Assignment - TP

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

GENERAL INFORMATION:

This assignment has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: 6 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-).- Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman.- Size: 11.- Line height: 1.5.- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be done in this Word document and has to fulfil the rules of presentation and edition, as for quotes and bibliographical references which are detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the Study Guide. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not permitted.

In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the Study Guide.

The assignment mark is 100% of the final mark, but the participation in the activities performed during the tutorials can improve this mark.

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Assignment - TP

Assignment:

You have a choice of two options for this part of the assignment:

OPTION A

“Intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communicative competence” (Morley 1991)

Do you consider this to be a useful quotation, in terms of how you might wish to develop a policy for including pronunciation teaching in the English Department at your institution? Consider (as a minimum) the following aspects in your essay:

a) What is meant by ‘intelligible’?

b) Is pronunciation really such an ‘essential’ component of communicative competence?

c) What percentage of the syllabus can be devoted to pronunciation?

d) Do non-native speakers have the confidence to devote time to it?

e) How do we go about teaching ‘intelligible pronunciation’? What resources (apart from human) would you consider using?

OPTION B

Find two books on pronunciation teaching (or two Pronunciation sections from books that cover general teaching issues) that seem to you to advocate very distinct approaches in the classroom. For example, The Pronunciation Book by Bowen & Marks or ‘Sound Foundations’ by Adrian Underhill seem very different from a book such as Ship and Sheep by Baker. Review the two books in the following ways:

(a) Describe the general approach of the books/sections - segmental, suprasegmental, exposure-based, explanation-based, humanistic, drill-based, teacher-centred, student-centred, traditional, unusual, uses phonemic symbols, pays attention to phonological issues, etc.

(b) Which do you prefer? Why? Do you prefer one to another because of your pedagogic situation (Brinton’s first variable) or because of the type of person and teacher that you are? (Brinton’s 3rd variable) Do you see problems in one of the approaches/methods? What sort of contexts (students, courses and institutions) are implied by the books/sections?

Important: you have to write your personal details and the subject name on the cover (see the next page). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

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Assignment - TP

OPTION A:

“Intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communicative competence” (Morley 1991)

Intelligible Pronunciation is paramount in all aspects of learners’ linguistic

development.

Intelligibility refers to the degree to which a listener can recognize words, phrases and

utterances (Derwing and Munro 1997) . Smith and Nelson enlarges this concept and emphasizes

the idea that “intelligibility is not speaker or listener-centered but is interactional between

speaker and hearer.” (1985, p. 333)

In this same vein, Munro (2011:13) asserts that “Intelligibility is the single most

important aspect of all communication. If there is no intelligibility, communication has failed.”

The attainment of intelligibility can be carried out through a segmental (individual

sounds) or suprasegmental (referred by Crystal (1980:466) as those features of speech which

extend over more than one sound segment in an utterance, such as a pitch, stress or juncture

pattern ) approach.

In this regard, Helen Fraser (2000) considers that a phonetic description of the target

sound is so invalid as instructing a tennis player which muscles of the shoulder to use. She

advises teachers to make learners aware of their own articulation of sounds: rounding and

speaking, tongue between the teeth, etc. Individual sounds should be presented and discussed in

the context of larger structures of communicative language use.

A balanced approach with segmental (bottom-up) and suprasegmental (topdown)

features in pronunciation teaching could foster communicative effectiveness.

In the light of these observations, it is noteworthy to mention Derwing and Munro’s

(2005:388) citation of their own work together with Wiebe (1998): “…attention to both global

and segmental concerns benefits ESL students. In the case of communication breakdown caused

by a mispronunciation, a student who has received segmental training might be able to focus on

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Assignment - TP

the mispronounced form in a self-repetition. On the other hand, global instruction seems to

provide the learner with skills that can be applied in extemporaneous speech production, despite

the need to allocate attention to several speech components (p.107)”.

Globalization has led to the new role of English. According to Jenkins (2000), English

has become an international language owned by all who use it.

Kachru’s (1982) classification of English as a World language consists of three

concentring circles: the Inner Circle includes the Native English-speaking countries such as

England, USA and Canada. the Outer Circle, the former colonies such as India, Africa and

Nigeria and finally the Expanding Circle: as Brazil, China, Japan and Turkey.

Jenkins (2000) considers that (p.11) “English as Lingua Franca emphasizes the role of

English in communication between speakers from different L1s, i.e. it is the primary reason for

learning English today(…) and there is nothing inherently wrong in retaining certain

characteristics of the L1”.

The overall aim of these assertions is for the L2 teachers to believe in providing

intelligible pronunciation no matter accents because accent is part of our identity.

Levis(2011:58) refers to this issue by saying that: “It appears that familiarity with particular

accents and patterns of errors helps listeners to listen more effectively, and lack of familiarity

can more easily lead to panic, switching off, or even hostility”.

The context of learning a foreign language in Argentina is a monolingual class. All

students share the same accent and probably the same mispronunciations. Since time

immemorial, students have strived for gaining a native-like accent. Being rejected in

employments for poor pronunciation has been a sad reality. Employers at interviews like

listening to candidates whose pronunciation conform to native-speaker or nearly-native speaker

norms.

This is changing, fortunately. Pronunciation matters, of course, but “good English” is

enough and represents a competitive advantage in the job market. Kachru, B. (1992:4) enlarges

this idea by saying that “English is often learned because of its literary heritage and the status

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accorded to the reader or speaker. Furthermore, it opens doors to technology, science, trade and

diplomacy.

Notwithstanding some studies which revealed that students at University considered

pronunciation valuable and needed more instruction, it must be conceded that in Argentina,

most of EFL teachers are too focused on getting through competencies that they do not have

enough time to dedicate themselves to Pronunciation Teaching.

Another problem that may arise is that the majority of teachers are in adequately trained

to address the pronunciation needs of students in a communicative approach (Brown 1992) and

lack an understanding of how to address pronunciation in an integrated way”.

Scholars have revealed that the best instructor is the person with a detailed practical

knowledge of both the L1 and L2 phonetics, and in most of the cases this is often not a native

speaker teacher. Generally, non native teachers have certain advantages compared to native

instructors since that they have already undergone some difficulties in understanding certain

phonemes, and know, beforehand, which are the specific core and non core features to deal

with.

This is demonstrated in Maum’s (2002) citation: Phillipson (1996) considers NNESTs

to be potentially the ideal ESL teachers because they have gone through the process of acquiring

English as an additional language. They have first-hand experience in learning and using a

second language, and their personal experience has sensitized them to the linguistic and cultural

needs of their students.

Judy Gilbert (2008:43) states "The disadvantage of non-native speaking teachers is

that they tend to lack confidence in their own model. They often don’t realize that native

speaker teachers have quite a different disadvantage: they are unaware of what kinds of

elements are difficult. Native speakers tend to assume that all aspects of spoken English (e.g.,

the uses of pitch and timing) are simply a natural part of human language, so they sometimes

hurry over important matters. Non-native speakers, on the other hand, know from their own

experience what aspects of spoken English require extra care. If the non-native speaking teacher

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has good listening recognition skills and a grasp of the Prosody Pyramid structure of English,

then remaining elements of an L1 accent are of little importance."

Chela Flores (2001) emphasizes the importance of paying attention to learners’

immediate phonological needs, “establishing a model of instruction for a specific group of

learners is an advantage since it is easier to concentrate on aspects that are significantly different

between English and the learner's first language”.

A problematic area to be attended is that of intonation which according to Chun (cited

in Wennerstrom, 2001:231) “is fundamental to genuine communication because communicative

competence is the ability not only to formulate grammatically correct utterances, but also to

signal interactional strategies, such as interrupting, asking for clarification, taking the floor,

changing the subject, concluding an argument or constraining a hearer to reply”. Yales (2003)

cites Taylor (1993:2) who acknowledges this view and states that “While one would hesitate to

say that any aspect of intonation is not learnable, it certainly seems to be the case that some

aspects at least are not teachable, in as much as any English intonation acquired by non-native

learners seems in most cases to have been picked up naturally rather than learned as a result of

any formal teaching. We must concentrate, then, on those aspects which can be presented

clearly and understandable, in a way that makes sense to both teachers and learners and even

many non-native teachers to grasp”.

