The book of pronunciation proposals for a practical pedagogy

M ultia w a rd w in n in g The Book of Pronunciation Proposals for a practical pedagogy Includes Audio CD D E LT A T E A C H E R DEVELOPMENT SERIES From the authors The story of foreign language teaching in British schools (which I’m not going to write about here, you’ll be pleased to know) has had its ups and downs - more downs than ups, probably - but what I want to write here concerns one of the ups I went to primary school in a suburb of Leeds in the 1960s, and the school I attended happened to be one of those that took part in a national experiment to introduce French at primary level My recollections of this are somewhat vague, as I hope you’ll understand: it was, after all, half a century ago I don’t even know whether I did two years of French at primary school, or just one It certainly wasn’t more than two Nor I remember very much about what we did in our French lessons, or how many we had per week I remember that we used pictures a lot, and that the lessons were primarily (entirely? did we any writing at all?) oral Why am I telling you this? Well, the thing is Our French lessons were taught by our regular class teacher I don’t know how much French she knew Was she perhaps just one jump ahead of us? Some of the teachers involved in the scheme were, apparently, just one step ahead of the pupils But I seem to recall very clearly that she had a good French accent Of course, this is impossible to verify, and I suppose that at the age of nine or so I didn’t really have much idea of what a French accent was supposed to sound like, anyway I can still hear a distant but distinct echo of her voice speaking the unfamiliar language It still sounds good, even now And it was simply the sound of it that appealed to me first Not the prospect of venturing across the Channel and using the language - that came later It was the sound of that familiar teacher’s voice making those unfamiliar sounds, and the discovery that I could hear myself somehow managing to at least approximate to the same sounds myself So now, half a century later, I think that primary school classroom was probably the beginning of my enduring interest in pronunciation - the latest manifestation of which takes the shape of these pages Part of my university course was a weekly lecture on Russian phonetics I found the whole business totally unfathomable Like many academic subjects, it was couched in what was, for me at least, impenetrable jargon I had no idea what a ‘voiceless fricative’ was, for example, and no amount of reading and re-reading seemed to shed any light on the matter Perhaps most importantly of all, I simply failed to see the relevance of this strand to the process of learning the language and studying its literature and history A mystery Some years later, having drifted into English teaching while a postgraduate student in Czechoslovakia, I decided to get a formal teaching qualification and, to this end, took a PGCE course specialising in TEFL Again, there was a phonetics element on this course and again, at first at least, I found it complicated and uninspiring I recall having to describe in minute detail in an assignment what happened to the speech organs during the pronunciation of the word ‘anglepoise’ (a kind of table lamp) and wondering why anyone should imagine that was useful To my amazement, I managed to pass this assignment Looking back, I suppose this may have been the first turning point The words fricative, plosive, affricate and so on were beginning to make sense, and even my younger, sceptical self could see some relevance in the field of general phonetics The seeds were sown After a five-year stint in the Balkans, I got a job teaching EFL at a language school on the south coast of England Each classroom was equipped with a phonemic chart that, to my relatively untrained eye, seemed to have an intriguing design The more I looked at it, the more it made sense I could also see immediately that it had a clear practical purpose - the symbols were identical to those used in learners’ dictionaries Students in the classes I observed (and subsequently taught) were not asked to analyse the activity of the speech organs in the production of the word anglepoise', but they could identify and use the symbols accurately as part and parcel of every lesson, focusing on those sounds that were particularly problematic for speakers of their own mother tongue and self-correcting in a particularly impressive way Gradually the fog lifted The mystery was solved - and I was hooked r Contents From the authors Page Page From mouthful of air to stream of sound Sounds, symbols, spelling and stress Page 37 P art B Page 12 Page 31 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 CD Tracks 45-48 tonic prominence intonation patterns Page 46 Page 47 Sounds Create your own chart Recognising the symbols Sounds bingo Vowel chanting Miming sounds /hi through whispering Split sentences Endings and beginnings Sounds game Sounds hangman A bagful of sounds Phonemic scrabble Sounds-vocabulary game Odd one out Making a difference Sorting sounds Sounds discrimination Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 CD Track 49 Listening for numbers Page 67 Introducing pronunciation the phonemic chart the phonemic symbols syllables word stress consonant clusters Test the teacher A little alliteration Rhyme time Sound symbolism Bilingual minimal pairs Comparing sounds Page 49 Page 50 Page 50 Page 51 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 60 Sounds and spelling A, B, C, D, Easy A, B, C A phonemic word race Vowels and diphthongs Phonemic DIY Sounds maze Deciphering a transcription Homophones dictation Homophones matching Odd homophone out Initial ‘a’ How many syllables? Tough enough Read or read? Sounds search Rhyming sounds Rhymes in phrases Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 80 Page 81 CD Tracks 50-53 Pronouncing abbreviations Starring schwa Page 82 Page 84 Word stress A simple sorting activity Stress patterns race Stress pattern prompts Odd stress out Not quite identical twins Page 85 Page 86 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Contents Stress patterns into words Word families Who does what? Everything b u t A white blackbird? Disappearing text Revising vocabulary in a text Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 CD Tracks 54-57 Streets ahead See you this afternoon Compound adjectives Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Connected speech Weak forms and grammar Breadnbutter Comic effect Fine doubt Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 CD Tracks 58-72 Teach a teacher Nothing a tall Schwa in many guises Strong or weak? Auxiliary spotting To contract - or not? What was that word? Disconnecting speech Goob morning Assimilation and elision How many words? Shortcuts Page 104 Page 105 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 112 Page 114 Page 115 Page 116 Page 117 Stress, rhythm and intonation Body language Dos and don’ts Shadowing Stress and unstress Tonic prominence recognition Page 119 Page 119 Page 120 Page 121 Page 122 Tonic prominence production Reciting Poetry to prose and back Correct the teacher Intonational Simon says Contrastive stress Page 123 Page 123 Page 125 Page 126 Page 128 Page 127 CD Tracks 73-93 Mystery text Pause for thought Liftoff! Chanting lists Long tails I did tell you Who’s got the tickets? Agreeing I bet you did! If only Not exactly Tag along The best answer you can The thing is Well Actually Being right and being wrong Guessing a drawing Page 130 Page 131 Page 133 Page 135 Page 136 Page 137 Page 139 Page 141 Page 142 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 147 Page 148 Page 149 Page 150 Page 152 Page 153 Page 155 More about pronunciation More about learners More about teaching Page 156 Page 162 Page 164 From the editors From the publisher Page 175 Page 176 out of a mouthful of a ir A book of pronunciation A pronunciation book, in the opinion of the authors, should include: o ways to begin to incorporate pronunciation into your teaching; o ways to expand the range of activities at your disposal - even though you already take pronunciation into account in your teaching; o answers to your reservations - if you are doubtful about the value of pronunciation work in your teaching; o a basic description of the pronunciation of English - which will help you and your learners understand it better and improve their learning and your teaching We hope you will find all these elements, all of them necessary in a book of pronunciation, present in The Book of Pronunciation ‘I made it out of a mouthful of air’ He Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved W.B Yeats (1865-1939) W B Yeats said this in, and of, one of his poems Spoken language starts as ‘a mouthful of air’, and every word we utter, every conversation we have, every speech we make, results from modifying and shaping that mouthful of air, blocking it at various points, channelling it in various directions and expelling it in various ways - an amazing example of doing a lot with minimal resources! Every piece of written language, too - every email, every treaty, every poem, every novel - is a representation of these processes, and can be converted back into air if we breathe life into it by reading it aloud Pronunciation, although so often neglected by teachers, syllabuses and coursebooks, is fundamental to language - Who could speak without pronouncing? Reservations and recommendations We would like to start by looking at some of the reservations, questions, doubts and objections that teachers, in our experience, often raise in connection with pronunciation teaching *Learners find pronunciation work boring’ If they do, it may be because they are being asked to the wrong kind of work - work that isn’t useful for them For example: o Endlessly repeating meaningless sounds with no real idea of how to improve performance, o Practising making differences between unlikely pairs of sentences like ‘Keep your hair on’ and ‘Keep your heron’ o Painfully trying to read aloud texts which are too difficult for them, while the teacher interrupts to correct them We think the following principles are important in pronunciation work: o There should be a manageable level of challenge and a reasonable prospect of success, o Learners should be able to see the point of what they’re doing, o They should be given the help they need in order to improve o They should generally practise realistic and meaningful language (although sometimes it can be useful to practise individual sounds in isolation.) o There should be at least an element of fun Of course, these are actually good principles for any kind of teaching! ‘There’s no time for pronunciation ” There’s so much else to do: grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading, tests - and the coursebook has to be finished by the end of the semester It’s understandable that some teachers might feel this However: o Giving attention to pronunciation will benefit other skills - speaking, most obviously, but also listening, and even reading and writing, o A lot of pronunciation work can, and should, be integrated into other activities so that it doesn’t actually stretch the required time noticeably, o If there are separate pronunciation activities, they don’t necessarily need much time Many of the ones in this book need only a few minutes If you encourage the learners to pay attention to pronunciation, they will begin to notice more reliably for themselves how words are pronounced and how phrases and sentences are spoken, so they won’t need to ask you for so much guidance about pronunciation, and they won’t make so many mistakes - all of which will save time in the long run ‘So when should I focus on pronunciation, then?’ Teaching pronunciation doesn’t mean that you need to plan ‘pronunciation lessons’ in the same way that you might plan Vocabulary lessons’ or ‘writing lessons’ Pronunciation work can usefully appear on three kinds of occasions during your teaching: Dedicated pronunciation spots - where you put the spotlight on a particular point that has been causing the learners difficulty For example: o If you have noticed in recent lessons that they are having trouble hearing and producing the distinction between pairs of words such as shoes/choose and share/chair, you might decide to plan and include in one lesson a short activity dedicated to practising the distinction between the ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ sounds (See page 61 for such an activity.) o If you feel sufficiently confident and can think of enough suitable example words off the top of your head, you might even improvise such an activity during the course of the lesson where the problem arises Whenever you are planning to introduce new language - whether it’s grammar, vocabulary, functional language or whatever One of the things to ask yourself is: How is it pronounced? Is there anything about the pronunciation that the learners are likely to find tricky and to need help with? For example: o In a vocabulary lesson introducing compound nouns such as railway station, town hall, high street, shopping centre, etc, it will be important for the learners to get the stress right: railway station, high street, shopping centre - but town hall o In a lesson on the past continuous, it will be important for the learners to recognise and produce unstressed, weak versions of was and were - eg What were you doing? I was just making dinner o In an advanced lesson on idioms such as once in a blue moon and not in a month of Sundays, it will be important to focus on the stress, rhythm and intonation which are part of the identity of such idioms, and without which they can sound very odd Track The Book o f Pronunciation Jonathan Marks and Tim Bowen Delta Publishing 2012 Track a - n - it tomorrow See opposite Tracks 3-44 See from page 21 to the end of this section Tracks 45-93 See Part B, starting on page 37 Note The speakers on the CD are native speakers of English whose pronunciation is typical of young people from the south of England When you plan any of these types of lesson, include a focus on pronunciation - and when you teach the lesson, be ready to correct pronunciation and give appropriate help Apart from such planned activities - when a need for attention to pronunciation arises at any time, in any lesson For example: o In a multilingual class, Learner A says the whole time without an /h/ sound at the beginning of whole Learner B interprets it as the old time, and is confused because this doesn’t make sense in the context It might be useful for the two of them, perhaps with help from the others, to try and sort out this misunderstanding for themselves and identify what caused it If they seem unable to this, or if it’s likely to take too long, the teacher can intervene to clarify what happened and whyyand give Learner A - and perhaps others in the class who would benefit from it - some quick impromptu practice in pronouncing /h/ at the beginnings of words, o While listening to a recording, the class are confused by something which sounds to them like ‘a - n - it tomorrow’ You might write this on the board: _do it tomorrow, with two gaps to show that two words are missing, and invite suggestions for filling the gaps Perhaps the learners will be able to provide the first word: I If not, add it to the sentence yourself and ask what the next word might possibly be If they really have no idea, you will have to provide it yourself Get the learners to listen again and notice how, in fast speech, I can be reduced to a and can to n They might also like to try imitating the way the sentence is spoken in the recording, although they shouldn’t be given the impression that they really need to make these kinds of reductions themselves in their own speech They need to be aware of them, though, when it comes to listening ‘What type of pronunciation should my learners aim for?’ If English is a global language, it obviously needs to be internationally intelligible But it would probably be impossible to describe a type of pronunciation that would always guarantee intelligibility between any two speakers from any two parts of the world o It seems that consonant sounds - with the exception of the notorious W sounds - may be particularly important in achieving intelligibility, o A consistent set of distinctions between vowel sounds is important, too, but the total number of different vowel sounds probably doesn’t need to be as large as in standard native types of English o Word stress is probably important for intelligibility, and perhaps at least a basic intonation distinction between ‘fall’ and ‘rise’ Here, then, is the basis of a way of deciding what to prioritise in pronunciation work, something which can be a difficult thing to if you get the impression that your learners’ pronunciation is riddled with weaknesses The ‘th’ sounds are often found to be resistant to teaching, but if they aren’t vitally important for intelligibility (and in fact not even all native speakers of English use them) it would probably be advisable not to spend too much time on them, and to use the time on higher priorities - such as word stress, perhaps There are other factors to consider, however: o In some parts of the world, there are well-established and widely-used regional pronunciations of English, while in other countries there may be prestige attached to British or American pronunciation, and learners may wish to aim for one of these Indeed, they may even be expected to so in exams they want to take - and teachers should help them get as close as they can to achieving their aims, o Accent is, for many people, an important part of identity Some people relish the opportunity to switch into a slightly different identity - a different version of themselves - when they speak another language, while others resist the prospect of the loss or falsification of identity which they feel would ensue from adopting a foreign accent Native speakers of English form a minority of the total number of speakers of English in the world, and the majority of learners of English will probably never have an occasion to use English to communicate with native speakers But even those who communicate with native speakers should feel no obligation to emulate native accents o When we listen to English being spoken, we recognise that one person’s accent carries the message Vm Australian and another’s Vm Welsh, and so on o There’s no reason why messages such as Vm Italian or I'm Japanese should not be equally natural and acceptable However, if the Italian speaker of English or the Japanese speaker of English wants to aim for one of the native accents of English, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t try, or why we shouldn’t help them in their endeavour Whatever type of pronunciation learners aspire to acquire in their own speech, it’s important for them to have experience of listening to - and ‘tuning in’ to - a wide variety of different pronunciations from around the world They can’t possibly prepare for encounters with all possible accents, of course, but at least they can train their ears to expect variety, and to tune in quickly and notice distinctive features of unfamiliar accents ‘Can I teach pronunciation even if I ’m not a native speaker myself?’ There’s absolutely no reason why not o If you teach learners who speak the same first language as you, you can be the most inspiring role model for them: as someone who has achieved a high level of proficiency in English pronunciation while retaining your own linguistic identity You will also have an excellent understanding of the problems they face and what they need to to overcome them, o If your learners speak a different LI, or different Lis, from you, you will still be a good model and you will be able to recognise many of their problems And should you be really concerned that your own pronunciation is ‘not good enough’, bear in mind the following: o You can make use of recorded material for pronunciation work o With your guidance and feedback on their attempts - with your coaching, in fact - your learners can actually achieve a level of pronunciation higher than yours (In the same way, a tennis player can play better than the person coaching them.) o Learners learn English - including pronunciation - not only from you but also from films, TV, songs and so on 7s it easier to teach pronunciation in monolingual or multilingual classes?’ In monolingual classes, everyone tends to have similar problems and similar successes something which doesn’t only apply to pronunciation, of course o The disadvantage is that the learners will be able to understand each other very well even if their pronunciation has substantial elements of LI interference And so will you, either because you have the same LI, or because - even if your LI is different - you will soon tune into their pronunciation and cease to notice its particular characteristics, o The advantage is that, as long as you remain aware of those characteristics, you will be able to directed pronunciation work which is clearly of benefit to everyone in the class Multilingual classes have the disadvantage that the multiplicity of languages gives rise to a multiplicity of different pronunciation needs This means: o It’s hard for you to notice and appreciate the needs of all the members of the class, o If you attempt to give coaching to one or two learners who have a particular LI, you risk wasting the time of the rest of the class However: o Quite a lot of pronunciation work will be of benefit to learners of a wide range of Lis for example stress and unstress, strong and weak forms, intonation, consonant clusters o Through interaction with each other in their lessons - and not only during pronunciation activities - and in out-of-class conversations, the learners will have opportunities to discover which features of their pronunciation raise barriers to intelligibility, and to experiment with what they need to to lower those barriers, o If you identify a need to some pronunciation work with, let’s say, three learners in a class of 18, you can plan to this while the rest of the class work on a completely different activity which they can independently, o If the need does arise from time to time to some individualised pronunciation work during a plenary activity, the rest of the class will gain some insight into the pronunciation problems of one of their peers, and will hopefully appreciate that you will be equally willing to give them individual coaching when they need it ‘Will learners think I ’m trying to make English unnecessarily difficult?’ In fact, by including helpful pronunciation work more often and more systematically in your teaching, you will be doing your learners a favour When learners of English are asked about which aspects of language are important for them, it often turns out that they allot a high priority to pronunciation This is understandable: o Poor pronunciation is an immediate barrier to intelligibility, o Being able to speak with the expectation of being intelligible is a pre-requisite for confidence in using an unfamiliar language - for uttering, and not just muttering! The more awareness learners have of their own pronunciation, the better they will be able to process the pronunciation of other speakers they encounter - to notice significant features of different accents, and to realise what reinterpretations they need to make in order to understand what they hear At the same time, they will also be able to develop an ability to judge what features of their own pronunciation they need to adjust in order to make themselves more readily intelligible to people they meet and with whom they interact ‘Is there such a thing as a pronunciation syllabus? Do the aspects of pronunciation lend themselves to being ordered in a progression from elementary to advanced, in the same way as is conventionally done with grammar items? This is the fundamental question, and the logical answer is no, because all aspects of pronunciation are needed right from the start To make our final point, let’s imagine that the phrase ‘Where you live?’ appears in the very first lesson of an English course Learners obviously can’t say it without pronouncing it, and pronouncing it might face them with difficulties in the following: o any of the consonants o any of the vowels o linking the words together o the rhythm OooO o stresses on ‘where’ and ‘live’ o reducing ‘do you’ o putting the main stress with an appropriate intonation on ‘live’ These are all things that the learners will need to revisit constantly and to develop as they learn more and more English Even quite advanced learners may still need to work on the distinction between the vowels in ‘live’ and ‘leave’, or aspects of intonation We have already used the word ‘pronunciation’ quite a lot, so perhaps we should now consider exactly what we mean by it, and what we need to to convert our mouthful of air into intelligible English pronunciation 11 M ore about learners Action research This kind of investigation is likely to be particularly fruitful in multilingual classes, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t try it in monolingual classes, too It involves quite a lot of work, and you will most likely want to spread it over a period of time In any case, this is probably a useful approach, as you will undoubtedly make new findings when you come back to the project after a break You will probably find that, as a result of conducting this investigation, you are able to listen to your learners’ speech more attentively, and notice which pronunciation features tend to have a detrimental impact on intelligibility Task Collect some recordings of your learners talking English in pairs or small groups They should be focusing more on content than on the language they are using - for example discussing a topic of mutual interest o If this kind of material is difficult to collect, you could also try plenary discussions in which there is plenty of opportunity for everyone to contribute, o If it isn’t feasible to make recordings, you could simply make notes as you listen to the learners interacting, though this will give you less, and less reliable, data Listen to your recordings and notice instances of communication breakdowns, misunderstandings and confusions Allocate the causes of these instances to broad categories - you might find that your categories include things such as: vocabulary (not knowing an item, using a wrong item) grammar pronunciation lack of shared background knowledge speaking too quietly Of course, there may be breakdowns with multiple causes, and not using gestures and facial expressions might sometimes be a contributory factor Calculate what proportion of breakdowns are caused by pronunciation Divide the pronunciation-related breakdowns into categories Don’t pre-define your categories before you start - allow yourself to be guided by the evidence, but you may find that you need categories such as vowel sounds, consonant sounds, consonant clusters, word stress, etc 162 Within each category, what exactly caused the problems? For example, which pronunciations of which vowel sounds caused confusion? Try, if you can, to determine which of the breakdownrelated features are related to the learners’ first languages - and/or, possibly, other languages they have learned o If there are a large number of first languages, it may not be feasible to this for all of them, o If you are not familiar with the languages, refer to a source such as Swan and Smith (2001) or the internet Listen again to your recordings, this time focusing solely on pronunciation and noting features of pronunciation which are non-native-like but did not give rise to any misunderstanding or confusion Compare your findings with those reported in Jenkins (2000) or Walker (2010) You can find a summary of these below If you have used a questionnaire such as the one in Introducing pronunciation on page 39, compare your findings with the learners’ own views about which aspects of pronunciation they feel they need to focus on What conclusions can you draw? Are there any pronunciation features that suggest themselves as priorities for learning and teaching - either for the whole class, or for individuals? Key In her research, Jenkins found that more breakdowns were due to pronunciation than to any other cause The following factors were important in ensuring intelligibility: o Approximations to all native English consonants except /©/ and 161 o Rhotic treatment of /r/ - ie all written ‘r’s should be pronounced o Between vowels (eg in ‘hotter’) /t/ should be pronounced as a voiceless plosive, rather than voiced or flapped (as in American English) or realised as a glottal stop, o Word-initial /p/ III and /k/ should be aspirated, o Distinctions between long and short vowels should be maintained; a range of vowel qualities is acceptable except that a native-like /3:/ is important, o Vowels should be shorter before fortis consonants than before lenis consonants (See Part A, page 13) o There is no need to diphthongise /ei/ and /au/ o Generally, addition of sounds is preferable to elision eg for‘stream’, [sitriim] is preferable to [stiim] or [ti:m] MORE ABOUT LEARNERS o Specifically, consonants in initial clusters should not be elided o In medial and final clusters, there may be some elision, especially of III and 161, though not a final It/ or 161 before an initial vowel (eg ‘strict order’), o Division of speech into tone units and appropriate location of tonic prominence are important Factors lenkins found to be /^important for intelligibility included: o vowel quality - eg distinctions such as ‘cat’ vs ‘cut’ o /©/ and 161 o dark III o distinctions between the endings Isl vs Izl and Itl vs 161 o features of‘connected speech’, especially elision, assimilation and weak forms (in fact, use of weak forms tends to lower intelligibilty) o word stress o tone (fall, fall-rise, etc) o fully-pronounced final clusters R eferences Jenkins, J The Phonology of English as an International Language OUP 2000 Swan, M and Smith, B Learner English (2 nd ed) CUP 2001 Walker, R Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca OUP 2010 Accent research This is a very informal and impressionistic kind of‘research’ - to investigate your learners’ perceptions of accents You will need some short recordings of speakers of a range of native and non-native accents of English You can easily find suitable recordings on the internet - just search for ‘English accents’ or ‘accents of English’, for example Alternatively, you could use extracts from TV or films Some collections of accents on the internet consist of different speakers reading a set text aloud These are particularly interesting for detailed, comparative analysis but recordings of spontaneous speech are likely to be more effective in eliciting impressionistic comments Task Choose recordings that seem particularly relevant to your learners, in terms of their geographical location and likely future use of English In some teaching situations, for example, a Chinese or Brazilian speaker might be more relevant than a speaker of a particular British accent Nevertheless, relevance is determined partly by interest - if your class is interested in listening to native accents, give them the opportunity to so Take one of your recordings Briefly introduce the topic of the recording and any necessary pre-teaching of