SOME EXPERIENCES IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO STUDENTS AT SECONDARY LEVEL EFFECTIVELY

I. PREFACE AND AIMS AND REQUIREMENTS: As we know, English is a very important language nowadays. What do we learn English for? The answer is for communication. What do students learn English for? They learn English for the same reasons as we do. Our job is to provide them with the basic skills they will need to practise the language and to make sure that they have the basic knowledge and skills that they need for future study. So, as teachers, we all want to make it easy for them to learn the skills of pronouncing commonlyused English words. It is not easy for most learners to master the pronunciation skills in a short term. Both teachers and students, of course, encounter many problems with the subject, including correct pronunciation, and we always face the difficulty of teaching to students at differing levels of ability and skill.

I PREFACE AND AIMS AND REQUIREMENTS:

As we know, English is a very important language nowadays What do

we learn English for? The answer is - for communication What do students learn English for? They learn English for the same reasons as we do Our job

is to provide them with the basic skills they will need to practise the language and to make sure that they have the basic knowledge and skills that they need for future study So, as teachers, we all want to make it easy for them to learn the skills of pronouncing commonly-used English words

It is not easy for most learners to master the pronunciation skills in a short term Both teachers and students, of course, encounter many problems with the subject, including correct pronunciation, and we always face the difficulty of teaching to students at differing levels of ability and skill

After a long time teaching English at all levels at secondary school and adult learners as well as teaching Vietnamese to English speaking people and working as an interpreter in my part-time job, I can offer some lessons from

my experience Some of these things you may already know It is easy to get caught up in ideas like, ''We do not give oral tests to students at all levels''; ''We have tried to make them fluent in using as many grammatical points and structures as possible so that they can get good marks in their tests''

In reality, in the reformed syllabus promulgated by Ministry of Education students have been learning listening and speaking skills together with reading and writing skills, but for the final examination to finish high school to get GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education), students only receive written tests And that is why we do not pay much attention to teaching them perfect pronunciation? My advice to you is that helping them pronounce words correctly will help them spell correctly too In doing this, we will imperceptibly help them improve their listening skills that are very important not only in everyday conversation but also in getting good marks in the listening sections whenever they do normal tests given during the academic terms, especially for examinations for gifted students in the English language contests held annually Besides our students feel confident to speak words they are sure to pronounce in a correct way

I had many problems in speaking English and in pronouncing English words at first and I also had problems in teaching students correct pronunciation But at last I have achieved success in solving the problem - not for all students - but for most of them This success is particularly evident with students who enjoy learning English and are interested in the language The experiences that I am presenting here are simple ones, but if you apply them to your work, I think you will be successful in your teaching of pronunciation

Remember that we are not native speakers For one thing, we cannot pronounce a word exactly the same as native English speaking people do, but

we can do our best and the hearers can understand what we are talking about Like singers, we need to imitate the native speakers in saying a word together with signs of pronunciation And remember that English is spoken with different accents in all parts of the globe even in London people speak English with several accents So it is wise to choose the Queen’s English to pronounce English words

We can sympathize with Vietnamese students learning English as we do with English students who are learning Vietnamese The Vietnamese language

does not have final sounds which change the meaning of the words nine; nice;

night; knife; knight, for instance If we do not pronounce the final sounds, the

hearers may be confused about what we are saying And we do not have the

sound /s/ /xì/ in Vietnamese either To give an example, the word thirsty with

the sound /s/ in the middle of the word; if we forget to pronounce /s/, then the

word will automatically change into the word thirty, and of course its meaning

will change completely We all know that the English sounds are much like

the 6 tones in the Vietnamese language cung, cùng, củng, cụng, cúng, cũng.

These tones change the meanings of the words, and English sounds change the meanings in the very same way And there are many more differences in pronunciation between the two languages

In this document I have tried to use common words and easy-to-read English so that everyone can understand it Hopefully, this topic will help you,

to some extent, to solve the issues that you are dealing with Finally, all the constructive criticisms from my colleagues of this piece of writing will be highly appreciated because it is not only for my sake, but also for our beloved students, I think

II SOME COMMON MISTAKES IN PRONUNCIATION:

Most of our students have bad habits in pronouncing English words Especially, such sounds as: / ei ; t∫; ʤ; ʧ; ʒ; θ; UE; æ; ŋ; b; p; f; å:/ as in the

words: stay; away; may; play; day; cheap; bridge; decision; thread; go; bad;

sing; boy; point, fan; park, etc They often pronounce /sịt stây/; /ờ wây/;

/mây/; /pờ-lây/; /đây/ and it must be pronounced like /ê -i/ in our language

They confuse between the sounds /dʒ/ and /t∫/ or even never pronounce the

sound /dʒ/ at the end of the word, let us say, in the words

'college, village, large ' Students are used to omitting the sound /s/ in such words as 'yesterday, domestic, thirsty, sister ' It makes the hearers

misunderstand what they say Many a student cannot distinguish the sounds

between /b/; /p/ and /f/ in the words: put, book, point, ball, pause, pupil, fear,

physics and many others else This happens even though pronunciation and

signs of pronunciation are taught in an ordered and systematic way in each unit in the syllabus of the English language in senior high school level

