2. TheTeacher's Role
Planning Lessons
Responding to Students in Class
Intelligibility
Perception and Production
Why teach Segmental phonology?
Why teach Suprasegmental phonology?
Communicative Pronunciation
3. TheTeacher's Role
”Teachers of pronunciation need:
A good grounding in theoretical knowledge
Practical classroom skills
Access to good ideas for classroom activities"
(Kelly, G. 2000)
4. The teacher's role
• Helping learners hear sounds
• Helping learners make sounds
• Providing feedback
• Pointing out what's going on
• Establishing priorities
• Devising activities
• Assessing progress
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
5. Why we don't teach it.
• ”Many experienced teachers would admit to a lack of knowledge of the theory of
pronunciation and they may therefore feel the need to improve their practical skills in
pronunciation teaching”.
• ”In spite of the fact that trainees and less experienced teachers may be very interested in
pronunciation, their concern with grammar and vocabulary tends to take precedence”.
• ”Not all pronunciation difficulties necessarily get in the way of communication”
• ”Teachers need to prioritise, and not correct everything”
(Kelly, G. 2000)
6. Why we should teach it.
• ”Integrating pronunciation teaching fully with the study of grammatical and lexical features has the
further incremental benefit that learners will increasingly appreciate the significance of pronunciation
in determining successful communication”. (Kelly,G. 2000)
• a) we can persuade learners of the importance of good pronunciation for ease of communication.
• b)We can continually emphasise that a 'native-like' accent will not be imposed as a goal.
(Intelligibility and communicative efficiency are the only realistic goals .They can be achieved as
much, if not more, by the way the teacher reacts and the stance he or she adopts as by merely
making statements.
• c)We can demonstrate concern for learners' pronunciation and their progress in it.
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
7. Can pronunciation be taught?
• ”The critical period hypothesis, (Burrill, 1985), claims that it is virtually impossible
for adults to acquire native like pronunciation in a foreign language”.
• ”Krashen (1982), insists that pronunciation is an acquired skill and that focused
instruction is at best useless and at worst detrimental”.
• ”Teachers and classrooms', Purcell and Suter claim, 'seem to have very little to do
with how well our students pronounced English”.
(cited by Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
8. Planning lessons
”While planning, teachers should decide what pronunciation issues are relevant to
the particular structures and lexis being dealt with in the lesson”. (Kelly, G. 2000)
9. Three main types
• Integrated lessons, in which pronunciation forms an essential part of the language
analysis and planning process, and the language presentation and practice within
the lesson.
• Remedial (reactive) lessons, where a pronunciation difficulty which arises in class
is dealt with there and then, in order to facilitate the successful achievement of
classroom tasks.
• Practice lessons, in which a particular feature of pronunciation is isolated and
practised for its own sake, forming the main focus of a lesson period.
(Kelly, G. 2000)
23. Problems with materials
• ”Materials writers should approach predicting pronunciation problems based on
learners' native language with caution. On the one hand, activities and methods
that encourage inappropriate equivalence classification, such as overemphasis on
orthography or use of simplified systems of phonetic transcription based on the L1,
should be avoided”. ( Pennington, 1996).
• ”(Sections on contrastive analysis), usually alerting teachers to 'special problems'
likely to be encountered by particular L1 speakers, are often simplistic and
misleading, treating the production of specific sounds and sound contrasts
divorced from the natural stream of speech and usually ignoring suprasegmental
features of nonnative accents”. (Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
24. Responding to students in class
”It tends to be reactive to a particular problem that has arisen in the classroom
rather than being strategically planned” (Kelly, G. 2000)
25. Psychological and sociological factors
• ”Pronunciation is an extremely personal matter, and even in monolingual groups, different students have
different problems, different needs and different attitudes to the subject”.
(Harmer, J. 2007)
• ”A number of researchers have claimed that work on pronunciation ' needs to be tied in with work on the
individual's value set, attitudes and socio-cultural schemata” (Pennington, 1995, P. 104).
• ”Targets for pronunciation teaching should be appropriate for the particular sociological context in which
the teaching takes place”.(Brown, 1989).
• ”Not only does personality or emotional state show in pronunciation....but the converse is also true:
speakers can control their nerves or inner states by speaking properly.This is the basic tenet of successful
programs in voice training and public speaking”.(Acton 1984, p.75)
(cited by Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
26. Learner centred diagnostics
• ”Differentiated teaching is especially appropriate because students may be more
aware of their pronunciation problems - and be able to explain what they are - than
they are with grammar or vocabulary issues”.
• ”When we are working with phonemes, get the students to identify their own
individual pronunciation difficulties rather than telling them, as a group, what they
need to work on. So, for example, when revising a list of words we might ask
individual students which words they find easy to pronounce and which words they
might find difficult. We can then help them with the 'difficult' words”.