vocabulary Set a listening task to direct the learners to understanding the content of the recording Don’t tell the class where the speaker is from The learners listen and report back on the listening task Once their understanding has been established, ask them for their general impressions of the speaker and their use of English They listen to the recording again, this time focusing on these questions: o What you notice about the speaker’s pronunciation? o Are there any features that sound unusual? o Are there any features that make their speech hard for you to understand? o Are there any features that you like, or don’t like? Why? o How good you think their pronunciation is? What you understand by ‘good’? o Can you guess where they come from? The question ‘Are there any features that you like, or don’t like?’ might be seen as an opportunity for the expression of prejudices But the fact is that people have affective reactions to accents, and these should be made explicit, discussed - and questioned Give the class an opportunity to discuss their answers, and then reveal the speaker’s origin If you feel they have failed to notice any significant features of the speaker’s accent, you could point these out Repeat the procedure with other recordings: o Perhaps start immediately if you think sufficient motivation has been kindled, o Perhaps wait till subsequent lessons This could become an ongoing strand in your work with the class As an ongoing take-away task, ask the learners to report back to the class on their listening to other accents they hear - in the media and perhaps, depending on where they are, in the environment around them At the very least, this will hopefully encourage the learners to listen more carefully and be more sensitive to differences among accents of English It might also make them more sensitive to: o their affective reactions to pronunciation features, and the effect that their own accents might have on listeners; o which features of pronunciation are more/less likely to be a barrier to intelligibility; o the fact that there may be disadvantages, as well as advantages, in aiming for a native-like accent In short: what ‘good’ pronunciation is 163 M ore about teaching In practice Decision-making is a key skill for teachers We make decisions: o in advance of a lesson - what to teach, how to teach it, what materials to use, what activities to include o during a lesson - how to react to unexpected questions that the learners ask, how to make the best use of the remaining ten minutes when we would really like to have another half an hour o after a lesson - how the work done in the lesson could be developed in the next one Reflecting on decisions taken and what the consequences are - what happened as a result, and what alternative decisions could have been made to achieve different outcomes - is a fruitful way in which teachers can develop their professional awareness and practice /'mauntein/, their teacher corrects it as /m aun't n/ (ie with a very emphatic schwa) The learners start stressing the second syllable A teacher learns about the technique of ‘backchaining’ to help learners pronounce difficult long sentences, and decides to use this technique to help a class with this sentence: ‘What you think we should about it?’ He gets his class to practise saying longer and longer stretches of the sentence, as follows: aBOUT it? SHOULD DO about it? THINK we SHOULD DO about it? WHAT you THINK we should DO about it? It doesn’t help as much as the teacher hoped, and the learners have a lot of trouble getting the stress and rhythm right Task Consider these classroom scenarios In each case, a teacher makes a pronunciation-related decision - either in planning a lesson, or spontaneously during the lesson, o Why the decisions have the consequences described? o What alternative decisions could the teacher have made? A teacher introduces the present perfect orally, or from a recording, using example sentences including ‘I’ve found a new job’ and ‘He’s sold his house’ The learners (who haven’t seen the written forms at this stage) repeat these as ‘I found a new job’ and ‘He sold his house’ In introducing the going to future, a teacher highlights the new structure by presenting this model sentence orally: ‘I’m GOing / to buy a new comPUter.’ In answer to the question ‘What are you going to on Saturday?’, a learner says ‘I’m go to buy a new computer’, and the teacher corrects this as ‘I’m goING to buy a new computer’, which the learner duly repeats A learner says ‘I going to buy a new computer’, and the teacher corrects this as ‘I AM going to buy a new computer’, which the learner duly repeats The setting for a listening activity in a certain class is Berlin In the pre-listening stage of the lesson the learners tend to pronounce the name of the city with first-syllable stress: BERlin The teacher corrects this and the class practise saying BerLIN They subsequently appear confused when they listen to the recording - and hear someone talking about the BERlin WALL When learners pronounce the word mountain as 164 Key ‘I’ve found ’ and ‘He’s sold ’are probably not among the best examples to use when introducing the present perfect The past simples and past participles of find and sell are the same, and assimilation disguises the auxiliaries and makes it difficult to distinguish the present perfect forms from the past simple ones: o In ‘I’ve found ’, /v/ is devoiced under the influence of the following voiceless /f / The result is /aiffaund/, and it’s probably unlikely that learners will notice the extra length of the /f/ sound, and will interpret what they hear as ‘I found ’ o In ‘He’s sold ’, the Izl of‘He’s’ is devoiced under the influence of the following voiceless Isl The result is /hiissauld/, and it’s probably unlikely that learners will notice the extra length of the Isl sound, and will interpret what they hear as ‘He sold Of course, it would be possible to highlight the form by teaching the non-contracted forms ‘I have found’ and ‘He has sold’, but this would give the misleading impression that these are the usual forms ‘I’ve sold ’ and ‘He’s found ’ would be better examples to use, because they are clearly different from ‘I sold ’ and ‘He found Even ‘I’ve fallen’ and ‘He’s spoken’ are subject to the same shortcomings because, although the past simple and past participle forms of these verbs are different, learners are likely to interpret the unfamiliar forms they hear as ‘I fallen’ and ‘He spoken’ MORE ABOUT TEACHING In the absence of any particular context, the most likely pronunciation of this sentence is: i’m GOing to buy a new comPUter This version consists of a single tone unit, with tonic prominence and a falling tone on comPUTer and non­ tonic prominence on GOing In order to highlight the word going, the teacher inadvertently splits the sentence into two tone units: i’m GOing / to BUY a new comPUter In this version, the first tone unit has tonic prominence on GOing and the second tone unit has tonic prominence on comPUter and, probably, non-tonic prominence on BUY The tones are probably a fall-rise on GOing and a fall on comPUter There’s a conflict here between: o using the intonation system for a normal communicative purpose: to chunk, highlight and clarify; o presenting a natural model If the former agenda prevails, there’s a risk that learners will pick up and use an inappropriate intonation pattern - and, in this case, one which might give offence It would probably be preferable to allow naturalness to prevail, and to deal with highlighting of form through reference to a written model on the board, or through explanation Here, there’s a similar conflict to the one in Scenario The teacher’s correction gives the false impression that going should be stressed on the second syllable Although it’s possible for any syllable to receive tonic prominence for contrast (eg I’m not talking about emploYERS, I’m talking about emploYEES) elementary learners probably can’t be relied on to have sufficient language awareness to realise that this is what’s going on One alternative way of correcting the mistake in this case is to write -ing in a corner of the board, no larger than it needs to be in order to be legible, and point to it to elicit the correct form If, as is quite likely, the mistake recurs, simply point again You might have other prompts, in other parts of the board, for other popular mistakes (eg a, the, -s, -ed) and, after a while, you will only need to point in the general direction of the board and the learners will find the prompt they need In the next lesson, even if all your prompts have been erased, you will probably find that pointing or nodding towards the board is sufficient to elicit corrections Another way would be to write g o _on the board and, again, to leave it there, because you might well need it again There are various reasons why learners might say I going to , but one of them is certainly the fact that the weak form ’m can easily go unnoticed when they hear people using this form The teacher wants to make it more noticeable and, quite naturally, uses the strong form am, with emphatic stress Unfortunately, the learners will probably get the impression that the teacher’s version is what they should say But it would only be appropriate in an exchange of this kind: -You aren’t going to buy a new computer - am going to buy a new computer! The weak form is the default one, when no special emphasis is intended One alternative would be to simply write I’m on the board Another alternative would be to use the technique of finger correction: o Hold one hand up in front of you so that the class can see it clearly o Say the relevant part of the sentence - I going to buy one word at a time, using one of the fingers of your other hand to allocate each word to one of the fingers of the hand you are holding up o Next, invite the learner to say the sentence word by word as you point to each finger in turn: I - going -to - buy o Then indicate that something should be added in the gap between I and going This might be sufficient It might, however, elicit ‘I am going to buy’ In this case, follow a similar procedure: o Establish I am going to buy, with each word represented by a finger o Next, put the I finger and the am finger together, to elicit I’m o Finally, with your other hand, indicate a swift movement from the first finger to the fifth, to elicit a fast, smooth version of the whole sequence of words Finger correction takes a bit of getting used to - both for learners