Partly, the mistakes are caused by teachers who do not focus on the pronunciation and partly because some students do not consider it to be important to do a good job This is a big error for us and for them as it will affect their future use and study of English If they pronounce a word wrongly,

no one will understand them and they will then need to change established habits This is not an easy job at all As we know, English is commonly used nowadays Speaking and pronouncing correctly will help us hear and understand well what the speakers want to present to us We can enjoy music, listen to news from the radio, TV, and so on

The final sounds in English are very important to tell what the word means Students, for instance, do not pronounce the ending sounds t, θ, k, s, E,

z; l, etc The words wit, with, and week are pronounced differently and give different meanings also For instance, 'cure, kill; wine, wife; night, knife; five,

fire; book, boot' Some students cannot pronounce the sounds/ə℧; a℧ /

appropriately, as in the words 'know, go, no, hold, cold, cow, how, about,

shout, and some mispronounce the sounds / ai /; / ú / in some such words as

smile, mile, child, result, agriculture, adult, skull, culture, brother, mother, colour, etc

III HOW TO APPLY THE METHOD OF TEACHING PRONUNCIATION:

At the beginning of the school year, teachers should copy a phonetic symbol board (Please see the attachment at the back of this document page 9,10 & 11) It is better for us to copy the source from school textbooks and give the Vietnamese sound equivalent beside each sound Among the sounds,

we should pay much attention to the sounds /ei/ = /ê-i/ in the words day, may,

stay, main, late; /dʒ/ = / trờ-rờ / in the words job, June, join, jealous; /ʒ/ =

/rờ-rờ/ in the words decision, vision, pleasure, occasion; /t∫/ = /chờ-/rờ-rờ/ in the

words such as chair, cheap, catch, chew; /θ/ = /thờ/ in such words as thin,

thick, bath, strength; / EU/ = /ơu/ as in the words no, slow, hold, both; /æ/ = /a

- e/ as in the words hat, map, lamp, bad; /ŋ / = /ngờ/ in such words as sing,

singer, thing, nothing

Students are provided with the handouts, and with the assistance of teachers, they can be coached in pronouncing a number of words that they are not sure of and confused about how to pronounce correctly And it is encouraging for students to learn at least five words by heart with signs of the equivalent pronunciation for each English sound During the teaching activity, teachers should correct whenever students make mistakes in pronunciation, particularly, the words that frequently appear in everyday life and in colloquial conversation as well as in the textbooks

We can teach students accurate pronunciation by giving them information on the pronunciation of difficult words We can possibly give Vietnamese transcription equivalents of the words provided If, for example,

we want to teach them the word synchronized swimming we can ask them to

transcribe by annotating the way to pronounce the words under or above the words in their textbooks like / sín krơ nai zờ đờ -sit wim ming/ in Vietnamese sound = / ‘siŋkrənaizd/; the word international /in-tơ-ná-sơn-nôl / = /intə'næ∫∂nl/ Students can learn, step by step, each of the international phonetic symbols and this will help them practise pronouncing at home by themselves without any problems

Besides Reading Comprehension, in the period of Language Focus

section, for instance, we can bring teaching pronunciation in and we can, from time to time, tell students some short funny stories about mispronouncing English words to make the lesson more vivid like ‘desert’ and ‘dessert’, ‘cow’ and ‘cough’ We can apply this method in any lesson to help students improve

their spelling as well Correct pronunciation will help the learners with grammar, spelling, speaking and listening correctly

We do not have concrete rules in pronouncing English words, but English still has a number of words which are pronounced in the same way:

cold, hold, old, look hook, book, result, agriculture, adult, etc To teach

students how to pronounce well, we need to have a good dictionary, preferably

one published in an English speaking country The Wordpower dictionary for

learners of English from the publishing house Oxford University Press or Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary are recommended Nowadays most of

our students can use computer and many of them have computers at home, so

we should encourage them to install the above mentioned software that are available in the software shops In the dictionaries the authors and the programmers tend to note the difficult words that the learners often mispronounce by adding a small star in the initial position of the word And

by installing the software, our students can check pronunciation by clicking the mouse on the speaker symbols as well as seeing the signs of pronunciation beside For us, teachers of English, it is very useful to have the software installed It makes easier for us whenever we give tests to students, and whenever we are unsure of the pronunciation of a certain word It is also helpful to check the word meanings; ways to use the word and pronunciation

by listening to pronouncing from native speakers’ voice

Some words having unusual pronunciation need to be illustrated and

repeated as many times as possible Examples include the words clerk,

technician, artificial, content (n), content (adj), cloth, clothes, advertise, advertisement, sign, signature, etc As far as I am concerned, the period of Language Focus is the best time for us to revise, to expound and show the

way to speak and pronounce words and sentences with the use of stress and intonation As teachers of English, we need to speak clearly, loudly and slowly before students We also need to demonstrate how words which have the same roots can be pronounced differently from the others to students so that whenever they meet the words they can remember the way to pronounce them It is not feasible for all students to grasp the way to pronounce all words contained in the syllabus, but to help them with basic skills for future study is both possible and feasible

