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Teaching English Pronunciation Ching Kang Liu National Taipei University ckliu@mail.ntpu.edu.tw http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~ckliu

The Issues Which accent do we have to teach? How good is “good” in terms of language instruction? What is the threshold of the “acceptable standard” of so-called good English pronunciation? Do we allow individual variance for individual learners of English? If not, how do we establish the standard? Where is the standard? If yes, how far can English pronunciation (of a certain accent) be deviated and still be recognized as an “acceptable” accent? Is it a mission impossible to have pronunciation “learned” or “taught” naturally (after the so-called critical period) ?

What I believe Every accent is acceptable.  A language instructor should focus more on the target language as a whole than simply on the language pronunciation. However, the pronunciation of a language certainly cannot be ignored. The following part of the lecture will be on what an English language instructor can do about pronunciation.

My suggestions To learn more about the phonetic features of the target language (i.e., English) and of the first language (e.g., Mandarin) in a systematic way and find the contrastive mechanism that governs the pronunciation of both languages; To explore the fundamental phonetic “phenomena” of both languages; To be aware of  how and when pronunciation should be taught/brought in during instruction; Always remember that nothing is absolute in language instruction.  A “good” instructor is to be able to help learners recognize different values of a language, rather than to exclude different accents of a language.

Don’t forget We are not learning something new or anything we don’t know. I am here to remind you what you can do but, for some reason, forget how to do it. We are trying to improve our pronunciation by means of efficient approaches. This is not a “life and death” matter. Be sure to take it easy and try to apply what is discussed here to everyday conversation. Not to apply what we discussed here in your classes. Children don’t need to know how to do all these. What they need is a model. Don’t correct them but show them what you think is best.

The History and Scope of pronunciation teaching Two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation (Kelly,1969) : (1) An intuitive-imitative approach (before the later 1800s) depends on the learner’s ability to listen to and imitate the rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of any explicit information; it also presupposes the availability of good models to listen to, a possibility that has been enhanced by the availability first of phonograph records, then of tape recorders and language labs in the mid-twentieth century, and more recently of audio-and videocassettes and compact discs. (2) An analytic-linguistic approach (after the late 1800s) utilizes information and tools such as a phonetic alphabet, articulatory descriptions, charts of the vocal apparatus, contrastive information, and other aids to supplement listening, imitation, and production. It explicitly informs the learner of and focuses attention of the sounds and rhythms of the target language.

Direct method and more recent naturalistic approaches Direct method first gained popularity in the late 1800sand early 1900s: pronunciation is taught through intuition and imitation; students imitate a model—the teacher or a recording—and do their best to approximate the model through imitation and repetition. Then there comes many so-called naturalistic methods, including comprehension methods that devote a period of learning solely to listening before any speaking is allowed. Examples include Asher’s (1977) Total Physical Response and Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) Natural Approach. Proponents maintain that the initial focus on listening without pressure to speak gives the learners the opportunity to internalize the target sound system. When learners do speak later on, their pronunciation is supposedly quite good despite their never having received explicit pronunciation instruction.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) Henry Sweet, Wihelm Vietor, and Paul Passy formed the International Phonetic Association in 1886 and developed the International Phonetic Alphabet. The phoneticians involved in this international organization, many of whom had also had experience teaching foreign languages, did much to influence modern language teaching by specifically advocating the following notions and practices: The spoken form of a language is primary and should be taught first. The findings of phonetics should be applied to language teaching. Teachers must have solid training in phonetics. Learners should be given phonetic training to establish good speech habits.

The 1940s and 1950s Audiolingualism (in the US) and the Oral Approach (in Britain) both view pronunciation as very important and is taught explicitly from the start. As in the Direct Method classroom, the teacher (or a recording) models a sound, a word, or an utterance and the students imitate or repeat. However, the teacher also typically makes use of information from phonetics, such as a visual transcription system (modified IPA or some other system) or charts that demonstrate the articulation of sounds. Then the contrastive minimal pair drill was introduced at this period of time. This technique, based on the concept of the phoneme as a minimally distinctive sound (Bloomfield, 1933), is used for both listening practice and guided oral production.

