce the individual vowel and consonant
sounds.
Fact #1:
There is much more to the pronunciation of English
than its individual sounds. How these sounds are
organized plays a greater role in communication than
the sounds themselves. Two major organizing structures
are rhythm and intonation.
Myth #2:
It is difficult, if not impossible, for students to
hear and pronounce some sounds, such as the difference
between the vowel sound in ship and the vowel sound in
sheep. Therefore, it is useless to spend time on
pronunciation.
Fact #2:
Pronunciation is an integral part of language
learning. The abandonment of pronunciation instruction
has been based on the mistaken belief that
pronunciation means only sounds, and on the failure of
such a limited focus to affect learners' overall
pronunciation. As I have tried to show here, the scope
of pronunciation is much broader than an inventory and
description of sounds. It embraces the elements of
rhythm and intonation, which function in the
communication process. Thus, any learner with a goal
of learning English for communicative purposes needs
to learn the rhythm and intonation of English.
Myth #3:
Pronunciation instruction is boring:
Fact #3:
Pronunciation teaching is not intrinsically boring.
Perhaps pronunciation teaching has been boring because
it has been done in a boring way. However,
pronunciation teaching is not by nature boring.
Teaching that does not involve the students'
intelligence is boring. Teaching that employs material
that is irrelevant to the students is boring. Practice
that is monotonous and unvaried is boring. A teacher
who believes pronunciation teaching is boring is
boring.
.
Myth #4:
Nonnative speakers of English cannot teach
pronunciation.
Fact #4:
Nonnative speakers of English can teach pronunciation.
Much of the concern about teaching pronunciation has
centered around the exact pronunciation of vowel and
consonant sounds. However, if the goal of teaching
learners is to enable them to communicate in English,
we can see that communicative effectiveness depends
not only on the pronunciation of these vowel and
consonant sounds but on being intelligible speakers.
Being able to use the rhythm and intonation of English
will enable speakers to be much more intelligible than
being able to pronounce vowels and consonants
perfectly.
Stress
It is important for students to know which words of a
sentence are stressed and which are not. English words
can be divided into two groups:
a) Content words: These express independent meaning.
Content words include nouns, main verbs, adverbs,
adjectives, question words, and demonstratives.
Content words are usually stressed.
b) Function words: These have little or no meaning in
themselves, but they express grammatical
relationships. Function words include articles,
prepositions, auxiliaries, pronouns, conjunctions, and
relative pronouns. Function words are usually
unstressed unless they are to be given special
attention.
While all content words receive major word stress, one
content word within a particular sentence will receive
greater stress than all the others. This type of
emphasis is referred to as the major sentence stress.
In most cases, the major sentence stress falls on the
last content word within a sentence.
In English there is a special relationship between the
different parts of a word. In an English word of two
or more syllables, one of these will have a stress. If
the learner does not stress one syllable more than
another, or stresses the wrong syllable, it may be
very difficult for the listener to identify the word.
The stress pattern of a word is an important part of
its identity for the native speaker and may affect
comprehensibility.
Generally speaking, stressed words are different in
three ways:
They are louder.
They are spoken with a different pitch.
They are usually lengthened.
Stress is also used to emphasize information in a
sentence. Usually the words that are stressed are the
ones that give new information to the listener,
information that the listener does not really know. In
the following statement, the speaker is introducing
the subject: "I went to the movies last night" (no
change in pitch). But if it is an answer to the
question "Where did you go last night?" the answer
should stress "the movies." If the question is "Who
went to the movies last night?" the answer should
stress "I," and so on.
When using someone's name, we separate the name a bit
from the rest of the sentence. The pitch is often
different from the rest of the sentence, and the name
is stressed. Look at this example:
"Ali, I'd like you to meet Carol."
This is an introduction. "Ali" is slightly separated
from the rest of the sentence and it is stressed. The
teacher can use countless examples to show students
how stress affects the meaning.
Intonation
Speech is like music in that it uses changes in pitch.
Speakers can change the pitch of their voice, making
it higher or lower at will. So speech has a melody
called intonation. The two melodies are rising and
falling. These can be very sudden or gradual and can
be put together in various combinations
(rise-fall-rise, fall-rise-fall, etc.).
Speakers use pitch to send various messages. For
example, if Ali had said "There isn't any salt on the
table," Carol might have repeated the same words but
with gradually rising pitch. This would have had the
effect of sending a message such as "Are you sure? I
am amazed. I was sure I put it there." Alternatively,
Carol might want to send the message "There is salt
somewhere, but not on the table," in which case she
could do this by using a falling then rising pitch on
the word "table."
What does intonation do?
1. Intonation is used to put certain words in the
foreground. Speakers use pitch to give words stress.
There are two ways in which pitch is used: a) the
speaker can emphasize a word by jumping up in pitch,
and (b) the speaker can use varying pitch, rising or
falling sharply, to make a word stand out.
2. Low pitch is used to put things in the background,
to treat something as old,
to show anger, or as shared information.
3. Intonation is used to signal ends and beginnings in
conversation.
4. It is used to show whether a situation is open or
closed. A high or rising pitch indicates an open
situation, whereas a falling pitch indicates a closed
situation.
5. Intonation is used to show expectations. Strong
expectations are shown by low or falling pitch,
whereas lack of expectations is shown by high or
rising pitch. The best example here is the use of the
question tag. With a falling pitch on the tag, this
shows that we expect the answer to be "No." (He
doesn't speak Russian, does he?)
Some techniques and strategies for teaching pronunciation:
There are several techniques and practice materials
that are still being used to teach pronunciation
Listen and imitate: In this technique students listen
to a teacher-provided model and repeat or imitate it.
This technique can be enhanced by the use of tape
recorders, language labs and video recorders. (See
Hello! 7, Unit 1, Exercise J, Page 5.
Phonetic training: The teacher uses the phonetic
alphabet. This may involve doing phonetic
transcription as well as reading phonetically
transcribed text. (See Hello! 8, Unit 8, Exercise I,
Page 38 and Unit 12, Exercise J, Page 56
.
Minimal pair drills: This helps students distinguish
between similar and problematic sounds in the target
language through listening discrimination and spoken
practice. (See Hello! 8, Unit 7, Exercise J, Page 33.
Visual aids: The aim here is to enhance the teacher's description of how sounds are produced by audiovisual
aids such as charts, pictures, realia, etc.
Tongue twisters: These can help students to pronounce
the sounds accurately. (See Hello! 8, Unit 10,
Exercise E, Page 45)
Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts: This
technique is used with intermediate or advanced
learners. The teacher points out vowel and stress
shifts in words and sentences.
e.g. Stress shift: PHOtograph phoTOGraphy
Sentence context: I can tell from these photographs
that you are very good at photography.
(See Hello! 8, Unit 4, Exercise J, Page 20 )
Reading aloud/recitation: Passages or scripts for
learners to practise and then read aloud, focusing on
stress, timing and intonation.
Recordings of learners' production: Learners' spontaneous speeches and free conversations can be
tape-recorded . Subsequent playback offers
opportunities for feedback.
Use of authentic materials in teaching pronunciation:
Teachers can use commercially produced materials for
teaching pronunciation. They can also use anecdotes,
jokes, passages from literature and the like.
Limericks are an excellent source of material for
illustrating the segmental and suprasegmental features
of English. Here is an example:
There was an old man of Peru
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe
He awoke in the night
In a terrible fright
And found it was perfectly true.
10- Using multimedia in the teaching of pronunciation:
Multimedia learning aids such as videorecorders,
computers and other electronic aids present a number
of advantages, including:
access to a wide variety of native-speaker speech
samplings.
Practice sessions in which the learners can take risks
without stress and fear of error.
Opportunity for self-pacing and self-monitoring of
progress
No need for a teacher's constant supervision.
An entertaining game-like atmosphere for learning.
Teaching pronunciation to Arabic-speaking students
There is a difference in the comparative force of
pronunciation of stressed and unstressed syllables in
English and Arabic. In English there is a great
difference in force: unstressed syllables can be
pronounced very weakly; stressed syllables can be
fully pronounced. In Arabic this difference is not
nearly so extreme; unstressed syllables can have full
vowels and be pronounced fairly clearly.
Sentence stress in Arabic is similar to that in
English. Content words are usually stressed, and
function words are usually unstressed. However, there
are two differences that can lead to problems:
1. Function words in Arabic do not have two forms.
Vowels in words in an unstressed position keep their
"full" value, unlike vowels in unstressed words in
English, which are reduced to "schwa."
2. Verb phrases do not occur in Arabic. Therefore,
teachers of English have to pay special attention to
errors such as the use of full forms of auxiliary
verbs when the weak form should be used ("I can /kan/
do it" instead of "I can /k2n/ do it"). It will sound
as if the speaker is protesting or denying a previous
statement ("I can do it even though you say I can't "),
when this meaning is not intended.
The most noticeable difference between English and
Arabic with regard to intonation is that Arabic tends
to use a narrower range of falling pitch over the
phrase or clause. To the English speaker's ear, this
may be interpreted as a lack of the correct completion
signals and may give an impression of
inconclusiveness.
Another difficulty that teachers of English to
Arabic-speaking students usually encounter is the
absence of certain English sounds in Arabic, like /p/
and /v/. This makes it difficult for students to
pronounce correctly words containing such sounds.
References
Avery, P., and S. Ehrlich. 1992. Teaching American
English pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Kenworthy, J. 1987. Teaching English pronunciation.
New York: Longman.
1995. Speech Works. University of Maryland Baltimore
County Computer Lab. Software Program.
