The following task comes from material originally used on our Delta Module One course to prepare learners for Paper 2/3. If you are using it for this purpose, you may find the following introduction useful. If not, just skip this part and go straight to the article itself.
Remember : As this is a question on phonology, if you had not backed up your points with phonemic script you would not get the marks even if what you had said was correct. This is true for every question in the exam where you are asked to talk about pronunciation.
This answer makes 12 points but most of them are explained and illustrated with reference to the criteria outlined on p.16 of the Cambridge Handbook:
- Examples of pronunciation problems (points 1, 7a and 7b)
- Examples of teaching techniques (point 2)
- Examples of different learner types and learning contexts (points 2,3,5,7a,7b,8,9,10)
- Reference to theory and sources (points 4 and 12)
- Reference to specific teaching experience (point 7c)
TASK
This task discusses the following questions:
- What are the arguments for teaching pronunciation in the classroom?
- What are the priority areas and why?
- What are the arguments against it?
1. The frequent lack of correspondence between the written and spoken forms of words in English means that the pronunciation of each word must be explained and practised as it is introduced – and often repeatedly later if Ls’ pronunciation of the word is inaccurate. For example, they need to know how the addition of the letter “e” in the spelling can change a preceding vowel (eg not vs note - /nɒt nəʊt/); or how some letter sequences are unpredictable in their pronunciation (eg cough /kɒf/. though /ðəʊ/, through /θruː/, ought /ɔːt/ etc).
2. There will inevitably be differences between the phonological systems of English and the Ls’ L1 – whether because certain English phonemes don’t exist in the L1, have a different distribution, or are allophones rather than actual phonemes. All of these differences will create problems for learners at beginner level if they are not actively shown how to produce the sounds - using demonstration (if the articulators are visible) mouth diagrams, explanation etc.
3. Very few learners have no need at all for spoken English. Most learners need to be able to speak intelligibly even if their pronunciation is clearly influenced by their L1. For some learners, achieving intelligible pronunciation may not be problematic but for others (eg Spanish speakers, Japanese speakers) L1 interference may render them unintelligible even beyond beginner level. Classroom focus on the specific areas that cause problems is therefore necessary and the priority areas will differ from L1 group to L1group – eg Spanish speakers will need more work on individual sounds than Italian speakers do.
4. Jenkins has identified a number of priority areas which she claims are those which do frequently impede pronunciation (The Lingua Franca Core) such as errors with most consonants (but not /θ/ or /ð/), vowel length (but not vowel quality, except /ɜː/). For productive use, it would therefore seem sensible to identify as priorities the areas she focuses on, and to downplay others that she claims do not affect intelligibility – eg word stress, the use of full forms rather than weak forms, and other features of connected speech.
5. Even if Ls are intelligible in the sense that the words they use can easily be decoded, their use of intonation may create misunderstanding. This is a priority area for eg Finnish speakers, whose overuse of falling and level tones (together with avoidance of emotional facial expression) can make them appear cold, distant and bored.
6. If the phonemic script is used in the classroom as an aid to demonstrating pronunciation, Ls will gradually become familiar with it. This will increase their autonomy as they will be able to check the pronunciation of new words met outside the c/r with the help of a dictionary, and could therefore be considered a priority area.
b) Arguments for teaching phonology receptively and priority areas
7. As well as being able to speak intelligibly, learners also need to be able to understand their interlocutors. If they don’t understand the phonological features of the speech those interlocutors use, understanding will be blocked. This leads to various possible priority areas (underlined in the examples below) depending on who those interlocutors are. For example:
a) Any Ls who need to understand native speakers of English will need to understand (though not necessarily produce – see point 4) the features of connected speech (vowel weakening, elision, assimilation, gemination etc) in order to decode reduced forms of utterances such as “He won’t be expecting it” /iː wəʊmp bɪjɪkspektɪnɪt/.
b) Ls who are intending to live in, or for some other reason interact frequently with NSs from a specific region will have to understand the accents of that region. For example, ESOL learners living in the north of England would need to understand that the phoneme /ʌ/ used in standard English in words like bus or up would become /ʊ/ in the regional variety.
c) Ls who use English as an International Language, talking mainly to other non-native speakers would need to understand the pronunciation of that L1 group. For example, I once taught a group of Italian Business English learners who needed to communicate with clients in Japan. For them it was essential to understand Japanese (mis)pronunciation of English. We worked on some recordings sent to me by a friend in Japan of her Ls speaking English, analysed the phonological differences between the Japanese pronunciation and standard English, and the reasons for them
b) Arguments against
teaching pronunciation
8. There are a number of reasons why pronunciation does not need to/should not be focused on explicitly with very young learners. Firstly, they will be acquiring rather than ”learning” the language and pronunciation will develop through exposure and mimicry. In addition, they have not yet developed analytic skills (making an explanation based approach irrelevant) and finally, in the early primary years will still be learning to write their own script – the introduction of the phonemic script would therefore only cause confusion.
9. Some learners may be following courses which do not have speaking or listening as part of their aims – eg courses for learners studying to become translators (as opposed to interpreters).Time spent on improving their pronunciation would be irrelevant to the course aims.
10. As long as Ls are intelligible course time might be better spent on areas more directly related to their needs even on general purpose courses. This might be particularly relevant on short courses where there is not enough time to deal with everything and priority needs to be given to other areas – eg grammatical accuracy, the development of reading skills etc.
11. Some learners may not wish to improve their pronunciation beyond intelligibility. Accent is closely tied to identity and many learners, as long as they are intelligible, may be happy to retain their “foreign” accent and sound like German speakers of English, Portuguese speakers of English or whatever.
12.
Even if they do wish to attain a more native-like pronunciation, it may not be
possible. Chomsky’s theory of the Language
Acquisition Device suggests that until adolescence the brain has a
plasticity that allows it to acquire language – including pronunciation – but
that later this ability is lost. This
would mean that, past a certain point, time spent working on pronunciation
might not result in improvement and would simply be wasted.
