Unit 6 Teaching Pronunciation

A reflection of your first
learning experience
Discussion: Talk about
your first encounter with
English, as well as the
major influence you had
then on your English
pronunciation. The
following chart might
give some hints for your
reflection.
When？
How old ?
Where ?
First teachers?
First major
influence in
pronunciation
learning ?
Learning
problems?
1. The role of pronunciation
1.1 Some disputes
Pronunciation will take care of itself as students
develop overall language ability.
 Failure in pronunciation is a great hindrance to
language learning?

1.2 Your understanding
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 Students need to be able to read phonetic transcripts of words.
 Students need to be able to write phonetic transcripts for words.
 Students need to know phonetics in order to learn English.
 Poor pronunciation may cause problems for the learning of other
skills.
 Adult learners need to focus on pronunciation, but young learners
don’t .
 Both consistency and accuracy in pronunciation are very
important.
 Stress and intonation are not important for beginning learners.
 Students should learn Received Pronunciation.
 Stress mispronunciation is sometimes as important as grammar.
 Bad intonation can lead to important misunderstandings
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2. The goal of teaching pronunciation


What is a sensible goal, to be native-like or
intelligible?
The basic and realistic goal:
Consistency
Intelligibility
Communicative efficiency
3. Aspects of pronunciation teaching
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Sounds
Combination of sounds
Word stress
Sentence stress
Linking
Strong form and weak form
Rhythm
Intonation
4. Practices of teaching English pronunciation
4.1 Practising sounds
Focusing on a sound
Imagine that you want to focus on a sound which
your students are having difficulty with. How will
you do it?
Which of the following steps are necessary? In what
order would you teach and practice the sound? Tick
the steps that you think are necessary and write the
order numbers in the brackets.
( ) __ Get the students to repeat the sound in chorus.
( ) __ Explain how to make the sound.
( ) __ Contrast it with other sounds.
( ) __ Write words on the blackboard.
( ) __ Get individual students to repeat the sound.
( ) __ Say the sound in a word.
( ) __ Say the sound alone.
( ) __ Say the sound in meaningful context.
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Perception practice
1. Using minimal pairs
2. Which order?
3. Same or different?
4. Odd one out.
5.completion.
Do Task 5.
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Production practice
1. Listen and repeat
2. Fill in the blanks.
3. Make up sentences
4 . Use meaningful context.
5. Use pictures
6. Use tongue twisters
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4.2 Practicing stress and intonation
Stress
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1. use gestures
2. use the voice
3. use the blackboard
Intonation
-- Where's your ↘ lab book?
-- I ↘ lost it.
-- Did he bring his ↗money?
-- No, he for ↘ got it.
-- Do you know ↗German?
-- I can ↘↗read it.
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5. Further suggestions: p101
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Use individual, pair, group and whole class
work to create a pleasant, relaxed, and
dynamic classroom.
Use hands and arms to conduct choral
pronunciation practice.
Move around the classroom when doing
choral practice.
Vary the criteria of “good” in pronunciation
practice to give students confidence.
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Bring interests and variety to the practice of
pronunciation. For example, asking students
to practise an expression in different tones to
show anger, happiness, surprises, sadness or
excitement, etc.
The main criteria for good pronunciation are
consistency, intelligibility, and communicative
efficiency.
Do not rely on explanations. Make full use of
demonstrations.
Try to use visual aids.