Teaching Pronunciation to
Adult Learners of Foreign Languages
Robin Worth, PhD
WISLI Pedagogy Workshop
June 8, 2011
Objectives for Today’s Workshop
1. Weigh the importance of “accurate”
pronunciation and reasonable expectations.
2. Consider various techniques for improving
students’ pronunciation.
3. Examine pronunciation materials from ESL.
4. Identify pronunciation issues in your TL; develop
some materials to address 1 or 2 issues.
5. Apply your materials and gain feedback.
6. Consider/refine/further develop your own
approach to teaching pronunciation.
Reflection/Discussion Question
• Can you think of an instance where
mispronunciation brought about confusion,
embarrassment, or some other type of
problem?
– Example from Italian: How old are you? (literally:
How many years do you have?) = Quanti anni hai?
Issues pertaining to Pronunciation
• Spectrum of Comprehensibility
Incomprehensible
Native Speaker
• L1 inventory (+ age, critical period) and
“interference”
• Affect (embarrassment, nervousness, etc.)
• Relationship between spoken language and written
language.
• Phonological representation, “spelling”, etc.
• Text: L1 vs L2 script
Brief intro/refresher on phonology
SEGMENTS: (discrete sounds)
• Vowels
• Consonants
SUPRASEGMENTALS: (tone, stress, prosody,
nasalization, etc.)
• The “music” of a language
– Stress patterns – emphasis and reduction (“rhythm”)
– Intonation – pitch rise and fall (“melody”)
• Linking, voicing, assimilation, aspiration, etc.
Vowels & Consonants
• Let’s take a 5-minute break. During the break
please think about vowel and consonant
sounds in your Target Language (TL) that
speakers of American English tend to have
problems with.
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
• Awareness and consciousness raising
– Calling attention to pronunciation – having explicit
conversations about its importance.
– Day 1 “preliminary chapter” vs. continued
attention.
– Coaching, modeling (you as the “Proficient L2
User”), motivation.
– Raised awareness tends to lead to more careful
listening, “noticing.”
Techniques: Exercises and Activities
• Mechanical and decontextualized exercises
– Examples:
• sound formation
• drills
• repeating words and other forms of high-frequency use and
practice
– Pros:
• Intense focus on a sound or sound
• Raises awareness
– Cons:
• Integrating with certain communicative approaches to FL
teaching and learning?
Techniques: Exercises and Activities
• Distinction activities
– Typically involves listening for and/or producing the
differences among minimal pairs (bath vs. beth)
– Pros:
• Can be more contextualized than drills and sound repetitions
• Integrates target sound with other sounds
• Can be “communicative” to some extent
– Cons:
• Focus on a particular sound may be somewhat reduced.
• Is “meaning” being negotiated?
Techniques: Exercises and Activities
• Gap and other meaning-based activities
– Grids, maps and other partner/group activities that
rely on pronunciation, usually involving minimal pairs,
to solve a problem, or communicate something.
– Pros:
• Quite contextualized
• Integrates target sound with (all) other sounds
• Can be very “communicative”
– Cons:
• Focus on a particular sound may be very reduced.
• Is “meaning” being negotiated?
Techniques: Exercises and Activities
• Readings, recitations or impromptu language production
– Can be recorded or done face-to-face.
– Recordings can be submitted or used for self- or peerevaluation.
– Material can be prepared (practiced) or unprepared (on the
spot).
– Can be used as a diagnostic tool to identify pronunciation
problems, or as an evaluated activity.
– Examples:
• Lists of words, a paragraph or other passage, that contains examples
of one or more pronunciation-related elements of focus.
• Responding to a prompt, such as an opinion question, that will elicit
certain types of language, sounds, etc.
Techniques: Exercises and Activities
• Readings, recitations or impromptu language
production
– Pros:
• Can be very mechanical to quite meaningful.
• Can potentially integrates target sound(s) with (all) other
sounds and other features of language (vocabulary,
grammar, etc.)
• Allows for individualized diagnosis and/or evaluation.
– Cons:
• Time-consuming, though doing them regularly reduces time
needed.
• Recording and submitting requires technology.
• Is “meaning” being negotiated?
Materials
• ESL industry
• Different pronunciation features, but the types
of activities may be useful.
• Inspiration for materials development.
Small group work –
same / similar languages
• Identify relevant “problem” sounds for your
language(s).
• Share tricks/techniques you used or heard of for
teaching these sounds.
• Together, develop a brief and simple activity or
lesson for one of your “problem sounds” to
present to the rest of the class. You’ll need to
choose a “reporter” to present your activity.
• You won’t actually “teach” this lesson / activity,
you will simply describe it to the others.
Exercise Sharing / Reporting
• Reporters: Don’t teach the activity, describe it.
• Audience: in the interest of time, please offer
any constructive feedback in writing to the
activity creator(s).
Lunch Break
• We will reconvene at 1 pm.
• During your lunch break, you may want to
consider how you might improve or extend
the activity you developed.
Suprasegmentals
• Intonation
– Example: the “Music of English”
Excuse me. Where’s the bank?
Suprasegmentals
• Rhythm and stress patterns:
– Rubber band exercise
– Emphasizing content words
• What are you studying?
• Economics. What about you?
– Indicating stressed syllables
• What are you studying?
Suprasegmentals
• Contractions and Reductions
– Careful speech vs. “quick” speech
• “What are you studying?” vs. “Whaddya studyin?”
– Typically stressed for receptive, not necessarily
productive, purposes.
Suprasegmentals
• Assimilation
– The sound at the end of one word blends into the
sound of the beginning of the next word
• Hot potato = hoppotato.
Suprasegmentals
• Aspiration
– The burst of air accompanying certain consonant
sounds. Many consonants can be aspirated or
unaspirated, and in certain languages, these are
separate phonemes.
• Example: Where do you /p=/ark?
– American English speakers tend to use heavy
aspiration.
• Candle/tissue/hand exercise.
Suprasegmentals
• Linking (usually the end sound of one word to
the beginning sound of the following word).
– Example: when the vowel sounds /iy/, /ay/ or /ey/
link with a following vowel, the vowel sounds are
connected by the off-glide /y/.
• We agree: Weyagree.
• I often say a lot: Iyoften sayya lot.
Activities for Suprasegmentals
• Same categories as the segments, but focusing
on these features.
• Paradox: suprasegmentals are often MORE
impactful on comprehensibility than segment
issues, but are also HARDER to learn.
Small group work –
same/similar languages
• Create another pronunciation mini-activity,
focusing on a vowel, consonant or a
suprasegmental.
• Make sure your mini-activity can be done in 5
minutes or less.
• After the break, we will regroup into small groups
of dissimilar languages, and you will practice
teach your mini-activity to your new group.
• Afterwards, you will reflect and your “students”
will give you feedback, which you will report to
your original group.
Feedback on your practice teaching
• “Students” – let the “teacher” know…
– how it went for you.
– what might have been done differently.
• “Teachers” – reflect on…
– whether it went as you predicted,
– what any problems were that you or the
“students” encountered.
– how it could be improved.
Return to small groups of
same/similar languages
• Compare the feedback you received on your
activity:
– How did it go?
– How did “students” do?
– What reflections do you have?
– What feedback did students give?
– How might you improve this activity?
Final activity
• Groups can continue to collaborate on
developing activities, materials, etc.
• Robin is available for consultation, feedback to
those who are interested.
Questions?
• Robin Worth
raworth@wisc.edu
• This powerpoint presentation will be available
online for downloading on the SASLI website.
• Thank you!