(Harmer, J. 2007)
27. What is intelligibility?
• ”The more words a listener is able to identify accurately when said by a
particular speaker, the more intelligble that speaker is”. (Kenworthy, J. 1987)
28. Speakers intentions
• Look at this short extract from a conversation (A has been telling B a story when suddenly B
bursts into laughter):
A:What are you laughing at?
B: (stops laughing) Oh.....sorry.
A: No, I didn't mean you shouldn't laugh .... I really want to know what you found funny.
B thought A's question was intended as a command to stop laughing, as a criticism ( perhaps
because of their relationship or A's facial expression). But it was simply a straightforward
information question. So B understood every word A said, B misunderstood what A intended by
those words.
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
29. Assessing intelligibility
Three ways of gauging a learner's intelligibility;
• The sample - reading aloud or spontaneous speech
• The topic of the sample - because of the role that context plays in listening.
• Getting a tape recorded sample - if there is a large number of learners who
need to be assessed
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
30. Judges of intelligibility
• ”Because of this constant exposure, teachers develop special skills as listeners, but
these skills make them atypical listeners and therefore unsuitable as judges of
intelligibility”.
• ”Teachers should not be used as judges of improvement in pronunciation; what
may be assessed as better pronunciation may actually be better listening on the
part of the teacher”.
• ”.The best source of this type of judge is, of course, other learners of English in the
class or school”.
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
31. Perception and Production
”Students need to learn to hear the difference between
phonemes, for example, particularly where such a contrast
does not exist in their L1.They then need to carry that
knowledge through into their production.” (Kelly, G. 2000)
32. Perception
• ”There are two different ways of dealing with this: in the first place, we can
show students how sounds are made through demonstration, diagrams and
explanation. But we can also draw the sounds to their attention every time
they appear on a recording or in their own conversation. In this way, we
gradually train the students' ears.When they can hear correctly, they are on
the way to being able to speak correctly”. (Harmer, J. 2007)
33. • ”The key to successful pronunciation teaching is not so much getting students to
produce correct sounds or intonation tunes, but rather to have them listen and
notice how English is spoken - either on audio or video or by their teachers
themselves.The more aware they are, the greater the chance that their own
intelligibility will rise”. (Harmer, J. 2007)
• ”Pronunciation teaching methods should more fully address the issues of
motivation and exposure by creating an awareness of the importance of
pronunciation and providing more exposure to input from native speakers”.
(Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
34. Drilling
• ”It appears that although both imitation and discrimination drills have an
important place in the teaching of pronunciation as a means to help
articulation become more automatic and routinised, they are best seen as a
step toward more meaningful, communicative practice”. (Pennington,
1996).
35. Who benefits from drills?
• ”One study has indicated that those with high phonetic abilities benefit from
pronunciation drills, tasks in which particular sounds are heard and the learner has
to imitate again and again.Their innate abilities enable them to exploit all the
opportunities to compare what they're doing with the model presented”.
• ”'Poor discriminators' do not seem to benefit from drills very much. In fact, drills
seem to cause their attempts to stabilise before they reach an accurate production
of a sound”.
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
36. Perception or production
• ”Which half of the 'listen and repeat' equation results in increased accuracy?”
• ”Some teaching materials emphasise the importance of sound discrimination, insisting that students who cannot hear a
particular English contrast have no chance of reproducing it”. ( O'Connor & Fletcher, 1989)
• ”Listening and repeating seem to be a two way street: Focused learning can improve oral production and practice in oral
production can improve auditory perception”. ( Pennington, 1996)
(cited by Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
• ”Not all 'problems' will be at the level of production; some will be associated with perception. The techniques used need to
mirror the types of 'problems' the learners are encountering. A diagnosis of learners' spoken English will provide
information as to the types of activities and techniques that will be required”.
• ”Between perceiving aural input and the production of output, learners need time to filter, assimilate, recognise, fix, store
and structure information. In order to process the information, learners need to hear the auditory input many times”.
(Hebert, Julie, 1993)
37. • ”Many materials have sought to integrate perception and production as equal
components in pronunciation training. Gilbert (1984, 1993) and Roberson and
Gilbert (1990) promote their books as both pronunciation and listening
comprehension courses. Other materials writers have begun to recognise the
importance of other modalities (visual and kinaesthetic) in pronunciation training,
combining pictures, gestures and physical activities ( such as the stretching of
rubber bands ) with drills, along the lines ofTotal Physical Response (Acton, 1984;
Gilbert, 1993; Pennington, 1996)”.
(cited by Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
38. 6.Why teach segmental phonology?
"This involves us showing students which parts of the mouth they need to use...".