and for teachers! - but it can be a very economical, effective and memorable technique 165 MORE ABOUT TEACHING The name Berlin is subject to stress shift If the phrase Berlin Wall occurs in a listening passage, it can of course be noticed, commented on and clarified when it appears - but this might be a distraction from the main focus of the lesson, and so might be better dealt with in advance Of course, the learners should be left in no doubt that the name of the city really is BerLIN More generally, this scenario is a reminder of the importance of listening to recordings before playing them in class, so as to avoid giving confusing or contradictory information There is also a risk of this happening if a speaker in a recording has a different accent from the teacher’s, for example The problem here is that schwa is a very elusive, minimal sound - any attempt to highlight it or draw attention to it is likely to magnify and amplify it to unrealistic proportions Often, a more effective approach is to the opposite: to deliberately ignore it Write the word mountain like this on the board: mountn Ask the learners to say it like this You may well find that this produces a better result Backchaining is, basically, making a long sentence sayable by breaking it up into manageable bits and building them up - starting from the end The direction seems, on the face of it, counter-intuitive Why isn’t it a good idea to start at the beginning of the sentence and gradually build it up towards the end? Understanding the answer to this question requires a more precise description of the process and of exactly where the ‘end of the sentence’ is First of all, backchaining really applies to tone units rather than sentences o Sometimes - as in the case of What you think we should about it? - the sentence is a single tone unit, o But some sentences consist of more than one tone unit, and in these cases the tone units will need to be practised separately before being combined The tonic prominence typically appears towards the end of a tone unit, and hence the rationale for backchaining In the tone unit What you think we should about it? the tonic prominence is - at least in the absence of any context - likely to be on the second do: o If you say the phrase about it you will probably find that the way you say it remains the same when you say the whole sentence: it anchors the pronunciation of the whole sentence You can then move towards the beginning of the sentence, adding phrases as you go: DO about it we should DO about it 166 think we should DO about it you think we should DO about it What you think we should DO about it? o If, on the other hand, you start somewhere other than the intended tonic prominence, you will probably situate the tonic prominence elsewhere, and add non-tonic prominences which are unwanted in the pronunciation of the whole sentence For example: aBOUT it? SHOULD DO about it? THINK we SHOULD DO about it? WHAT you THINK we should DO about it? Learners are likely to be confused, because the shape of the sentence doesn’t only extend, but also changes as it extends In backchaining, ideally, the sentence to be said gradually grows longer, but each partial version remains reliable as it becomes subsumed into the next version In writing Teachers often need to represent pronunciation in writing, on the board and on handouts they produce - and so learners, in the notes they make Sometimes the phonemic transcriptions used in dictionaries, complete with stress marks, may be the best option, but they have disadvantages: They may give more information than necessary: o If you only want the learners to focus on one phoneme in a particular word, a complete transcription is superfluous and may be confusing and distracting, o If you only want them to focus on the stress pattern of a word, there’s no need to transcribe the sounds Dictionary-style stress marks are rather small and, on the board, may not be easily visible from a distance: o On a whiteboard, they may be indistinguishable from leftovers of words which have been incompletely erased, o On a blackboard, they may even be indistinguishable from scratches on the surface of the board! Teachers - and learners - can use a variety of ways of representing pronunciation in writing, depending on exactly what needs to be highlighted Task What are the advantages and disadvantages of the following ways of representing the pronunciation of the word ‘mountain’? o mountain m ountan Oo mountain mauntan MOUNtain MORE ABOUT TEACHING mountain Task Key focus on stress, but not sounds - if stress is the issue, this is useful is only useful temporarily - while everyone knows which word it represents focuses on vowels - which may be more problematic than consonants focuses on the reduced vowel in the unstressed syllable might be confusing for learners who are not very familiar with the Roman alphabet - they might be unsure which symbols are for spelling and which are for pronunciation, or about when to use capital letters might be useful as a reminder for learners who tend not to reduce unstressed syllables - but confusing for those who have difficulty with spelling is, of course, not applicable to all words - but if you find it appealing, you could try making similar pictorial representations For example: elephant submarine umbrella In language You might never devote an entire lesson to pronunciation, but every lesson is a pronunciation lesson to some extent, because every lesson involves talking (unless it’s a writing test, perhaps) - and nobody can talk without pronouncing! In preparing to introduce, or provide practice of, a grammar point or a piece of functional language, you probably think primarily about structure, meaning and appropriacy But don’t forget about pronunciation, because this is also vital if learners are to make use of the target language confidently and intelligibly, and to notice and recognise it when they hear it Aspects of pronunciation to consider include: o division into tone units o word stress o intonation o individual sounds o weak forms o sounds in sequence o contractions o linking Not all of these will always be relevant, of course You need to decide which aspects might be tricky for the class you’re going to teach - and how you can give help where needed Let’s imagine, for example, that you’re going to teach a lesson focusing on sentences like this: I was walking home the other day; and I realised I’d left my shopping at work o What elements are important for accurate production of such a sentence? What elements are perhaps likely to be difficult for your learners? Key division into tone units There are most likely to be two tone units: was walking home the other day, / and I realised I’d left my shopping at work Notice that the division is marked by a comma There may even be a silent pause at this point Another, less likely, possibility is three tone units: I was walking home the other day, / and I realised / I’d left my shopping at work In this case, there’s less likely to be a silent pause between I realised and I’d left intonation As is usual with intonation, there are innumerable possible variations But one particularly characteristic intonation pattern in ‘past continuous + past simple’ sentences is: I was walking V home the other day, / and I realised I’d left my \ shopping at work This shows the following: o The first tone unit has tonic prominence on home, and the tone which starts on this syllable and continues through the other day is a fall-rise The second tone unit has tonic prominence on shopp-, and the tone which starts on this syllable and continues through -ing at work is a fall There will also probably be a non-tonic prominence on walk- in the first tone unit, and on re- in the second We can summarise all this information like this: 1was WALKing V HOME the other day, / and i REalised i’d left my ^ SHOPPing at work The convention used here is that CAPITALISATION indicates prominence (and therefore the pronoun i is not capitalised) and that underlining indicates tonic prominence In the three-tone-unit version, the most likely intonation is: i was WALKing V HOME the other day, / and V i REalised / i’d LEFT my VSHOPPing at work 167 MORE ABOUT TEACHING w eak forms The auxiliaries was!were are normally unstressed weak forms in the past continuous - unless there’s a particular reason to emphasise them: /waz/ /wa/ In the example sentence, weak forms of and and at are also used conditionals - eg If it hasn’t got an official stamp on it, I don’t think it’s valid relative clauses - eg The books that had been stored in the cellar were in a poor condition comparatives - eg as cold as, colder than passives with an agent - eg The castle was built by the Normans contractions In the past perfect, I had is normally contracted to I’d unless there’s some particular reason to emphasise had word stress - individual sounds - sounds in sequence - linking Here, there are probably no particular difficulties inherent in the grammar itself Any difficulties will depend on the lexis used in the sentences to be practised For example, in the sentence quoted above: o Some learners might need practice in putting the stress on the first syllable of realised o Some might need practice in linking the-other o Some might need help with pronouncing d+1in Vd left o Some might need help with the vowel sounds in walking and work And so on During appropriate stages of the lesson - where accuracy is particularly important but also, more generally, whenever learners are struggling with the sentence - give them help, correction and feedback to ensure that they’re pronouncing it, and other sentences like it, as well as they can, taking all the above elements into consideration This is important not only because it’s part of accuracy, but also because it gives a shape to the sentence, which helps to make it more memorable and meaningful, and helps to give the learners the confidence that they’re expressing meaningand not just mouthing a sequence of words Task This task gives you an opportunity to revisit some language items which are commonly taught at different levels Which aspects of pronunciation might it be useful to include in the planning and teaching of these language points? ‘used to’ - eg He used to be a driving instructor ‘had better’ - eg We'd better get a move on invitations with ‘would you like’ - eg Would you like to join us tomorrow? alternative questions - eg Did they turn left or right? You might (or could) have told me! for reprimanding or criticising You can say that again! 