Does it touch the back of your teeth, or the ridge above them? How is it similar to the /d/ sound? How is it different?īecome aware of your beliefs and prejudices about pronunciation. Notice what your lips, tongue, jaw and throat muscles are doing when you speak, in your own language and in English.įor example, when you say the sound /t/, pay attention to the tip of your tongue. What are your top tips for someone looking to strengthen their language and pronunciation skills? However, it is optional because most listeners will understand gonna or going to.
Gonna may be easier for a learner to say, and is closer to how many native speakers pronounce going to. You can teach optional features of pronunciation to make words easier to say, such as saying gonna instead of going to. Using the /r/ and /l/ example, you can put pairs of words such as correct and collect into a game in which success depends on the learner being able to hear and say the difference. You can teach or practise intelligibility with communication activities. For example, a clear difference between the /r/ and /l/ sounds. Some features of pronunciation make the message clearer to the listener. With this in mind, you should focus more on aspects of pronunciation which aid understanding. What advice can you give to someone who wants to teach English in a country where English is not the medium of instruction?Ī learner's goal may be to communicate with other people from around the globe not necessarily with native English speakers. The goal is not to sound like a native speaker, but rather to communicate effectively in a global context. In her book The Phonology of English as an International Language, Jennifer Jenkins argues that English's role as a lingua franca has implications for teaching pronunciation. People with different languages use English to communicate, even if there is no native English speaker present. What is the biggest change you’ve witnessed in English language teaching in your 30 years of experience?Įnglish has become a lingua franca, or language which people use to communicate with one another globally. You can keep your accent and still be understood. However, an accent is not necessarily a problem. This is what makes pronunciation in a new language so difficult – we carry with us the speech habits from our first language.Īccording to Tracey Derwing and Murray Munro, authors of Pronunciation Fundamentals, most people who learn a new language will keep accent features from their first language. When we learn our first language, we develop speech habits which we may not be conscious of developing. Our tongue, lips and jaw (vocal articulators) physically shape our pronunciation. What role do the tongue, lips and jaw play in pronunciation? We can practise by focusing on connected speech while playing fragments from speech recordings. To pronounce a new language, we need to re-train the muscles we use to speak.Īnd pronunciation involves listening to how the language sounds.
Since pronunciation is part of speaking, it is also physical. Like vocabulary and grammar, we pronounce by noticing and understanding rules and patterns which lie beneath the surface of speech.įor example, if an English word has two syllables, the stress is usually on the first syllable for nouns and adjectives, and the second syllable for verbs. Pronunciation includes features of language (vocabulary and grammar) and skills (speaking and listening).
Pronunciation is more than 'listen and repeat'. What makes teaching pronunciation different from teaching other parts of the English language? How can English language teachers help learners with pronunciation? Mark Hancock, a winner of the 2018 ELTons award for English language teaching innovation, shares his expertise.
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