Unit Five

1
Unit Five Teaching Pronunciation    
2
Pronunciation Questionnaire

• 1. Do you think that it is important to speak
  with good pronunciation? Why or why not?
• 2. Do you think it is important for you to teach
  pronunciation in your classes? Why or why not?
• 3. In what situations would it be particularly
  useful or perhaps necessary to speak with good
  pronunciation?

3
4. Do you think that pronunciation will be
interesting/important to your students?
5.How do you plan on teaching pronunciation to
your students?
6. For you, which is more important, that your
students have a good pronunciation or that they
communicate effectively? Explain.
4
I. The Role of Pronunciation
There exist two points of view Some people
claim that students do not need to learn
pronunciation because pronunciation will take
care of itself as the students develop overall
language ability. Some people think that failure
in pronunciation is a great obstacle in language
learning.
5
The teaching of pronunciation should focus on the
students ability to identify and produce English
sounds themselves. Phonetic rules are helpful
for students to develop the ability to cope with
English pronunciation and they should be
introduced at a suitable stage.
Stress and intonation are as important as the
sounds themselves and should be taught from the
very beginning, for different intonation can
create different meanings.
6
II. The goal of teaching pronunciation
It is true that language students pronunciation
should be as good as possible. The learners of
English as a foreign language cannot achieve
native-like pronunciation, except those who start
learning English at a very young age.
7
The Critical Period Hypothesis if human dont
learn a foreign language before a certain age,
then due to changes such as maturation of the
brain, it becomes impossible to learn the foreign
language like a native speaker. This is true for
acquiring native-like pronunciation, but there is
less evidence that it is true for acquiring the
grammar or the vocabulary of a foreign language.
Everyone agrees that all people who learn a
foreign language after puberty will always have
an accent. It will be easy for the native-speaker
to identify that the person is not a
native-speaker of that language.
8
The amount of exposure to English is another
factor that determines if the students can
acquire native-like English pronunciation. And
due to the biological and physiological
differences, individual students have different
phonetic ability. It is not realistic for the
majority of students to have a native-like
English pronunciation.
Our realistic goals of teaching pronunciation
should be
1)    Consistency The pronunciation should
be smooth and natural.
9
1Intelligibility The pronunciation should be
understandable to the listeners.
1)      Communicative efficiency The
pronunciation should help to convey the meaning
that is intended by the speaker.
When trying to achieve consistency in
pronunciation, students should not sacrifice
intelligibility. Unintelligible speech is useless
and may cause unpleasant feelings for the both
speaker and the audience. But consistency and
intelligibility are not enough in real
communication. Students should pay attention to
intonation. Different intonation can convey
different meaning. 
10
III. Aspects of pronunciation  
Stress The pronunciation of a word or
syllable with more force than the surrounding
words or syllables. Syllables can be stressed or
unstressed. A listener hears a stressed syllable
or word as being louder / of longer duration / or
produced with higher pitch then the surrounding
word or syllables. A syllable may be stressed
because
( 1 ) the accent is on that syllable.
( 2 ) the speaker wants to emphasize that
syllable.
11
Intonation When speaking people general raise or
lower the pitch of the voice, forming pitch
pattern. They also give some syllables in their
utterances a greater degree of loudness and
change their speech rhythm. These phenomena are
called intonation.
Intonation has definite patterns which can be
analyze according to their structure and
functions. Intonation patterns may have
1) It has grammatical functions, they can show
that an utterance is a question and not a
statement.
12
( 2 ) give additional information to that given
by the words of an utterance.
I GOT the job. ( it was doubtful whether I could.)
( 3 ) indicate the speakers attitude to the
matter discussed or to the listener.
But I TOLD you.
Rhythm Rhythm in speech is created by the
contracting and relaxing of chest muscle (
pulses). This causes changes air pressure.
13

