Our Senior Research Manager Laura Patsko shares the first five of her top ten tips for teaching pronunciation.
1. Make sure you teach pronunciation!
First and foremost on this list of top tips: don’t be afraid of teaching pronunciation! It isn’t just a ‘nice to have’. It affects all areas of language learning – for example, there is evidence that strong reading skills and good phonological awareness go hand in hand (Walter, 08).
2. Don’t just teach occasional ‘pronunciation lessons’.
It’s important – and not difficult – to integrate pronunciation throughout the syllabus. For example:
- always drill new vocabulary items;
- invite students to compare how they would pronounce something with what they have just heard in a listening clip;
- invite students to identify words in a reading text that contain a particular sound.
3. Know why your students are learning English and who they (will) communicate with.
It has been estimated that 80% of interaction in English around the world takes place between second-language English users (Beneke, 91) – no native speakers involved at all – and that non-native speakers of English outnumber its native speakers by at least 3 to 1 (Crystal, 08). So we simply cannot assume that learners today either need or want to sound like a native speaker.
4. Help students identify positive pronunciation role models.
If your students aren’t interested in sounding like a native speaker of English, the best role model for their own pronunciation is arguably a proficient user of English from their same first-language background. This person will have had similar needs and struggles, so is likely to be a good reflection of what your students can realistically achieve.
5. There’s a difference between productive and receptive pronunciation skills.
Teaching pronunciation isn’t just about helping learners speak, but also about helping them listen. It’s easier to understand someone’s pronunciation when you’re more familiar with their accent, so spend some time in class exposing your students to the accents they’re most likely to meet outside class. (Remember, this is probably going to include a wide range of non-native accents.) Help them identify how these accents are similar or different to their own. Train their ears!
References
Beneke, J. (1991). Englisch als lingua franca oder als Medium interkultureller Kommunikation. In R. Grebing, Grenzenloses Sprachenlernen. Berlin: Cornelsen. 54-66.
Crystal, D. (2008). ‘Two thousand million?’ English Today 93, Vol. 24, Issue 1, pp. 3-6.
Walter, C. (2008). ‘Phonology in second language reading: not an optional extra,’ TESOL Quarterly, 42/3, pp. 455-474.
Continue on to read Laura’s next five tips for teaching pronunciation.