(Harmer, J. 2007)
41. Phoney phonemes
• ”When a learner says, for example, soap in a situation such as a restaurant where
they should have said soup, the inaccurate production of a phoneme can lead to
misunderstanding (at least on the part of the waitress)”.
• ”A learner who consistently mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremely
difficult for a speaker from another language community to understand”.
• ”This can be very frustrating for the learner who may have a good command of
grammar and lexis but have difficulty in understanding and being understood by a
native speaker”.
(Kelly, G. 2000)
42. Firth's diagnostic profile
Segmental level
Consonants
1. Substitution. Is the learner substituting one
phoneme for another?
2. Omission. Is the learner omitting consonants?
3. Articulation. Is the consonant being articulated
properly (e.g., is /p/ aspirated word-initially)?
4. Clusters. Are consonant clusters articulated
properly?
5. Linking. Are consonants linked to each other?
Vowels
1. Substitution. Is one vowel being substituted
for another?
2. Articulation. Is the learner articulating
vowels correctly (e.g., lip rounding)?
3. Length. Do vowels have their appropriate
length?
4. Reduction. Are vowels reduced in
unstressed syllables?
5. Linking. Are vowels properly linked to other
vowels across word boundaries?
(Firth, S. 1987)
43. Consider the context
• ”Where the articulation of particular phonemes is causing the learner
'problems', these should be felt with in context. For example, the way in
which /p/ is articulated depends on its occurrence with other phonemes.
Consider, for example, /p/ in pin, spit, upper, captain and topmost”. (Kelly, G.
2000)
44. Orthography
”English is bedevilled, for many students, by an apparent lack of sound and
spelling correspondence (though in fact most spelling is highly regular and the
number of exceptions fairly small), it may make sense for them to be aware of
the different phonemes, and the clearest way of promoting this awareness is
to introduce the symbols for them”. (Harmer, J. 2007)
46. Other reasons for using phonemic symbols
• ”Paper dictionaries usually give the pronunciation of headwords in
phonemic symbols. If students can read such symbols, they can know how
the word is said even without having to hear it”. (Harmer, J. 2007)
• ”When both teacher and students know the symbols, it is easier to explain
what mistake has occurred and why it has happened”. (Harmer, J. 2007)
47. Why teach suprasegmental phonology?
”When we speak, we reveal our interest and attitudes toward the topic being discussed and
toward the people we are speaking with.These messages are largely conveyed through the
prosodic features of language: stress and rhythm, intonation, pitch variation and volume. For
these reasons, it would seem essential that phonology be learned in context and not treated
incidentally and/or separately”. (Hebert, Julie, 1993)
48. History
• ”In the late 1980's researchers called for a more 'top-down' approach to
pronunciation teaching (Pennington and Richards, 1986; Pennington 1989),
emphasising the broader, more meaningful aspects of phonology in
connected speech rather than practice with isolated sounds, thus ushering
pronunciation back into the communicative fold„.
(Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
49. Suprasegmental level
General speaking habits
1. Clarity. Is the learner’s speech clear?
Are there instances where there is a breakdown in
communication?
What are the major factors?
2. Speed. Does the learner speak too quickly?
Is her speech unintelligible because she speaks too
quickly?
3. Loudness. Does the learner speak too softly?
Does the lack of volume affect intelligibility?
4. Breathing. Does the learner speak with
appropriate pauses, breaking each utterance into
thought groups?
5. Fluency. Does the learner speak with either long
silences between words or too many ‘filled pauses’
(e.g., ‘ah . . .ummm’)?
6. Voice. Is there enough variation in pitch?
7. Eye gaze. Does the learner use eye-gaze
behaviour appropriate to the context (e.g., facing a
conversational partner or looking at the audience if
delivering an oral presentation)?
8. Expressive behaviour. Does the learner overuse
gestures? Does the facial expression match the
utterance?
(Firth, S. 1987)
50. Why teach Intonation?
Intonation
1. Is the learner using appropriate intonation patterns in utterances? Can the learner use
intonation contours to signal whether utterances are statements, lists, wh- questions or
yes/no questions?
2. Is the learner changing pitch at the major stressed words? (Firth, S. 1987)
• ”A speaker can show that he or she is asking for information, or asking for confirmation, seeking agreement, or simply making a remark that
is indisputable or 'common knowledge', thought the intonation of the voice”.
• ”If a foreign speaker always uses very low pitch, without much variation in the melody of the voice , listeners may get the impression that
they are 'bored' or 'uninterested' when this is really not the case”.
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
52. Stress
• ”If the learner doesn't stress one syllable
more than another, or stresses the
wrong syllable, it may be very difficult
for the listener to identify the word.This
is because the stress pattern of a word is
an important part of its identity for the
native speaker”. (Kenworthy, J. 1987)
3. Linking.
Is the learner linking words appropriately?Are
identical consonants linked (e.g., top
position)?
