Category — Teaching strategies

For many English language learners, pronunciation and the spoken language is hardest to learn because it requires physical cooperation from and training of the tongue and mouth to form the correct sounds. Foreign students who have grown up speaking other languages have already adapted their tongue and mouth to create the sounds of their native languages, making it even more difficult to master English pronunciation. However, with practice, patience, and tips from the following free resources, you will be able to teach English pronunciation.

The most important point to note is that English pronunciation involves many factors besides just sounds. Intonation and stresses are just two of many nuances that make spoken English what it is today. Learners should be encouraged not to completely eliminate their accents, but to improve their understanding of English sounds in order to pronounce words with as much accuracy as they can. Complete mastery of native English pronunciation is not realistic, and hence should not be pursued.

If students understand how the different parts of the mouth work together to produce a sound, they can better create the sound. The Sounds of English (http://www.soundsofenglish.org/) website contains many diagrams and photographs that can help with teaching pronunciation of certain English sounds. Audio clips are also available.

American Accent Training (http://americanaccent.com/pronunciation.html) contains a very useful vowel chart and information on how to pronounce some common trouble sounds for English language learners. The vowel chart goes beyond the typical “a, e, i, o, u” and focuses on the actual sounds the vowels create when they are found in various combinations in words such as “bait” or “beat” or “about”.

The English Club online (http://pronunciation.englishclub.com/), a free resource that was introduced in a previous article about English as a second language online, also contains many pronunciation resources for learners and teachers.

There are many techniques for teaching English pronunciation, although many English teachers tend to focus on reading and writing, which are undoubtedly easier to teach and learn.

One difficulty of teaching the English pronunciation is getting students to temporarily forget the sounds of their native language and start as a recorder. When an English sound is first heard or perceived by a foreign student, the tendency is to find some sound in the native language that most closely resembles the new English sound, and then pronounce it as if it were the same sound from the native language. For example, many people will pronounce the “th” sound as the “d” sound simply because in many languages, there is no “th” sound, but there is a “d” sound. So take extreme caution in drawing analogies between English and foreign sounds. While it may help students learn certain sounds faster, drawing upon their preconceived notions and previous knowledge of other languages may hinder their ability to master the new sounds.

It is a good idea to present words and sounds in the context of each other so that students can hear and see the difference. For example, word pairs that differ by only one letter/sound, such as “bat” and “but” are very useful in helping students distinguish between sounds.

Teachers of English pronunciation should remember to keep lessons short, fun, and interactive. They should be somewhat repetitive in nature so students can have frequent exposure to hearing and speaking the same sounds until they are comfortable with them. Frequent testing and evaluation is important to help students learn their problem areas.

To end on a light note, I think this song aptly addresses the issue at hand: