Some techniques to teach pronunciation effectively in high schools

It provides students with the pronunciation of the target language as correct as possible to communicate with others.. - To teach English pronunciation effectively to Vietnamese students

1 Reason for studying: 2

2 Aim of studying 2

3 Subject of studying 2

4 Method of studying 2

II CONTENT: 1 Theoretical basic: 3

2 Background of teaching and studying pronunciation 3

3 Solutions:

4 4 Evaluation

13

III. CONCLUSION: 1 Conclusion 1

4 2 Recommendation: 14

I INTRODUCTION

1 Reason for studying:

There have been different views on teaching pronunciation up to now The traditional Grammar Translation Method paid no or little attention to pronunciation, consequently, learners become "deaf and dumb" in the target language Since the oral approaches to language teaching appeared, there has been a tendency to pay extreme attention to pronunciation teaching to develop oral skills Teaching pronunciation in a language class plays a very important role It provides students with the pronunciation of the target language as correct

as possible to communicate with others Beside language skills, teaching pronunciation should be noted as an indispensable basic knowledge However, many English teachers don't pay enough attention to it or even ignore it As a result, students have more difficulties in learning English, especially in communicating in English Therefore, it is really very important for students to have the pronunciation of the target language as correct as possible right from the start

Those are the reasons why I choose this topic:

"Some techniques to teach pronunciation effectively in high schools"

2 Aim of studying:

- The correct pronunciation can have a direct influence on his ability and progress in listening, speaking, reading-aloud skills and an indirect one on the further development of other language skills later on

- The correct pronunciation decides the success or failure of his oral communication in the target language

3 Subject of studying: English pronunciation teaching and learning deal with

the following aspects:

- The sound of the English language, or phonology.

- Stress and rhythm

- Intonation

4 Methods of studying: My topic will be presented as the following steps:

- The theoretical background

- The practical background

- Solutions

II CONTENT

1 Theoretical basic:

- As said above, pronunciation difficulties, errors, mistakes in language learning are so natural that teachers and students should not worry too much about They will be done away with the student's effort in listening and speaking during the course If the student has a serious pronunciation error, he should be corrected at once but in an encouraging way in order not to make him/her lose face In fact, the problems vary from student to student and from area to area where he was born, picks up and uses his mother tongue

- To teach English pronunciation effectively to Vietnamese students, Vietnamese teachers should be able to predict, pick out, and analyze their students' problems, errors to help them to overcome

- These are my own opinions about how to teach pronunciation effectively

in the high schools Hopefully, this teaching experience could have some certain contribution to the teaching and learning process of teachers and students

2 Background of teaching and studying pronunciation

2.1: The theoretical background

Pronunciation is very important One of the first things of learning a foreign language is learning how to pronounce correctly Learners don't need to use difficult words, or complicated structures They only need simple words and structures to communicate because the simpler words or structures they use, the easier for them to understand each other However, pronunciation is not easy

In oral communication, If one mispronounces a sound, a stress, a word or wrongly uses the rhythm, intonation of his utterances he will surely cause misunderstanding, even no understanding for his partner, consequently he will receive unsatisfactory responses, either Furthermore, if his pronunciation of the same language in communication is different, even slightly different from that of his partner, they will have difficulty in recognizing and understanding each other Their communication may result

in a problem, even failure In learning and communicating in a foreign language, these pronunciation phenomena become even more serious

2 2: The practical background

In the process of teaching, I realize many students are in the habit of using Vietnamese to represent or read English words For example, with the word

"table" they read /thây bờ/ instead of /'teibl/, with the word "teacher" they read /tich cho/ instead of / 'ti:t∫r / or "student" they read /sờ tiu dần/ instead

of /'stu:dnt/ Furthermore, many English words have different pronunciation

but they represent in Vietnamese so listeners can't distinguish the difference

among them For example, our students pronounce /bớt/ for these words:

birth, bird, bus This is a bad habit in learning a foreign language

Only students who pronounce correctly feel more self-confident in communicating because they can get successful communication and their listening skill is better as well So it is very important for teachers to explain the transcription clearly and to teach their students how to pronounce as correctly as possible But, in reality, many teachers do not introduce the transcription, stress, and intonation And they don't pay much attention to designing activities to teach pronunciation during listening or speaking lessons