Are vowels linked (e.g., pay up)? Are
consonants linked to vowels (e.g., top of )?
Stress and rhythm
1. Word-level stress. Does the learner
produce the schwa in unstressed syllables?
Does the learner use loudness and length
to differentiate between stressed and
unstressed syllables?
2. Sentence-level stress.
Does the learner stress each syllable equally?
Is she able to produce appropriate strong
and weak stresses?
Are lexical words stressed and
ungrammatical words unstressed?
Does the learner place the tonic stress on the
appropriate words?
(Firth, S. 1987)
53. Why teach stress?
• ”Experiments have demonstrated that often when a native speaker mishears a word, it is because the
foreigner has put the stress in the wrong place, not because he or she mispronounced the sounds of the
word. Here are some examples:
• the word 'written' was pronounced with the stress on the second syllable instead of on the first.The listener
thought the speaker had said 'retain'.
• 'comfortable' was pronounced with stress on 'com-' and on '-ta-'.The listener heard this as 'come for the
table'.
• 'productivity', which has the pattern pro duc tiv i ty, was pronounced with a stress on '-duc-' and one on '-ty-'
(pro duc tiv i ty).This was heard as ' productive tea' ( and caused considerable confusion!)”.
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
54. Why teach Rhythm?
• ”If the speaker doesn't use the characteristic rhythm, then the listener will
be placed in the position of someone who walks out onto the dance floor
with a partner, expecting to waltz, but finds that the partner starts some
strange set of syncopated steps which are thoroughly unpredictable and
impossible to follow, or marches up and down in a perfectly steady beat,
which doesn't seem like dancing at all to the waltz lover!”
(Kenworthy, J. 1987)
56. Segmental or suprasegmental?
• ”Some teachers might feel that accuracy is important and therefore might be
focused more on the segmental level; others might feel that the learner's overall
intelligibility is more important than the correct articulation of particular
phonemes”.
• ”With lower levels the focus should be on improving the learner's intelligibility; that
is to say, to focus primarily on the suprasegmental level. If a learner's intelligibility
is affected because her volume is too low, then it doesn't really matter how she
articulates a particular phoneme”.
(Hebert, Julie, 1993)
57. • ”A learner's intelligibility will not be affected if she substitutes one phoneme
for another. For example, /dis iz di kæt/ instead of / ð is iz ð ə kæt/. However,
if she says the former with a rising intonation contour when her intent is to
impart information, the listener will encounter some difficulty in
understanding her meaning. All ESL learners want to be understood by
others, but not all will want to sound like native speakers; psychosocial and
individual factors will influence their attitudes and motivation to modify
their accent”. (Hebert, Julie, 1993)
58. Communicative Pronunciation
”It is obvious that creating a stronger link between pronunciation and
communication can help increase learners' motivation by bringing pronunciation
beyond the lowest common denominator of 'intelligibility' and encouraging
students' awareness of its potential as a tool for making their language not only
easier to understand but more effective”. (Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
59. Communication and contextualisation
• ”It is 'artificial' to divorce pronunciation from communication and other
aspects of language use”. (Pennington and Richards, 1986).
• ”In order to become a competent speaker and listener, a language learner
needs to attend to not only the strictly mechanical, articulatory aspects of
pronunciation, but also the to the meaningful correlates of those
articulatory features in the immediate linguistic context, as well as the
larger context of human communication”. (Pennington, 1996)
(cited by Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
60. Communicative pronunciation
• Bradford (1988) organises her course according to discourse functions (highlighting, telling and referring,
etc.) rather than the traditional phonological categories.
• Other writers have included interactive activities where there is a phonological 'information gap' such that
only proper pronunciation and perception can lead to the correct outcome in the task ( see, for example,
Gilbert,1993).
• There has also been an attempt to make repetitive practice of rhythm and sound more natural and
meaningful through the use of poetry and song (Gilbert, 1993; Maley, 1987).
• Several materials writers have attempted to integrate pronunciation practice into broader communicative
activities by either finding lexical/grammatical contexts with naturally occurring instances of target sounds
or features ( Celce-Murcia,1987)
(cited by Jones, Rodney H, 1997)
61. Discourse analysis
• ”By making learners aware of the role of phonological elements in discourse, we
provide them with a means for decoding and encoding meaning in exchanges: who
the people are, what their perceived status is, how they feel about what they are
saying, cues for signalling a change in topic, the status of a message ('I'm imparting
information, you listen', 'I'm asking you, answer me' or ' I'm not sure about what I'm
saying') and boundary marking ( I'm finished, 'I'm not finished yet').We provide
learners with a key to how culture is articulated through language and how to use
language.Without this key, it is difficult to understand 'why and how' people
convey their intended messages”. (Hebert, Julie, 1993)
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