Gary Anderson, Cambridge’s Senior International Teacher Trainer, presents some ideas for improving your students’ pronunciation… and considers how realistic some expectations may be.
I was in Cambridge last month doing some training with teachers from a large chain of language schools around China. While I was there, I received a message from a Facebook friend in Serbia asking for help dealing with one of her students who was worried about her pronunciation because she wanted to speak with a ‘posh’ British accent. The Chinese teachers also said that one of the main concerns of their students was their pronunciation.
Well, first of all, unless a young adult or adult student is a very gifted auditive learner, having an accent near a standard British RP (Received Pronunciation) accent (the ‘posh’ of my friend’s Serbian student) or a standard GA (General American) accent is going to be almost impossible. I’ve been living in Paris for over twenty years and my French is C2-level; however, when I speak, the French still hear my ‘Anglo-Saxon’ accent. What matters more, though, is that they understand me! Similarly, most learners’ pronunciation goal should realistically be ‘intelligibility’, to make themselves understood, what Michael McCarthy calls ‘interactional competence’ when speaking, listening and interacting with native speakers (NS) or non-native speakers (NNS).
Ideas for practicing pronunciation
Here are a few ideas for practicing pronunciation:
- Most courses now come with either DVD-ROMs or Online Workbooks with pronunciation activities. Individual learners can use these to autonomously and safely – without possible in-class embarrassment – not only practise their pronunciation but also record themselves and compare how they sound with models.
- Remind your learners that if they have problems saying a particular word, they can use a free online dictionary such as Cambridge Dictionaries Online such as to hear it pronounced.
- Self-study materials such as English Pronunciation in Use with its accompanying audio CDs allow learners to practise sounds, word stress and minimal pairs as well as sentence stress, rhythm and intonation, the suprasegmental features of connected speech.
- Students might like to have fun and also work on their connected speech by singing along with their favourite songs.
- For longer, more formal spoken production, create an account on a podcasting website such as Soundcloud or Podomatic and have your students first record themselves on their Smartphones and then upload the sound file to the site for you and their classmates to hear.
Finally, if your learners travel, then they will surely be working on their pronunciation while trying out their English, the global international language. However, if you live in a city where there are foreign tourists and visitors, why not also suggest that they offer their help (in English!) to people they see struggling with maps, having problems communicating in restaurants or shops, etc. to test in real life if their pronunciation is, in fact, comprehensible and they are able to make themselves understood—even if they don’t speak with a ‘posh’ accent.