*But were afraid to ask! In part one of our pedagogy pop-up video series, senior ELT research manager Laura Patsko covers the why, who, what and how of teaching English pronunciation. The insights are based on both her research and experience of classroom teaching, and highlight the diverse reality of pronunciation.
Why bother teaching pronunciation?
The first question we must ask ourselves is why bother teaching pronunciation? Research and experience has shown me that learners both need and want to develop their pronunciation. Phonological awareness has an impact on all the four skills areas of language learning: speaking, listening, reading and writing. All of these contribute to a learner’s comfort and fluency when using vocabulary and grammatical structures. Any gaps of knowledge may risk learners avoiding items/conversation if they don’t feel comfortable.
Who should teach and learn pronunciation?
Who should teach and learn pronunciation? Pronunciation is important for both learners and teachers in order for them to use and recognise words effectively. Both non-native and native teachers would benefit from having a greater awareness due to the features of pronunciation involved in quick speech. Some common features of connected speech in native speakers’ English accents can actually reduce intelligibility so it’s best to be aware of how you’re using the language!
What variety of pronunciation should we teach?
What variety should we teach? Many teachers and trainee teachers do not feel like they could teach pronunciation due to not having a “standard” accent. Materials in the ELT industry, for example, are traditionally based on Received Pronunciation (RP) for British English but it’s estimated that only 3% of the British population actually use this standard accent.
Following on from this, there are 3 important facts demonstrated by research for ‘what’:
- The vast majority of users and teachers of English are not native.
- Accent and intelligibility, or the ability to be understood, are not the same. Studies show a strongly identifiable regional accent is not the same as being easy or difficult to be understood.
- Both speaker and listener have an important role in understanding.
So what are the goals in teaching pronunciation?
- Comfortable intelligibility
- The ability to understand segmental sounds and structures of syllables. A teacher should distinguish which is important in students’ productive speech and listening ability.
- Listening progression – a researcher named Richard Cauldwell (2015) stated that listening is like three environments: the greenhouse, the garden and the jungle. The ‘greenhouse’ focusses on isolated words. The ‘garden’ is where features tend to grow together by mixing and influencing each other. Then finally there’s the ‘jungle’, where the reality of listening is.
How can we teach pronunciation?
How to teach pronunciation:
- Integrate it with other skills, vocabulary and structures
- Remember that many items in language are negatively defined (i.e. we recognise what something is by identifying what it isn’t), so basic discrimination exercises can be very helpful e.g. activities involving meaningful contrasts.
- Practice recognising small similarities between similar sounding words.
- Make pronunciation physical – encourage learners to use their eyes and body to feel how sounds change when speaking
- Practise, practise,practise!
For more in depth information on the who, why, what and how of pronunciation, watch my pedagogy pop-up video below!