Sample minimal pair teaching materials The contrast between [i] and [I]: Word drills sheep ship green grin least list Syntagmatic drills Don’t sit in that seat. Did you at least get the list? Paradigmatic drills Don’t slip on the floor. Don’t sleep on the floor. Did you see the black ship? Did you see the black sheep?

Community Language Learning (CLL) Rooted in the humanistic client-centered learning exemplified by Carl Rogers (1951), Community Language Leaming is a method developed by Charles A. Curran (I 976) for teaching second and foreign languages. A typical lesson in a CLL classroom proceeds as follows. Students sit around a table with a tape recorder–a key too] of the method. The counselor (i.e., the teacher) stands behind one of the students, with hands on the student's shoulders. After speaking reassuringly, the counselor asks the student to say something in the native language he or she wishes to be able to say in the target language. This utterance is then provided by the teacher in the target language, who takes care to phrase it idiomatically. The counselor provides the phrase (broken into chunks for ease of repetition), the student repeats, and once the student can produce the whole utterance fluently, it is recorded on tape. Several tools and techniques are critical to the treatment of pronunciation in CLL.  First, the audiotape recorder not only captures what is said in the student-generated utterances but also provides a way for students to distance themselves from what was said so they can focus on how it was said and compare their pronunciation with that of the counselor.  Second, the human computer technique, which gives no overt correction of pronunciation, allows the student to initiate pronunciation practice by selecting the item(s) to practice and deciding the amount of repetition needed.

The 1970s The Silent Way (Gattegno 1972, 1976) Like Audiolingualism, the Silent Way (Gattegno 1972, 1976) can be characterized by the attention paid to accuracy of production of both the sounds and structures of the target language from the very initial stage of instruction.  Not only are individual sounds stressed from the very first day of a Silent Way class, but learners' attention is focused on how words combine in phrases - on how blending, stress, and intonation all shape the production of an utterance.  Proponents claim that this enables Silent Way learners to sharpen their own inner criteria for accurate production.  The difference between Audiolingualism and the Silent Way, however, is that in the Silent Way learner attention is focused on the sound system without having to learn a phonetic alphabet or a body of explicit linguistic information.

The indispensable tools for the Silent Way The sound-color chart The set of Fidel wall charts Word charts Colored rods The Silent Way is better understood if experienced rather than read about, since any description fails to capture actual learner engagement. The method appears to have a special focus on teaching pronunciation, and many language educators agree that the principle of sound-color correspondence, which the Silent Way invokes, provide learners with an “inner resource to be used” (Stevick, 1980), which helps to establish a true feel for the language, “its diction, rhythm, and melody” (Blair, 1991).

Communicative Approach (in the 1980s) The primary purpose of language is communication, so using language to communicate should be central in all classroom language instruction. The goal of teaching pronunciation is not to make them sound like native speaker of the target language (e.g., English, only a few exceptional highly gifted and motivated individuals can make it). A more modest and realistic goal is to enable learners to surpass the threshold level so that the learners’ pronunciation will not detract from their ability to communicate.

How pronunciation is taught in Communicative Approach Listen and imitate Like the Direct Method in which students listen to a teacher-provided model and repeat or imitate it. Phonetic training Use of articulatory descriptions, articulatory diagrams, and a phonetic alphabet. Minimal pair drills A technique helping students distinguish between similar and problematic sounds in the target language. Contextualized minimal pairs (Bowen’s approach, 1972, 1975) Sentence stem The blacksmith (a. hits  b. heats) the horseshoe. Cued student response a. with the hammer   b. in the fire. Visual aids Enhancement of the teacher’s description of how sounds are produced by audiovisual aids such as sound-color charts, Fidel wall charts, rods, pictures, mirrors, props, realia, etc.

More methods Tongue twisters She sells seashells by the seashore Betty Botter bought some butter. “but” she said, “the butter’s bitter, If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter,…” Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation PHOtograph phoTOGraphy Reading aloud/recitation Passages or scripts (usually from speeches, poems, plays, and dialogues) for learners to practice and then read aloud, focusing on stress, timing, and intonation. Recordings of learners’ production Audio- and videotapes of rehearsed and spontaneous speeches, free conversations, and role plays.