How to teach english pronunciation for 6th grades at dien bien secondary school

Determining that importance, phonetic teaching and learning has beenincluded in Secondary School English program right from the first andthroughout lessons.. From the fact of teaching En

THANH HOA CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

DIEN BIEN SECONDARY SCHOOL

INITIATIVES

HOW TO TEACH

AT DIEN BIEN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Writer: Mai Thi Thu Thuy

Position: Teacher

Place of work: Dien Bien Secondary School Subject: English

THANH HOA, MAY 2020

2.3.2.Some factors affect the phonetic teaching 9

2.3.3.Training techniques in ta phonetic lesson 10

As society develops, the need to expand international relationsincreasingly powerful requires a common language to communicate So

learning the language is really necessary Foreign languages in general, and inparticular English education in Vietnam is being put into schools as acompulsory subject at secondary school level, college level English is getting alot of attention from people It is not a hobby for some gifted English but alsonecessities Foreign Language is a bridge for cooperation, development andexchange between countries together One important thing is that everyonewants to use English perfectly and fluently They can use it as the "mothertongue"

From that practical requirement, English has been included in the maincurriculum of all levels in our country The ultimate goal of teaching andlearning English is that students can communicate in English Communicationability is expressed in two aspects: receiving (listening and reading) andproducing (speaking and writing) language However, in order to achieve theultimate goal, the first factor students need to master is pronunciation

Phonetic is considered one of the basic elements of all languages in theworld If the pronunciation is correct, all skills such as listening, speaking andreading will become much easier Conversely, if the pronunciation is wrong orunclear, it will make the listener misunderstand or even not understand themeaning of the speaker

Determining that importance, phonetic teaching and learning has beenincluded in Secondary School English program right from the first andthroughout lessons Although they have been exposed since elementary school,most students are still surprised and have many difficulties when pronouncingand memorizing the sounds learned On the other hand, the exploitation and use

of materials for teachers' teaching and phonetic learning are still limited

From the fact of teaching English at school, in addition to the methods

of teaching phonetics I received from the training sessions, attending thelessons of good teachers, lectures, I always wondered how to suit your students,make them feel no more difficult and heavy when they pronounce English

From the above thought I explored and experimented on my classroom andreceived the desired results Therefore, I boldly present my experience of "How to teach English pronunciation for 6th graders in Secondary School " forfriends and colleagues to refer.

1.2.Practical basic

The goal of the study of phonetic teaching methods for students is toimprove the qualifications and pedagogical competence of English teachers,while helping students acquire phonics more easily

Therefore the necessary research task must be set as:

1 Detect the English pronunciation situation of elementary school students

2 The cause of the situation of English pronunciation is not standard

3 Specific method to overcome the above situation

4 Phonics lessons as examples

5 Suggested ideas to build and improve English pronunciation

1.3 Research subjects and time

- Students in class 6A and 6E at Dien Bien secondary school

- Time of doing the research: From 10/2019 to 4/2020

1.4 Research purposes

In this experience initiative, I focused on the following objects:

- Process of pronouncing a sound

- Steps in the English phonetic lesson

1.5 Research method

- Attend class visits, learn from colleagues and some personal experiences

- Observe students' knowledge acquisition in the teaching process

- Survey the pronunciation capacity of students

- Research from teaching materials, collection materials and resources onteaching methods from the Internet

2 CONTENT 2.1 Theoretical basic

Currently in Vietnam, learning one or more other foreign languages forusing in daily communication as well as in working has become very important,especially English English is used everywhere, anytime From children whosell books and newspapers to tourists, they also know how to advertise theirproducts in English to experts and interpreters who use English fluently.However, the question is why many people learn English for a long time butwhen communicating with native people, they do not understand ormisunderstand what we are saying The answer is due to Phonetic in English.