IV MY ACHIEVEMENTS IN APPLYING THE METHOD:

I can say, with confidence, from my experience - teaching students English at high school, that one third of my students can now pronounce words with not more than four syllables quite well They used to have a difficulty in the first few months after moving from junior to senior high school I think that if all of my students concentrated on practising pronunciation, their pronunciation skills would be much better, and they would be able to speak out short sentences that are regularly used in everyday conversation and presented in textbooks

For my students, in the beginning they often pronounce words containing sound /ei/ = /ê-i/ into /ây/ instead of saying / pờ lê / they often

say/ pờ lây / in play; and / mê / into / mây/ in may It sounds very much like the Australian dialect - good day mate - / gớd-đây-mây-t / and now my

students do not say so any more Some can pronounce the words with ending

sounds /dʒ/ ; /t∫/ and /∫/ as in the words bridge; language; watch; which;

English; publish and so on.

Normally, from the beginning of the second term on, students can pronounce common words accurately In their preparation for lessons, some can mark signs of pronunciation and give Vietnamese sound equivalents above or under the words which they are not sure of on their own And coming to school, after listening to their teacher, they can compare the pronunciation In reality, there are many of my students in each class who do not achieve a basic knowledge of the language This might be because, they have attitude of 'put it aside', the subject for them is a difficult one to master But after a year with me, they can generally pronounce the common words quite correctly if they have made the efforts to learn Although regrettably, there are often a number of lazy students present in each class

I have asked my students to install nice software for pronunciation

available on the Internet named Sephonic in their home computers for

practicing the way to pronounce good English sounds The software only contains 2.64 MB and quite easy to install We can download at:

http://my.opera.com/loptvt/blog/luyen-phien-am-quoc-te or

http://www.wartoft.nu/software/?from=sephonics After playing with it for a

while, students can master the signs of pronunciation and follow it easily.V.

MY APPLYING THE METHOD IN SHORT:

1 Ideally, copy the signs of pronunciation from teachers’ books adding

signs of the Vietnamese sound equivalent Ask students to bring the handouts with them all the time when they are at school and be ready to take them out

to check any time when they want to Encourage students to learn at least five words for each English sound by heart

2 Apply the method through the lessons by reading and pronouncing

the words and sentences clearly, loudly and slowly Choose a reliable

dictionary, preferably the Wordpower dictionary for reference and software

Sephonic for learning and practicing

3 When students are unsure of pronunciation, ask them to mark the

signs of pronunciation above or under the words in their textbooks and then learn them by heart Study the signs of pronunciation given thoroughly

4 Practise pronunciation frequently to get it fluent Students should

listen to the cassette tapes; radio or English TV programmes regularly to verify the way to pronounce the words they have already learnt

6 Whenever meeting a strange word, ask students to learn the sign(s) of

its pronunciation by heart as well as its meanings

7 Give compliments to students by rewarding them with extra

encouraging marks Ask them to write down the phonetic symbols on a large sheet of paper and put it in a special place so that they can see it every day

8 Encourage students to mark directly the signs of pronunciation of the

words beside the words as many times as they can in order that when they see them, the way to pronounce comes to them spontaneously

9 Give students short paragraphs or beautiful sentences to learn by

heart in each unit Make sure they are not given the paragraphs that are too long or too difficult

SIGNS OF TRANSCRIPTION USED IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

A Vowels and diphthongs

SOUNDS IN WORDS SIGNS VIETNAMESE

SOUND EQUIVALENT

EXAMPLES FOR ILLUSTRATION

/å:/ father / fa:Tә(r) / a - a farm, calm, star, park, car

/eE/ hair / heE / e-ơ share, where, care, fair, stair

B Consonants

SOUNDS IN WORDS SIGNS VIETNAMESE

SOUND EQUIVALENT

EXAMPLES FOR ILLUSTRATION

June

/r/ red / red / rờ roof, right, rough, road

THE WAY TO PRONOUNCE ‘ED’ SOUNDS – SINGULAR VERBS;

PLURAL NOUNS ‘S - ES’ AND POSSESSIVE CASE

FINAL SOUNDS

(Not final letters) PRONOUNCED

VIETNAMESE SOUND EQUIVALENT EXAMPLES FOR ILLUSTRATION

b, d, g, v, T, m, n,

jobs, needs, bags, moves, breathes, names, mines, sings, tables, cities, stairs; Peter’s job

stops, shops, meets, lists, looks, books, laughs, coughs, photographs, baths, blacksmiths

boxes, services, loses, pleases, washes, watches, charges, bridges

b, g, v, T, z, Z, dZ,

m, n, N, l

- and vowels

shared, kneed, bobbed, hugged, moved, breathed, teased, judged, formed, turned, pooled

hoped, looked, coughed, bathed, increased, washed, watched