168 Key /juist ta/ The first / / is either unreleased or elided; in the latter case (elision) the pronunciation is indistinguishable from ‘use to’ The weak form of‘to’ is used (All of this applies equally to the construction ‘be/ get used to doing sth’.) As the spelling we’d suggests, ‘had’ in ‘had better’ is usually contracted after pronouns (including ‘it’: it’d better) After other subjects, the weak form /had/ or /ad / is normally used: Those documents had /ad / better be ready by tomorrow The intonation is typically: would you LIKE to V IOIN us tomorrow with a high pitch on the non-tonic prominence, and a fall-rise starting from a high pitch on the tonic prominence and continuing through the tail of the tone unit The intonation is typically: did they turn LEFT or ^ RIGHT (one tone unit) or: did they turn T LEFT / o r\ RIGHT (two tone units) There may be more than two alternative answers: Would you like red, white or rose? would you like T RED / T WHITE / or \ ROS£ The last alternative has a fall; the previous ones have rises Used with this meaning, the sentence usually has this intonation: you MIGHT have V TOLD me In order to express the idiomatic meaning strongly agree with what you just said’, this sentence must have tonic prominence on ‘that’, with either a fall or a fall-rise As the comma suggests, there are probably two tone units The if-clause typically has a fall-rise, the main clause a fall: if it HASn’t got an official V STAMP on it / i DON’T think it’s ^ VALid If the order of the clauses is reversed, the main clause typically has a fall, and the if-clause a rise: MORE ABOUT TEACHING i DON’T think it’s ^ VALid / if it HASn’t got an official T STAMP on it Non-defining relative clauses form a separate tone unit, typically spoken faster and at a lower pitch than the sentence they form part of: the V BOOKS / which had been STORED in the V CELLar / were in a POOR condition Often, instead of using a non-defining relative clause, we insert a complete sentence, with the same intonation: The books - they’d been stored in the cellar - were in a poor condition Defining relative clauses are part of the same tone unit as the noun phrase they refer to: the BOOKS that had been stored in the V CELLar / were in a POOR condition In comparatives, the weak forms of‘as’ and ‘than’ are used: /az kauld az/ 10 /'ka u ld a dan/ The ‘passive + agent’ is one way of putting ‘old’ information (with a fall-rise) before ‘new’ (with a fall): the V CAStle / was BUILT by the NORmans the CAStle was V BUILT / by the NORmans Using learners’ L1 This is not the place to rehearse arguments for and against using learners’ LI in English language teaching generally, but in the case of pronunciation teaching there are at least two ways in which use of, and reference to, LI can be useful As we said in Part A, pronunciation is an area of language learning where LI has a particularly big impact, because it involves muscular habits which tend to be more resistant to change than the mental habits required for language learning in general So if you can compare the pronunciation systems of English and your learners’ LI (and of course this may not be feasible if your class contains speakers of many different Lis), you will be in a better position: o to understand why they find some things easy and others difficult; o to find ways of helping them See, for example, the suggestions in ‘Troubleshooting’ on page 171 It will also probably be worth discussing with your learners how their problems are related to their LI - they may not be aware of this initially (See point below.) For those learners who have ambitions to sound as native-speaker-like as they can, you could use the activity Bilingual minimal pairs (see page 65) to help them develop their awareness of the exact details of pronunciation that make English and their LI sound different If you haven’t studied pronunciation before yourself, you might get the impression that the terminology introduced in Part A of this book is a foreign language in itself, even for you! When you discuss pronunciation with your classes, especially at lower levels, it will be easier for them if the discussion can be in their LI, and using everyday vocabulary such as the LI equivalents of‘tongue’, ‘lips’, ‘strong’, ‘weak’ and so on, rather than LI technical terminology - which you and they may not know, in any case However, and especially if your policy is to conduct your lessons in English as far as possible, you may want to gradually introduce a relevant selection of English metalinguistic terms (including how to pronounce them, of course!) such as the ones in the box below, as ‘labels’ for the awarenesses the learners have achieved so far in their work on pronunciation You and they will then be able to use these widely-accepted terms when a point of pronunciation needs to be discussed After all, if they learn metalanguage such as ‘preposition’ and ‘relative pronoun’, why shouldn’t they also learn ‘elision’ or ‘plosive’? affricate alveolar ridge assimilation aspiration catenation cluster consonant contraction diphthong elision fricative intonation linking plosive prominence pronunciation rhythm schwa soft palate stop sound stress syllable tail tone unit tonic voiced voiceless vowel weak form You will also probably want to introduce the following common questions about pronunciation: o How you pronounce ? / How is it pronounced? o How many syllables has it got? / How many syllables are there in ? o WTiere’s the stress? / Which syllable is stressed? o Does the intonation rise or fall? Using a coursebook If you are using a coursebook with a particular class you are teaching: o You may have chosen the book yourself, or you may have had no say in the matter, o You may be free to pick and choose from the coursebook and supplement it with material from other sources, or you may be expected to stick to it strictly Whatever the case, you will want the coursebook to give you as much help as possible in dealing with pronunciation 169 MORE ABOUT TEACHING Taking stock Before you start to use the book, assess the extent to which it includes specific, directed pronunciation work which will be relevant to your class Or, with the book you are already using, you can also re-assess it: o Does it include activities that focus on the following? sounds word stress elision clusters weak forms assimilation sounds and spelling linking intonation o Does it provide adequate treatment of these aspects? o Are they integrated with other components of the course? o Is the pronunciation work relevant to the particular needs arising from your learners’ LI? o What pronunciation support is given in any supplementary materials such as workbooks, recordings, websites, etc? In this way, you will be able to gain an initial impression of how far the coursebook will go towards helping you to deal with pronunciation, and to what extent you might need to refer to other sources of activities (see the ‘More reading’ list, for example, on page 174) Your assessment will, of course, be subject to continuous revision as your course progresses Going fu rth er Any coursebook activity can be extended in various directions to provide additional practice, if this will be useful to your learners and if they will be motivated to work further with the same material This applies to specific pronunciation activities and to other activities included in the coursebook: Example If a coursebook pronunciation activity focuses on individual words in a particular unit - for example, identifying the odd one out: the word which contains a different sound from the others - a possible prolongation of the activity would be to ask the learners to recall (either exactly or approximately) and say the sentences they occurred in In doing this, the learners will get: o additional, contextualised practice of the pronunciation of the words concerned; o additional practice of other language points contained in the sentences: grammar, other vocabulary, collocations Example The learners can sift through a text they have already used for reading skills work, and are asked to find, for example: o five words that contain a particular consonant or vowel sound; o five two-syllable words with second-syllable stress; o five compound nouns with stress on the first element In coursebooks, very often, texts and associated visual 170 material are used as the basis for reading skills tasks in which the learners are cast in the role of apprentice readers of English This can have the effect that texts are rather under­ exploited If we also think of those apprentice readers as learners of English, texts can be re-used (in the same lesson, or the next day, or the next week ) as the basis for language-focus activities such as the text-shifting we suggest here, which have dual benefits: o They develop awareness of selected features of pronunciation, o They recycle the content of the texts: the topics, the stories, the characters, the arguments, the vocabulary, the grammar, and so on As well as sifting a text, the learners can sift a printed dialogue, or a page, or a whole unit Example The learners can be given phonemic transcriptions of new words and phrases which have appeared in the most recent coursebook unit they have covered, and have to: o say them aloud in an appropriate context; o write them accurately Example The learners can be given a set of words which have appeared in a recent unit and have to sort them into groups according to their stress pattern Example The learners can be given a sentence from a dialogue which has recently appeared in the coursebook, and have to: o recall the context; o recall where the tonic prominence was; o suggest other tonic prominence placements, and invent possible appropriate contexts for these Example The learners can ‘shadow’ a recording, or part of a recording, which they have previously used for listening comprehension work (See Shadowing on page 120.) Example The learners can look at a short section of the transcript of a recording they have previously used for comprehension work, and predict, for example: o where they will hear weak forms o where they will hear examples of assimilation o where they will hear tonic prominences They then listen and compare their predictions with what they hear Example When you have checked that answers to exercises which practise grammatical structures are accurate - eg o Have you ever been to England? Yes, I have, o Has she ever done a bunjeejump? No, she hasnt