English phonetics can be understood to include elements: phonology,stress, rhythm and intonation According to the study of phonetics, it isnecessary to achieve 4 criteria for good communication process: Goodpronunciation; Natural speed; Natural Rhythm; And natural intonation.Achieving these 4 standard criteria is the ambition of all English learners, andthis must be beyond the ability of Vietnamese people Although we cannotspeak English as a native speaker, we can practice speaking an acceptableEnglish: clear pronunciation means when we pronounce, the listeners canunderstand and distinguish from other sounds

Moreover, the purpose of teaching phonetics in a language classroom isnot to make students able to pronounce similarly to native speakers because this

is not practical, unless the learner has special abilities and high studyingmotivation The goal of teaching phonics is to help learners achieve a certainlevel of pronunciation right in order to communicate what they want to say toothers

2.2 Actual situations

The introduction of English sounds into the 6th grade program isintended to help early formation of phonetic systems Since then, it helpschildren to understand better, speak better and achieve the goal of languagelearning

However, when I first started teaching English to students in grade 6,through the examination of students' input quality, I found that their ability topronounce and imitate their sounds was weak Most of them are afraid ofspeaking English, are afraid of pronouncing, and especially their ability tomemorize the sounds are very poor They don’t know how to concentrate onphonetic learning, as well as the difficulty of writing or describing a problemeven though the problem is very simple Besides, the number of students inclasses is so large that in the process of teaching teachers cannot cover andsupport them promptly The facilities and teaching materials for children havenot been fully invested such as dictionaries, reference books, tapes, cassettes,projectors, etc Most of the children do not have contact with native speakers,

so they also have a lot of limitations in responding to English They have manydifficulties in pronouncing as well as distinguishing similar sounds whenlistening to teachers speaking

Through the fact of teaching at school, I found that many students havegood pronunciation ability, enthusiasm for learning English However, due tothe voice characteristics of the Vietnamese language and the influence of thelocal language, many children face many difficulties in English pronunciation

On the other hand, phonics is always a difficult area for all students.They all face a lot of difficulties when learning phonetics, especially thepronunciation of difficult sounds like / s / hay / z /, / t / or / d /; / ∫ / or / s / Some children who read often swallow these sounds when they are at the end ofthe word

There are many pairs of sounds in English that have similar sounds, notonly students but also teachers, who do not recognize and pronounce themcorrectly, such as negative: / i / hay / I /, / e / or / æ /, / ð / or / θ /

From the reality on myself, I think it is necessary to have a method tohelp my students learn phonetics quickly and easily, so I have learned, collectedand applied some methods of phonetic teaching English for students

This is the results before I apply the methods:

2.3.1 Process of phonetic lesson

A phonetic lesson will be really effective if the teacher follows a clear,specific teaching process that makes syllables easy for students to receive.Therefore, a phonetic lesson should be divided into 4 parts as follows:

2.3.1.1 How to pronounce a sound

- Introduce the sound that is taught in the lesson

- Describe pronunciation (position of tongue, lips, teeth .) Teacher hangsdiagrams that show the position of tongue, lips, and teeth when pronouncingand giving specific explanations so that students understand

- Turn his face towards the student reading the sound a few times so that thestudents can hear clearly and observe the teacher's mouth, lips, teeth and tonguewhen this pronunciation

- Read words that contain learning sounds, students listen

For example: When teaching /ɑ:/, teacher shows the students a short

converstion, then the teacher shows some words in the context

Next, the teacher says: all these words contain /ɑ:/.

Teacher describes how to pronounce this sound, shows the chart andasks students to imitate

2.3.1.2 Practice pronunciation

When guiding students to pronounce, teacher should take steps from easy todifficult

- Practice the sound by pronouncing words by words: Teacher gives the words

in term, asks students to pronounce

Example:

2.3.1.3 Forms of popular dictations

In this section, teacher helps students to know which words are pronounced

In case students come across the word which they have never seen before, theycan pronounce by the way they have learned

For example: when teaching /ɑ:/, teacher should give the poular dictations in

the words of this sound

- Words contain “ar”: car, garden,

- Words contain “a”: dance, classroom

Teacher give some notes of making mistakes while students learn topronounce According to each sound, there are different errors By knowing themistakes which students may often face will help the overcome the difficultieswhen learning to pronounce the sounds.