With the hope of improving students' pronunciation and helping them to speak good English, helping them to be more self-confident, I would like to give some solutions to teach pronunciation more effectively with the motto

"frequent practice makes perfect", "little and often"

3 Solutions

3.1 Individual sounds

* Consonants

English consonants can be classified in different ways:

- According to the place of articulation, they may be dental, bilabial, and alveolar, palatal, velar

- According to the manner of articulation, they may be plosive, affricate, fricative, and nasal, lateral

- According to the involvement of vocal cords, they may be voiced or voiceless Each English consonant has all the features of these classifications, for example:

Most of the English consonants sound rather similar to Vietnamese ones except for the English plosives in the initial and final positions of a word The English /ð/ and / / have no similarities in Vietnamese.(p23)

* Vowels

English Vowels

Short Vowels Long Vowels Diphthongs

Transcription Examples Transcriptio

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Examples Transcription Examples

English Vowels are always voiced They are formed in less noticeable way than consonants mainly by the position of the tongue, secondarily by the shape of the lips and the movement of the jaw Different vowels are determined by how high the tongue is raised in the mouth and by whether the front, middle or back of the tongue is being used Besides, English has some pair of short and long vowels, for example, /i/, and /i:/, which Vietnamese does not have and Vietnamese learners of English have a lot of trouble to distinguish Each English vowel therefore bears the above-mentioned features, for example:

Vowel Tongue level Part of the tongue Length Lip

Knowing all the features of English consonants and vowels is very useful for both Vietnamese teachers and students of English, as many pronunciation mistakes made by the students are due to the slight or total differences in sound production between English and Vietnamese in terms of place, manner of articulation, voice and mouth shapes etc

3.2 Teaching Individual Sounds

It is advisable to consult and apply the principles and techniques to teach individual sounds

For example, when the English /i/ and /i:/ are taught, the following techniques may be used:

- Presentation:

Teacher says the sound /i/ clearly two or three times so that students listen, observe her mouth shape and perceive the model

Teacher says again in such words as in, tin, thin, it, ill

Students repeat them in chorus two or three times

Teacher shows students a picture of the tongue, lips, and mouth shape for /i/ to explain how it is made

Teacher gets students to repeat the above words again in chorus, in groups, then individually

In the same ways, teacher introduces /i:/ and gets students to repeat in such

words: eat, team, eel, teens.

Teacher contrasts /i/ and /i:/ in minimal pairs

Students are divided into groups, then repeat the minimal pairs after the tape or teacher for several times

Teacher uses picture to show the different mouth shapes for these two sounds

- Practice

Students do some recognition exercises by listening carefully to and picking out

the /i/ and /i:/ in words said in disorder by the teacher, for example, it, eat, eel, ill

Students repeat the minimal pairs again in pairs, groups then individually

Students practice the sounds in groups of words: in it, this thin tin, it is thin / eat meat, eat eel meat, steam eel meat Etc.

Then in sentences: Miss Tin hit it It is thin./ Dean eats eel meat Eat steamed eel meat, please.

Then in tongue twisters:

Eat this thin eel meat in a steamed tin.

This steamed thin meat is heated in a tin.

Little jean is seated in a bit heated tin.

Students listen to, repeat and learn a short recorded dialogue:

A: Is Jean in, Miss Dean?

B: Is she heating up a tin of meat?

C: She's ill Sorry Tim.