MORE ABOUT TEACHING you can focus on the sentences for aspects of pronunciation For example: o Where is the tonic prominence? o Are there any examples of consonant-vowel linking, elision or assimilation? Troubleshooting Here is a selection of common problems learners have with the pronunciation of English sounds Whether you have encountered these problems in your teaching will depend very much on the languages of the learners you have taught There may be: o some you have faced and found solutions for; o some you have tried unsuccessfully to find solutions for; o some you have never had to consider In any case, try to think what you might to help learners who face these problems Task 10 11 12 13 14 15 They don’t distinguish between Ip I and /b/ so that, for example, ‘pay’ sounds like ‘bay’ They don’t distinguish between /p/ and /f/ They have trouble pronouncing /r/ They don’t distinguish between /1/ and /r/ They can pronounce/ / / but not/ / They have trouble pronouncing /©/ and Id I They have trouble with /w/, perhaps pronouncing it as /v/ or as a bilabial voiced fricative They pronounce /j / as /d / so that, for example, ‘yet’ sounds like ‘jet’ They pronounce /h/ as /x/ (as in the initial sounds of Spanish ‘jota’ and Russian ‘xojio/iho’) They insert an intrusive /h/ before vowels so that, for example, ‘old’ sounds like ‘hold’ They devoice word-final voiced consonants so that, for example, ‘grid’ sounds like ‘grit’, or ‘lose’ sounds like ‘loose’ They insert a Igl or /k/ after word-final /q/ so that, for example, ‘thing’ sounds like ‘think’ They insert a vowel sound such as /i / or lei before consonant clusters so that, for example, ‘state’ sounds like ‘estate’ They insert a vowel sound such as /i /, /a / or /e/ in the middle of consonant clusters so that, for example, ‘sport’ sounds like ‘support’ They have trouble in general with consonant clusters 16 They insert a vowel sound such as /a/ after word-final consonants so that, for example, ‘drive’ sounds like ‘driver’ 17 They have trouble pronouncing /a/ 18 They have trouble making a distinction between /ae/ and lei so that, for example, ‘man’ and ‘men’ sound the same 19 They have trouble in general producing vowel sounds which are distinct from one another 20 They have trouble making a distinction between long and short vowels Key The key thing is that the learners should aspirate Ipi They can practise this by using the paper/candle trick described in Part A (page 13) o It’s quite likely that they will also have the same problem with / t/ vs 161 and with / k/ vs /g/ o It’s probably a good idea to work on /p/ vs / b / first, because it’s easiest to produce bilabial aspiration o For/p/, ask the learners to concentrate on closing their lips, letting air pressure build up behind them and then releasing the air by opening their lips, o For /f/, ask them to concentrate on feeling their top teeth resting loosely on the inside of their lower lip and then force air out of their mouth without changing the positions of their teeth and lips They should be able to prolong the /f / sound until they run out of breath One way to approach /r/ is to make a prolonged /z/ and gradually move the tip of the tongue backwards and upwards, so that it points towards (but doesn’t touch) the palate o For / 1/, the tip of the tongue should be in contact with the alveolar ridge (or the back of the top teeth) and the air should flow along the sides of the tongue The learners can use the ‘cold air’ test (Part A, page 15) to verify this o For /r/, the tip of the tongue should not make contact with any part of the mouth (See above.) The only difference between /// and I3 / is the difference of voicing Assuming the learners can pronounce /f / and /v/, and Isi and /z/, ask them to say a continuous, prolonged /ffffvvvvffffvvvv/ o They should this without making any changes to the position of their lips, teeth or tongue - the only change they are making is in switching their voicing on and off o Next, they can the same thing starting from /s/; what they will produce is /sssszzzzsssszzzz/ o Finally they can exactly the same thing starting from /// —automatically producing /JJJJ3333 /JJJ3333 /, from which they can isolate 73333/, and then 73/ 171 MORE ABOUT TEACHING The only difference between /0/ and Idl is the difference of voicing (see above) so there’s actually only one learning task here, not two The key to these sounds is: o to adopt a generally relaxed mouth setting (easier said than done, though, for speakers of languages who have a characteristically higher-tension articulatory setting than English); o to put the tip of the tongue loosely against the back of the teeth and expel air The learners can start by substituting a long lull for /w/ - eg by pronouncing ‘well’ as/uuuuuuel/- and focusing their attention on the rounded position of their lips o They then need to progressively reduce the length of the lull until the lip-rounding becomes just a fleeting articulatory gesture, o They can follow this procedure with /w/ wordinitially before other vowels - eg ‘win’, ‘wall’, ‘what’, ‘one’ - and word-internally - eg ‘towards’, ‘beware’ If they tend to pronounce /w/ as /v/, they should focus on the difference between rounded lips (and no involvement of the teeth) for /w/ as in ‘wet’, and contact between the top teeth and the inside of the lower lip for /v/ as in ‘vet’ The learners can start by substituting a long l\:l for /]/ eg by pronouncing ‘yes’ as / iiiiiiies/ - and focusing their attention on the spread position of their lips o They then need to progressively reduce the length of the I hi until the lip-spreading becomes just a fleeting articulatory gesture, o They can follow this procedure with /j / word-initially before other vowels - eg ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘yacht’, ‘year’ Try an approach to Ihl through whispering (See page 52.) This tends to happen when learners over-compensate for not pronouncing Ihl where it is required They need to focus on spelling: o ‘h’ generally indicates Ihl, although there are a few significant exceptions - ‘hour’, ‘heir’ and ‘honour’ and their derivatives - in which ‘h’ is not pronounced, o Where there is no ‘h’ in the spelling, on the other hand, there should be no / h / in the pronunciation It may also be useful to focus on linking between a previous word and an initial vowel For example: the_old /diiauld/ ‘an old’ pronounced as ‘a nold’ 1 The learners can lengthen final voiced consonants and add a vowel sound to the end of words - eg /g r id .a/, /luizzzza/ - and then progressively reduce the additional vowel until it disappears completely (This is easier to with final fricatives, which are relatively easy to lengthen, than with final plosives.) The learners can lengthen the It] I - eg /Girjrjrjr) / and concentrate on switching off, or fading out, their 172 sound production mechanism without adding any other sound at the end They can then practise reducing the length of the It] I 13/14 They can start by lengthening the initial Isl /sssssteit/ /ssssspjit/ - and gradually reducing it to its proper length (See also 15.) 15 They can play fast and loose with word divisions, for example pronouncing: ‘that state’ as ‘thats tate’ ‘enjoy sport’ as ‘enjoyssss port’ 16 They can practise first with final fricatives or nasals, prolonging these and being aware of switching off, or fading out, their sound production mechanism without adding any other sound at the end, eg /draivvvv/ Next, they can the same with final stops, holding the articulation and not releasing the stop, or releasing it with a voiceless release of air, eg /sto p / 17 Instead of focusing attention on /a/, which tends to make it loom larger than required, it’s often more effective to ignore it, and ask learners to pronounce, for example: problem as /'prablm / solution as /'sluijn/ pronounce as /pr'nauns/ backwards as / ‘baekwdz/ 18 For the vowel sound in ‘man’, the learners can aim for a more open sound, closer to the ‘a’ sound in most European languages o This will help them to distinguish ‘man’ from ‘men’, ‘sat’ from ‘set’, etc o It is also more in keeping with the pronunciation of many younger British English speakers today 19 As a start, the learners can experiment with the parameters of: o jaw position - from closed to open o lip position - from rounded to spread o tongue position - near the front of the mouth or near the back o tongue position - low in the mouth or raised towards the roof of the mouth and thereby produce an infinite number of possible vowel sounds Once they are are aware of these parameters, and of what they need to in order to vary them, they will be in a better position to respond to guidance such as: Open your jaws more Spread your lips more Move your tongue further back in your mouth They can also use vowels they can pronounce reliably as the basis for finding ‘missing’ vowels If, for example, they can produce l\il and lull but not /i/, they can: o say /i:/, then /u:/, then a long continuous sound that glides from I ill to lull; MORE ABOUT TEACHING o start the same glide, but stop part-way along and isolate the sound they are making If it still sounds too much like /i:/ they need to glide further: if it already sounds too much like /u:/ they need to go back With trial and error they will be able to locate the point where the glide passes through III o They will be able to use this strategy, as long as they need to, to rediscover the missing sound until they begin to be able to produce it more spontaneously, o They can use the same strategy to discover other monophthongs - for example, b'J is situated on the glide from /u: / to Id I (see the Sound Foundations chart on page 31 which relates vowel sounds, in a very schematic way, to the geography of the mouth), o And to pronounce diphthongs - for example, lei I is a glide from lei to III If you are sufficiently familiar with the vowel system of your learners’ LI, you could also suggest that they use LI vowels as the starting point for finding English ones 20 The learners can start by producing long vowels with absurdly exaggerated length For example: How you feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel? and gradually reducing the length They can also practise ‘throwing sounds’ - eg saying (How you do’ to another learner at the opposite side of the room, ‘launching’ the sentence and watching the ‘dooooooo’ fly in a slow-motion arc across the room You may also, of course, have devised or discovered other effective solutions to these problems: anything that