2.3.2 Some factors affect the teaching phonetics

2.3.2.1 The movement of the mother tongue

Because the teacher's mother tongue affects English pronunciation, theteacher needs to have a certain understanding of the sound system of thestudent's mother tongue so that the difficulties and advantages of the studentscan be predicted students learn English pronunciation and can guide andcorrect students to read difficult sounds Vietnamese learners of English oftenfind it difficult to read beginning sounds such as: /θ/ and /ð/; and the finalsounds like: /z/, /s/ and /η/ /dʒ/and /əʊ/ sounds are also difficult sounds forstudents The language, the accent, the intonation to change the meaning ofwords and sentences are also problems that Vietnamese people are not familiarwith the phonemic and intonation system of Vietnamese

2.3.2.2 Learner’s age

Younger learners are easier to learn than older people According to thestudy, children under 12 years of age learning English will be less affected byVietnamese voices than older learners

2.3.2.3 Exposure to English

It is necessary to include both time and level of exposure to English.The more time students have to communicate with English, the better thepronunciation is Students will also gain more if they are exposed to a goodpronunciation pattern or a detailed explanation of the system and Englishpronunciation

2.3.2.4 Innate pronunciation ability of learners

Many students have the innate ability to imitate and speak easily ofstrange sounds to them Such students will progress faster than those withoutsimilar abilities.

2.3.2.5 Attitude and feeling

Student attitudes towards the language they are learning are also afactor influencing pronunciation learning The better the student's learningattitude is, the easier it is to learn pronunciation as they try to imitate a nativespeaker while those with high status in society often pay less attention toimitation of the model when practicing speaking English

2.3.2.6 Learning motivation and their interest in pronunciation

This is a very important factor in teaching pronunciation If studentshave good pronunciation motivation, they will invest more time and effort inlearning pronunciation from there they will have more progress

2.3.3 Training techniques in a phonetic lesson

In a lesson of teaching pronunciation, there are many ways to helpstudents practice These ways belong to the design of each lesson These aresome ways:

2.3.3.1 Repeat words: Students listen and repeat the models ( teacher’s pronunciation or tape)

Example: Practice the sound: /ð/and /θ/

Example: Practice the sound: /əʊ/

It’s very cold with a lot of snow

2.3.3.3 Missing words: Teacher says some phrases or sentences which

are missing a or a few words; students guess and add the words whose soundsthe are practicing

Example: Practice the sound: /θ/

Mary’s bir_day is on the _irteen_ of this mon_

2.3.3.4 Same or Different: Teachers write international phonetictranscription on the board (eg: / I /) The teacher says a sequence of soundssimilar to the ones on the board (/ i: /, / e /, / æ /) Students listen and tellwhether the above sounds are the same or different from the sounds on theboard

2.3.3.5 One or Two (or three): The teacher writes on the board two (orthree) international phonetic sessions (eg: 1 /ɪ/, 2 /i:/, 3 /e/ then read the words

in turn: fifteen / fifty / bit / beat / eat / it / man / men), students listen and say

"one" (1), "two" (2) or "three" (3)

2.3.3.6 Correct or incorrect: The teacher writes one or more words onthe board and pronounces some words correctly and some incorrect words.Students listen and say "correct" or "incorrect"

2.3.3.7 Minimal Pairs: Write an international phonetic transcript onthe board and let students comfortably list pairs of similar words

2.3.4 Apply in real lesson

In this writing, I mention how to teach pronunciation, so I only showthe teaching plan for “Pronunciation” part

ENGLISH 6: UNIT 4: MY NEIGHBORHOOD LESSON 2: A CLOSER LOOK 1 – PART “PRONUNCIATION”

I Objectives.

1 Content:

In this lesson, students learn how to pronounce 2 sounds / i:/ and /ɪ/

By applying the above method, I conduct this lesson according to the followingprocedure:

2 Skills:

Developing speaking and listening skills

II Preparation:

- Teacher: Textbook, teacher’s book, cassette, videos

- Students: Textbook, workbook

- From the song, teacher gives some

words: Cheap, meat, street

Lan: Alright, mom I’ll go now.

I The sound /i:/