Unit 6 Teaching Pronunciation
6.1 The importance of teaching pronunciation
1. Correct pronunciation is needed for a speaker to communicate. If our pronunciation is incorrect, we will not be understood. The result will be that Chinese people will think you are speaking in a foreign language and English people will think you are speaking Chinese. 2. It is more important for us language teachers to have a good pronunciation. If we have not a good pronunciation, how can we enable our students to pronounce correctly? 6.2 The role of pronunciation 1. Two views:
a. Pronunciation needn’t be taught as pronunciation can take care of itself. b. Poor pronunciation is a hindrance in language learning. 2. For Chinese: pronunciation is important as a. Chinese is different from English b. Chinese has little exposure to English
6.3 The distinction between pronunciation and phonetics
1. Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and their physiological production, auditory perception, and neurophysiologic status. 2. Pronunciation means the way a word or a language is customarily spoken.
3. So the teaching of pronunciation should focus on the students’ ability to identify and produce English sounds themselves. Students should not be led to focus on reading and writing phonetic transcripts of words（单词的音标）, especially for young students, because phonetic transcripts are more abstract and less meaningful.
4. Phonetic rules regarding what sounds a letter or a cluster of letters should be uttered should be introduced at a suitable stage and they should be avoided at the beginning stage, especially for young learners.
5. Stress and intonation should be taught from the very beginning. 6.4 The goal of teaching pronunciation
Learners of English as a foreign language cannot acquire native-like English pronunciation,
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except those who start learning English at a very young age.
1. Factors to determine whether the students can acquire native-like English pronunciation: 1) Age
Critical Period Hypothesis: If human do not learn a foreign language before a certain age (perhaps around the puberty青春期)，then due to changes such as maturation (成熟) of the brain, it becomes impossible to learn the foreign language like a native speaker. 2). The amount of exposure to English 3). Biological and physiological differences
Some students are more sensitive to and better at imitating sounds than other students. 2. Our realistic goal of teaching pronunciation
a. Consistency (连贯性): the pronunciation should be smooth and natural;
b. Intelligibility (可理解性): the pronunciation should be understandable to the listener; c. Communicative efficiency (交际性): the pronunciation should help convey the meaning that is intended by the speaker. 6.5 Aspects of pronunciation
sounds, phonetic symbols and rules, stress, intonation, and rhythm 6.6 Practicing sounds 1. Focus on a sound 1) Say the sound alone.
2) Get the students repeat the sound in chorus 3) Get individual students to repeat the sound. 4) Explain how to make the sound. 5) Say the sound in a word. 6) Contrast it with other sounds. 7) Say the sound in meaningful context. 2. Perception practice: distinguish sounds 1) Using minimal pairs: will—well,
2) Which order: The teacher reads each group of words in different order and the students mark the words with 1,2,3: pit-pet-bet, beard-beer-bear.
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3) Same or different: The teacher reads pairs of words and asks the students to tell if the pairs of words are the same or different: met-meet, meet meat.
4) Odd one out: The teacher reads a group of words a time and the students identify the different word or sound: feel, read, fill, leaf.
5) Completion: Fill in the blanks: Students fill in blanks in sentences with words which contain certain sounds. 3. Production practice
1) Listen and repeat：Students repeat what the teacher says.
2) Make up sentences: Students make up sentences using words containing the same sound or similar sounds the teacher gives them.
3) Use meaningful context: The sounds to focus on are embedded in a meaningful context. 4) Use pictures: practice sounds with the help of pictures.
5) Use tongue twisters: You’ve no need to light a night-light on a light night like tonight. 6.7 Practicing stress and intonation 1. Practising stress
Stress is the pronunciation of a word or syllable with more force than the surrounding words or syllables. There are two kinds of stress that are important in achieving good pronunciation.—word-level stress; phrase-level stress. Three ways of showing the stress pattern:
1) Use gestures: Clapping hands or using arm movements. 2) Use the voice: Raise the voice to indicate stress.
3) Use the blackboard: underlining them or writing them with coloured chalks. 2. Practising intonation
Intonation is often describes as the music of speech----the way the voice goes up and down as we speak.
1). The most successful technique for teaching intonation is imitation or mimicry. However, the use of gestures can reinforce this mimicry, that is, when the utterance requires a falling intonation, better results are sometimes achieved if the teacher raise a hand and lists-it-falls in imitation of the change in voice pitch.
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Unit 6 Teaching Pronunciation
