Pronunciation Notes

Break Week

  • Next week is a break to recharge batteries and catch up.
  • Use the break to see observations, record things, and re-read feedback.
  • Don't do completely nothing; use it in a productive way.
  • The LA assignment is due on Monday.
  • Start the LA assignment early; don't leave it until Sunday afternoon.

Pronunciation

  • Pronunciation is often a tricky area to teach and analyze.
  • English is one of the most phonetically inconsistent languages.

Examples of Phonetic Inconsistency:

  • Different accents exist within England and worldwide (Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Australian, American).
  • Words like "ough" have different pronunciations (e.g., bought, though, through).
  • Homophones are a great example.
  • Silent letters: Examples include the 'k' in 'know'.
  • The word 'you' with different letters: U, E, Y, are pronounced the same.

Phonetically Consistent Languages:

  • Spanish is much better and consistent.
  • Japanese is quite consistent.
  • Italian is quite consistent.
  • French is more phonetically consistent than English.

Phonemes

  • English has a system of phonemes to standardize sounds.
  • This system helps learners understand how to say words correctly by looking at the phonemes in a dictionary.
  • Include phonemes in your LA assignment.
  • Identify the stress of the sounds.

Finding Phonemes

  • Use online dictionaries like Cambridge to find phonemes.
  • Dictionaries show the number of syllables and stress.
  • Copy and paste phonemes into your plan from online dictionaries.
  • Recognize and identify difficult sounds for students.
  • Pick out individual or short sounds to focus on in class.
  • Practice phonemes using online resources.

Stress

  • Longer words can have primary and secondary stresses.
Example:
  • perichondriaperichondria has primary stress on "chon" and secondary stress on "peri".

Identifying Difficult Sounds

  • Identify a word and sound to focus on in a lesson.
  • Example: "phonetically" with the "f" sound (p.h.).
  • The 'k' in 'know' is silent.
  • In “world” the l sound can be focused on.
  • Focus on difficult sounds like the "w" and "l" in the word "language".

Visual Techniques

  • Use visual techniques to highlight difficult sounds (phonemes).
  • Other visual techniques can be useful.

Word Stress

  • Stress bubbles, spots, or dots are typical for sharing stress.
  • Alternative representations: boxes, bolded text, capital letters (though capital letters can be distracting).
  • Learn word stress rules.
  • Word stress and syllables are also known as stress patterns in course books.
  • Stress patterns show both stress and syllables.
  • Stress patterns not only show the stress but syllabus as well (really useful in consistent)
  • Clap it in consistent.

Sentence Stress

  • Underline whole words to show natural sentence stress.
  • Generally, stress verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and negative auxiliaries.
  • Stress words that carry meaning in natural sentence stress.
  • Contrastive or emphatic stress changes the stress to convey a different meaning.
  • Focus on natural sense of stress as base level, which are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, negative auxiliaries.
  • If there is a real reason, put that in your plans or in your language analysis assignments.

Intonation

  • Use up or down arrows to show intonation.
  • Emphasize words by using intonation.
  • Use upward intonation at the end of yes/no questions.
Dialect Dependence:
  • Intonation is dialect-dependent and can vary among native speakers.
  • Consider teaching general rules and highlighting useful variations.

Connected Speech

  • Connected speech or linking between words (assimilation, catenation, elision).
Assimilation:
  • Consonant sounds change (e.g., "Did you" becoming "Didju").
Catenation:
  • Consonant sound rolls into a vowel sound (e.g., "English is").
Weak Sounds:
  • The word "of" becomes a weak sound (schwa).
Elision:
  • Consonants disappear, like the t or d (e.g., "most phonetically").

Modeling and Drilling

  • Modeling and drilling are key techniques for teaching pronunciation.
  • Drilling is an effective technique for practicing stress, rhythm, intonation, grammar.
  • Vocabulary should be understood by the learners.

Drilling Techniques:

  • Choral drill: Teacher models, whole group repeats.
  • Nominated drill: Teacher chooses individual to repeat.
  • Substitution drill: Substitute parts while keeping the structure.
  • Use fingers to model different words in a sentence.
  • Back chaining: Start with the last word and add words gradually. Can I have a kilo of potatoes, please? Of potatoes, please, a kilo of potatoes, please, can I have a kilo of potatoes, please.

Other Techniques

  • Show mouth position using pictures or your actual mouth.
  • Have students look in the mirror and record themselves.

Minimal Pairs:

  • Use minimal pairs (e.g., bad/bed, cup/cap).
  • Rhyming words.
  • Use of dictionary, know the number of syllable, stress points, etc.
  • Tongue twisters.
  • Leverage adverts, TV shows, movies, podcasts, radio, songs.
  • Online games and activities.

Analyzing Target Language

  • Use dictionary to find out about the difficult words.
  • Crucial: Two syllabus. Crucial. Pronunciation of last syllabus is difficult with the sound. Can become Cruizal.
  • I totally agree with you on that: Can highlight the stress on that. Highlighting sentence stress to stress strong meaning. Deal was possible connected speech: you are.
  • When you’re not used to it: Connected speech, elision, use of weak form and elision between used to it. Model and drill, substitution techniques.