seems effective, and efficient, and preferably includes an element of fun, is fine And of course there’s rarely, if ever, a ‘magic wand’ solution o We can make learners aware of what they need to do, but they will still need extensive practice - of individual sounds, of sounds in different positions in words, and of those words in phrases and sentences, o Awareness of what they need to gives them the basis for working independently on their pronunciation Remember that learning the pronunciation of an unfamiliar language involves changing the habits of a lifetime! If there are sounds in your learners’ LI which you find difficult to pronounce, why not ask them to help you? They will probably never have thought about how they pronounce those sounds, and the process of finding out will also help them to develop their awareness of their speech organs M ore discussion Here are some further questions which might be useful in provoking or guiding discussion For example: o at in-service training meetings in your place of work o at meetings of a local or regional teachers’ group o informally between you and your colleagues You might choose to work in depth on just one question, or to range more widely across a number of related questions No doubt not all the questions will be interesting or relevant, and you will almost certainly be able to come up with others Task 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 What is, in your opinion, included under the overall heading ‘pronunciation’? Is it possible to teach a language without teaching pronunciation? How important is pronunciation, in relation to other aspects of language? Which aspects of pronunciation are more/less important than others? Is pronunciation more important at higher or lower levels? How important is it for learners to aim for ‘native-like’ pronunciation? What we mean by ‘native-like’ pronunciation? Who should decide what targets learners should aim for in their pronunciation? What makes pronunciation ‘intelligible’? o What else, apart from pronunciation, contributes towards intelligibility? o What militates against intelligibility? Is it possible for learners to acquire an ‘better’ pronunciation (whatever that means) than their teacher(s)? How important is it for learners to be familiar with phonemic symbols? How important is it for teachers to be familiar with phonemic symbols? Does pronunciation work require special, tailor-made material? Should pronunciation teaching material be tailor-made to take the learners’ first languages into account? Can all learners, in principle, reach the same level of achievement in pronunciation? Why some learners find it easier than others to pick up the pronunciation of a new language? 173 MORE ABOUT TEACHING 17 What - if anything - you find attractive or irritating about your learners’ pronunciation, or about the pronunciation of other learners of English? What exactly gives rise to such reactions? 18 What - if anything - you find attractive or irritating about the pronunciation of other native and highly proficient speakers of English (including regional accents)? What exactly gives rise to such reactions? 19 Do learners learn pronunciation errors from each other? 20 What are learners’ principal sources of pronunciation models: o If they learn in an English-speaking environment? o If they learn in an non-English-speaking environment? Are there any possible disadvantages in speaking a language with very good pronunciation? 2 Is reading aloud a worthwhile classroom - or private activity? Can it have any benefit for pronunciation? 23 In a multilingual class, the learners are likely to have different problems with pronunciation - is this an advantage or a disadvantage for them and for their teacher, in comparison with a monolingual class? 24 How important is it for the learners to be familiar with terminology such as aspiration, diphthong, elision, prominence, etc? 25 How important is it for teachers to be familiar with such terminology? M ore reading The Book of Pronunciation has endeavoured to provide both knowledge and practice in the teaching of pronunciation Part C has suggested more areas of interest, discussion and development We conclude with a list of further reading for those of you who would like to continue your personal and professional journey of investigation and implication - beyond what it has been possible to include within these pages English pronunciation and how to teach it Brazil, D Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English CUP 1994 Brazil, D The Communicative Value of Intonation in English CUP 1997 Brown, G Listening to Spoken English (2nd ed) Longman 1990 Celce-Murcia, M, Brinton, D and Goodwin, J Teaching Pronunciation CUP 1996 Dalton, C and Seidlhofer, B Pronunciation OUP 1994 Field, J Listening in the Language Classroom CUP 2008 174 Jenkins, I The Phonology of English as an International Language OUP 2000 Kelly, G How to Teach Pronunciation Pearson 2000 Kenworthy, J Teaching English Pronunciation Longman 198/ Kenworthy, J The Pronunciation of English: a workbook Arnold 2000 Knowles, G Patterns of Spoken English Longman 1987 Kreidler, C The Pronunciation of English Blackwell 1989 Parker, R and Graham, T The Phonology of English ELB Publishing 2002 Roach, P English Phonetics and Phonology (4th ed) CUP 200 Shockey, L Sound Patterns of Spoken English CUP 2003 Tench, P Transcribing the Sound of English CUP 2011 Underhill, A Sound Foundations (2nd ed) Macmillan 2005 Walker, R Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca OUP 2010 Wennerstrom, A The Music of Everyday Speech OUP 2001 Activities to use in the classroom Bowler, B, Cunningham, S et al New Headway Pronunciation (5 levels) OUP 1999-2005 Bradford, B Intonation in Context CUP 1988 Brazil, D Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English CU1 1994 Gilbert, J Clear Speech (3rd ed) CUP 2005 Hancock, M English Pronunciation in Use - Intermediate (2 nd ed) CUP 2012 Hancock, M Pronunciation Games CUP 1995 Hewings, M English Pronunciation in Use-Advanced CUP 2007 Hewings, M Pronunciation Practice Activities CUP 2004 Hewings, M Pronunciation Tasks CUP 1993 Laroy, C Pronunciation OUP 1995 Marks, J English Pronunciation in Use - Elementary CUP 2007 Underhill, A Sound Foundations (2nd ed) Macmillan 2005 Vaughan-Rees, M Rhymes and Rhythm Garnet 2010 Vaughan-Rees, M Test Your Pronunciation Penguin 2002 Difficulties for speakers of particular L1s Swan, M and Smith, B Learner English (2nd ed) CUP 2001 Walker, R Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca OUP 2010 Pronouncing words and names Jones, D Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed: Roach, P et al - Eds) CUP 2011 Wells, J Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed) Longman 2008 From the editors The Book of Pronunciation is written by two experts in the field, whose aim is to provide the resource book that many teachers have been asking for They explore the significance of pronunciation in teaching, and endeavour to answer questions they have heard over the years - by asking teachers questions of their own: o Are you looking for ways to begin to incorporate pronunciation into your teaching? o Are you already taking pronunciation into account in your teaching, but would like to expand the range of activities at your disposal? o Are you looking for a basic description of the pronunciation of English which will help you and your learners understand it better? o Are you doubtful about the value of pronunciation work, but willing to be persuaded? The Book of Pronunciation takes teachers on a highly authoritative but hugely accessible journey - accompanied by a CD, which provides illustrative models for the teacher and practice for the learners Part A offers an overview of all the essential elements of English pronunciation, reassuring teachers on why, when and how teaching pronunciation can be both necessary and beneficial, and giving a comprehensive account of everything a teacher should know The CD accompanies the teacher on the journey B C Part B provides classroom practice through an extensive range of activities - introducing pronunciation and covering sounds, symbols, spelling, stress, speech, rhythm and intonation The CD enhances the procedures and enlightens the learners Part C offers the teacher who wants more, much more - in the form of tasks and checklists, quizzes and questionnaires - and fascinating further knowledge For the teacher who wants to go further, The Book of Pronunciation offers the opportunity The Book of Pronunciation hopes to be the definitive resource for teachers, helping them develop as successful and confident teachers - with successful and confident learners Mike Burghall Lindsay Clandfield 175 From the publisher DELTA TEACHER DEVELOPMENT SERIES A pioneering award-winning series of books for English Language Teachers with professional development in mind P T h e Book of Pronunciation The Book of Pronunciation by Jonathan Marks and Tim Bowen ISBN 978-1-905085-70-5 ffi Teaching Online The Company Words Keep The Company Words Keep by Paul Davis and Hanna Kryszewska ISBN 978-1-905085-20-0 Teaching Unplugged by Luke Meddings and Scott Thornbury m The Developing Teacher The Business English Teacher The Developing Teacher by Duncan Foord ISBN 978-1-905085-22-4 ISBN 978-1-905085-55-2 Teaching Unplugged Teaching Online by Nicky Hockly with Lindsay Clandfield ISBN 978-1-905085-35-4 Digital Play by Kyle Mawer and Graham Stanley ISBN 978-1-905085-19-4 The Business English Teacher by Debbie Barton, Jennifer Burkart and Caireen Sever Culture in our Classrooms by Gill Johnson and Mario Rinvolucri ISBN 978-1-905085-21-7 Being Creative by Chaz Pugliese ISBN 978-1-905085-33-0 ISBN 978-1-905085-34-7 For details of these and future titles in the series, please contact the publisher: E-mail info@deltapublishing.co.uk Or visit the DTDS website at www.deltapublishing.co.uk/titles/methodology ... / is an alveolar nasal (there is contact between the tongue and the alveolar ridge) • / q / is a velar nasal (there is contact between the tongue and the soft palate or velum) As is the case with... pronunciation of unfamiliar words in a dictionary Specialised pronunciation dictionaries also give access to the pronunciations of a large number of place names, personal names, etc On the other hand,... to another part of the room o They guide the Bs towards them by chanting the same vowel as before The Bs’ task is to ‘home in’ on the As’ vowel - amidst the chanting of the other members of the