Teaching pronunciation

Teaching pronunciation

There are many ways of teaching pronunciation, and many different opinions as to which
ways are the best or most effective. However there has been to date relatively little
serious comparative research on what really works in helping learners of a second
language with pronunciation. This is an area which needs considerable improvement
.
Nevertheless, there are a few things which are becoming well
established as key factors in effective pronunciation tuition.


It is important to emphasise that pronunciation teaching is currently undergoing a revival
after several decades of neglect. There are many questions requiring detailed research
and empirical investigation. The account presented here represents a current ‘best
guess’ for which there is considerable evidence but which is most certainly not the last
word on the subject.

Here are some of the factors that have been shown to be most relevant in creating good
outcomes in pronunciation teaching (see references under Pronunciation Research in
Appendix). The first three are becoming more widely known and accepted. The last,
though, is less well understood.

􀂙 Pronunciation teaching works better if the focus is on larger chunks
of speech, such as words, phrases and sentences, than if the focus
is on individual sounds and syllables. This does not mean that
individual sounds and syllables should never be referred to; it simply
means that the general focus should be on the larger units.

􀂙 Pronunciation lessons work best if they involve the students in
actually speaking, rather than in just learning facts or rules of
pronunciation. Many students of course feel more comfortable
learning the rules of the language, because it is less threatening than
actually speaking. However, the transfer of explicit knowledge of
rules into pronunciation practice is very limited.

Why study Phonetics?

Why study Phonetics?

Obviously it’s a fundamental part of Linguistics, so no-one studying this subject can ignore it. But for students of languages, there are also practical advantages to be gained from knowing some basic Phonetics.
Firstly, you should be able to improve your pronunciation of foreign languages if you have a clearer idea of how the sounds are actually produced. Troublesome sounds like French r, German ü or Spanish j lose their mystery and become less daunting once you know how they relate to other more familiar sounds. And there are various general features of the “British accent” which can be characterized by phonetic analysis: when you know what it is that makes British accents so British, you’ll be well on the way to getting rid of yours (if you have one: most
people do to some extent at least). What’s more, you’ll be able to look up the pronunciation of words in the dictionary once you’re familiar with the phonetic alphabet.

Secondly, many of you will at some stage or other nd yourselves teaching a language to other people: either French, German, Spanish, etc. if you make a career of teaching, or English if you are involved in ESOL (English as a Second Language, also known as EFL: English as a Foreign Language). ESOL is not just a useful source of vac jobs: it is a serious career in itself. And many students spend year 3 of their degree course working abroad as English language teachers.

In all such cases, you are likely to have to help learners to improve their accents. If someone is having difculty with English th, it’s not much help just to tell them “don’t say it like that, say it like I do”. (Unless they’re natural mimics, in which case they won’t need instruction from you anyway.) Much better if you can guide them to make the appropriate tongue movements, on a basis of your knowledge of phonetics.

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication uses signs, signals, gestures, expressions and sounds. It is God-made language and, as a rule, should not suffer from any limitations excepting the fact that our knowledge about the language is limited by our lack of understanding of nature‟s ways of communication! In common parlance, non-verbal communication is also called body language. As a rule, it does not lie or mislead unless someone has mastered the art of deceit or camouflaging. It is the richest language known. During the last few decades a lot of research has been done to identify and isolate all the signs, signals, gestures, expression and sounds among humans.
The non-verbal communication has changed the way we look at the subject of communication. We seem to be communicating all the time through gestures, expressions, sounds, signs and signals.
Every one can recall the personal experience they would have gone through when they had to ask for a favour from mother, father, elder brother or even boss. When they went to speak to the person on the appointed date and time, one quick look at the person made them change their mind, thinking that the day and time was not propitious for seeking favour because of the mood he was emoting. The interaction would have been very upsetting but they could avoid it because they could observe from the body language of the person that the response would not be favourable.
Similarly, it is said that we emote even when we are asleep! We have also read a story in Mahabharata that Abhimanyu, son of Arjun, had picked up the art of entering a kind of warfare known as Chakarvyu while in the womb of his mother. It has been thought to be rather unbelievable phenomenon. The recent advances in medical history confirm that a child has already well developed five senses and mind as early as the seventh week of its conception when even mothers may not have become aware of their pregnancy!
Another thing students must appreciate is the body language is not man-made; it is God‟s own creation. Studies are directed to observing those gestures, expressions, sounds etc and record their meaning for its students to understand the language. Body language rarely lies and if one can master it, it will propel them on fast track to become good communicators.
Another well-known story common in India is that good vaids of ayuvedic medicines were able to diagnose the type of ailment from the feel of the pulse and general examination of their patients!

Speech signal

Speech signal

Speech signal is the basic study and analysis material in speech technology
as well phonetics. To form meaningful chunks of language, the speech signal
should have dynamically varying spectral characteristics, sometimes varying within
a stretch of a few milliseconds. Phonetics groups these temporally varying spectral
chunks into abstract classes roughly called as allophones. Distribution of these allophones
into higher level classes called phonemes takes us closer to their function in a
language. Phonemes and letters in the scripts of literate languages – languages which
use writing have varying degrees of correspondence. As such a relationship exists,
a major part of speech technology deals with the correlation of script letters with
chunks of time-varying spectral stretches in that language. Indian languages are said
to have a more direct correlation between their sounds and letters. Such similarity
gives a false impression of similarity of text-to-sound rule sets across these languages.
A given letter which has parallels across various languages may have different
degrees of divergence in its phonetic realization in these languages. We illustrate
such differences and point out the problem areas where speech scientists need to pay
greater attention in building their systems, especially multilingual systems for Indian
languages.

Phonetics?

Phonetics?

Languages can basically be thought of as systems - highly complicated ones - which enable us to express our
thoughts by means of “vocal noises”, and to extract meaning from the “noises” (speech sounds from now on!) that
are made by other people. Linguistics is the study of the nature and properties of these systems, and its various
branches focus on different aspects of the communication process.
Phonetics is the branch concerned with human speech sounds, and itself has three different aspects:
• Articulatory Phonetics (the most anatomical and physiological division) describes how vowels
and consonants are produced or “articulated” in various parts of the mouth and throat.
• Acoustic Phonetics (the branch that has the closest afnities with physics) studies the sound
waves that transmit the vowels and consonants through the air from the speaker to the hearer
• Auditory Phonetics (the branch of most interest to psychologists) looks at the way in which the hearer’s
brain decodes the sound waves back into the vowels and consonants originally intended by the speaker.
Closely associated with Phonetics is another branch of linguistics known as Phonology. This focuses on the way
languages use differences between sounds in order to convey differences of meaning between words, and how
each language has its own unique sound pattern. Phonology is really the link between Phonetics and the rest of Linguistics.