Students act the dialogue in pairs then prolong it by adding some of their own words or sentences containing /i/ and /i:/, provided that they sound meaningful

- Production

Students play a mini bingo game in groups of three One student calls out the numbers in the following boxes in any order The other chooses one of the boxes

A, B, C and crosses the called number The first person to cross out all his numbers wins

+ Type of exercises:

- Practice of individual sounds in isolated words, short phrases, sentences, dialogue

- Practice of contrasted sounds in minimal pairs, tongue twisters, test exercise, recognition exercises

3.3 Some techniques to practice Pronunciation.

a, Word Repetition: Ss listen and repeat

Example: Practice /i/ and /e/

T - reads: till

Ss - repeat: till

T - reads: tell

Ss - repeat: tell

b, Sentence Repetition: Ss listen and repeat the model sentence

Example: Practice /s/ and /z/

T: She sells seashells by the seashore

Ss: She sells seashells by the seashore

Example: Practice /i/ and /i:/

T: Don't sit on that seat

Ss: Don't sit on that seat

T: (correct, once more) Don't (sleep/ slip) on the floor

T: Don't (sleep/ slip) on the floor

c, Minimal pairs:

Teacher explains what minimal pairs are: two words with only one different letter for example "hat - bat", "thin - thing" or two words spelling differently but pronounce the same, for example "feet - fit", "bet - bat", "fool - full"…

We use minimal pairs to contrast the difference between vowels and consonants Teacher reads minimal pairs and writes on the board:

Teacher reads each pair in turn and asks students to listen and find out the difference between them

After that teacher checks: T reads the words (not in the right order), Ss say the number of the words or raise their fingers (one or two)

T: will

Ss: one

T: tell

Ss: two

……

d, Making sentences

Teacher writes some words that need to practice on the board, Ss make sentences with them

Example: To practice /e/ and /æ / Teacher writes two columns: the adjectives are in the first column, the nouns are in the second column

Teacher can make an example: "My cat is sad."

e, Back word pronunciation

Teacher writes and read "t", students repeat Then teacher adds "s' and reads "st", teacher adds "a" and reads "ast", teacher adds "l" and reads "last' This activity is very useful It helps Ss to pronounce the last consonants correctly

3.4 Stress and Rhythm

3.4.1 Word Stress

When an English word has more than one syllable, one of these is made to stand out more than the others This is done by saying that syllable slightly louder, holding the vowel a little longer to give it prominence or stress

In a long English word, there are some syllables:

a, the syllable with primary stress mentioned above, said with the most breath effort,

b, the unstressed syllable(s) which is/are said very quickly, lightly with very little breath effort,

c, the syllable with a secondary stress said with more breath effort than "b" but less than "a"

Example: unim 'portant

Secondary primary

3.4.2 Sentence Stress - Rhythm

In a normal English sentence, certain words are stressed and certain others are unstressed Normally, stressed are content words, essential for conveying a message, often NOUNS, main VERBS, ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS and DEMONSTRATIVES Normally unstressed are the form words, grammatical or

structure words For example, in this sentence: "John has finished his work" ( John, finished, work are content words and stressed; others are form words and

unstressed)

These stressed and unstressed words form tone units which work just like bars

of music English speech resembles music in that it has strong beats (stressed words) and weak beats (unstressed words) This is called rhythm

3.4.3 Teaching Stress and Rhythm

As with other aspects of pronunciation teaching, the first stage is pure imitation, repetition of the tape or the teacher's model in chorus, in groups or individually

If there is any difficulty with a long phrase, when it is repeated in its entirety, the teacher can isolate the stressed syllable or words, then get that repeated a few times, finally put the phrase together again for further repetition The process

can be summarized as follows: Repeat the whole phrase -> isolate and repeat the stressed syllable or word only.

* Repeat the whole phrase again

The teacher may indicate the position of the stressed by writing the words, sentences and marking the stressed on the board or using gestures, signals or her voice

a, Gestures

The teacher may indicate the stress pattern by:

- thumping the air when saying the stressed syllables

- making a downward stroke of the hand like a conductor

- punching the palm of her other hand

- clapping her hands

- striking a ruler on the board or table

b, The board

The teacher can use the board as the most valuable aid to make the stress visible

to students in the initial non-text stage (when the written form of the language has not yet been introduced) at the next stage

- Non-Text Stage

Without writing the word or sentence, the teacher can indicate the stress pattern

by using symbols

Example: o - o - o or

- Text Stage

The teacher can give an example, exaggerating the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables He can represent each syllable with a sound

Example: a sack of carrots

De - da - de - da - de