Students should pay attention to stress and
intonation. Research has showed that when a
native speaker mishear something, it is because
the foreigner has put the stress on the wrong
place, but because she/ he has mispronounced the
sounds of the words.
Language learning needs of practice and it is
true with pronunciation. There are two kinds of
practices
Practice is necessary for the development of many
skills, for example, typing.
14
Meaningful practice is more desirable. Everything
can be learned more effectively if it is
meaningful.
IV. Practising sounds
1) Focusing on a sound
When teaching pronunciation, we need to focus on
individual sounds, especially those difficult to
learn. The following are some common approaches
to the teaching of pronunciation for the Chinese
teachers
15
There are two different patterns of pulses
(1) a more regular type of contraction with
regular rises in air pressure ( chest pulses)
(2) less frequent but stronger contractions with
more sudden rises in air pressure ( stress pulses
)
two systems operate together in any one language
is said to cause different types of speech rhythm.
16
Explain how to make the sound we suggest this
can be done at later stage because if the
students can produce the sound correctly after
the teachers modeling, it is not necessary to
explain HOW. When students have difficulty
producing the sound, explanations will do.
Contrast with other sounds This can also be
done at later stage when the students have
obtained a certain degree of mastery of the sound.
17
Write words on the board it is unnecessary
because words written on the board will distract
students attention from the teachers modeling.
And they will try to produce the sounds of the
words they see and neglect what the teacher says.
2) Perception practice
Perception practice is aimed at developing the
students ability to identify and distinguish
between different sounds. Correct perception of
sounds is vital for listening comprehension. We
have the following methods to practise.
18
(1) Using minimal pairs Minimal pairs are two
words which have only one different sounds. The
teacher reads either word of each pair and asks
the students to tell which one is read.
which order The teacher reads each group of
words in a different order and the students mark
the words with 1, 2, 3, to indicate the order in
which the words are read. The teacher can read
the words several times in different order.
19
( 3 ). Same or different The teacher reads pairs
of words and ask the students to tell if the air
of words are the same or different. The words
should not be written out.
4 ) Odd man out The teacher reads a group of
words a time and the students identify the
different word or sound. The words are not
written out.
5 ) Completion the teacher reads a series of
words which have only one different sound. The
students complete the words they hear.
20
Production practice
Production practice is aimed at developing
students ability to produce sounds. Producing
distinct and understandable sounds is very
important for effective Communication. Production
practice of pronunciation varies from mechanical
imitation to production in meaningful context. A
few types of activities are
21
Listen and repeat The students repeat what the
teacher says. This activity can be used to
practise individual sounds, individual words,
groups of words and sentences.
Fill in the blanks The students fill in blanks
in sentences with words which contain certain
sounds.
22
Make up sentences The students are given a group
of words containing the same sound or similar
sounds. They should make up sentences using as
many of the given words as possible. The
sentences do not have to realistically meaningful
and logical. Humorous sentences are preferred.
Using meaningful context The sounds to focus on
are embedded in a meaningful context and students
perform meaning tasks while keeping an eye on
the sounds.
23
Using pictures The students produce meaningful
language based on the pictures. The students
perform meaningful tasks while keep an eye on
particular sounds.
Use tongue twisters tongue twisters are often
used in pronunciation practice because they fun
and motivating. Also the relaxing atmosphere
helps students to overcome inhibition. Students
should be given time to practise on their own for
a few minutes before they are asked to perform in
front of the class.
24
Practising stress and intonation  
There are two kinds of stress that are important
in achieving good pronunciation.
word-level stress it is very important to stress
the proper syllable in multi-syllabic words. If
the wrong syllable is stressed, listeners will
not understand what word is being pronounced. So
the best strategy is to emphasize the importance
of learning the stress as part of learning a word.
25
phrase-level stress each phrase has one
syllable which receives greater or more prominent
stress than the others. Some phrases have only
one stressed syllable, while others may have 56
stressed syllables. And the best way is to make
the students be aware of where to stress the word
or phrase. Teachers can use the following ways to
show the stress pattern of words, phrases and
sentences.
26
( a ) Use gestures. The teacher can indicate the
stress by clapping hands or using arm movements
as if conducting music.
( b ) Use the voice. The teacher can raise the
voice to indicate stress. This can be done with
some exaggeration sometimes.
( c ) Use the blackboard. The teacher can
highlight the stresses by underlining them or
writing them with coloured chalks or in different
size.
27
Practicing intonation
Intonation can greatly affect the intention of
the speakers message. Intonation can be used to
express meanings such as surprise,
complaint,sarcasm, friendliness, threat, etc.
this is one of the last areas of language that
foreign language learners can master and is also
difficult to teach.
28
Below are some further suggestions on teaching
pronunciation
Use individual, pair, group and whole class
practice formats to create a pleasant, relaxed
and dynamic classroom.
Use hands and arms to conduct choral
pronunciation practice.
Move around the classroom while doing choral
practice.
Vary the criteria of good in pronunciation
practice to give students confidence.
29
  It is helpful articulation practice more than
once.
Bring variety to the classroom.
The main criteria of good pronunciation are
consistency, intelligibility , and communicative
efficiency.
Do not rely on explanations. Make full use of
demonstration.
Try to use visual aids.  
30
thankyou goodbye