These aspects may vary but Walker (2011) describes his own experience with a group

of Spanish learners of English and expresses his preference over the teaching of some minimal

pairs using L1 phonetic awareness as a very effective resource. In this way, contrastive analysis

has given way to a wider scope elucidating the differences between the two phonological

systems.

In Argentina, pronunciation is taught incidentally because it does not have a central

position within the EFL curricula. Teachers rely on some textbooks which offer a pronunciation

component that serves as a teaching guide but that is all. Yates’ citation in Mac Donald (2001)

confirms this assertion: “There is a tendency to regard pronunciation as only needing attention

when it causes problems”.

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Assignment - TP

There follows a framework (Celce-Murcia et al, 1996) for teaching pronunciation

communicatively which teachers may resource to:

Planning Stage:

1. What the teacher needs to know:

a. information about the features (articulation rules, occurrences in discourse, etc.)

b. potential problems for students (often based on typical errors by learners from

particular language backgrounds)

c. pedagogical priorities (how important a given feature is for students vis-à-vis their

communicative needs).

2. What the student needs to know (of the foregoing information, what should be

communicated to the students)

Teaching Stage

1. Description and analysis (e.g. oral and written illustrations of when and how

the feature occurs in order to raise learner consciousness)

2. Listening discrimination (focused listening practice with feedback)

3. Controlled practice and feedback (e.g. oral reading of minimal pair sentences, short

dialogues, etc., with special attention paid to the highlighted feature)

4. Guided practice and feedback: (e.g. structured communication exercises that enable

the learner to monitor for the specified feature: such as information gap activities,

cued dialogues) learner to monitor for the specified feature, such as information gap

activities, cued dialogues)

5. Communicative practice and feedback (e.g. less structured activities that require the

learner to attend to both form and content of utterances).

Teachers must use computer technology to create an environment which encourages

communication. Students themselves can now create audiovisual files of authentic

speaking materials allowing them to make progress at their own pace in private or semi

private environment. Songs, formulaic expressions, choral repetitions, exposure to

authentic materials, Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, videos (split viewing, video

dictogloss), podcasts (e.g. podomatic), voice recognition devices, (Voicethread.com;

English central offers one on line that grade your utterances against a native model) also

offer learners opportunities to practice speaking comprehensibly..

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Assignment - TP

Teaching Pronunciation in the English Department at my University implies as

Darcy, Ewert and Lidster propose, a differentiation in levels of proficiency:

Low-levels: segmental features with high functional load, vowel duration and in the

suprasegmental domain, the explanation of English as a stress-timed (the amount of

time it takes to say something does not depend on the numberof syllables) language

contrasting Spanish, which is syllable-timed (each syllable is given the same stress).

Mid-levels: Awareness of the importance of stress and intonation in connected

speech.

High –levels: Attention to form while focusing on meaning. Awareness of academic

registers.

Motivation, self confidence, enjoyment are all psychological factors that totally

influence our students but according to Stevick (1991:116), “the work that makes the

difference is the work that the student does within himself. (…) The teacher, through

skill and persistence, may bring about some temporary changes beyond this limit

(Interlanguage), but the student will show deep (and then unconscious) resistance

toward making these changes permanent in this speech outside of the pronunciation

lesson”. Truth to be told in Emmerson’s words: “nothing great was ever achieved

without enthusiasm”.

Bibliography:

Brown, A. (1992) A Survey of Attitudes and Teaching Practices Related to Pronunciation Teaching. Professional Development Unit, Adult Migrant Education Service - W.A.

 Celce-Murcia, M. Brinton, D, Goodwin, J. (1996) Teaching Pronunciation: A

Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of other languages. Cambridge

University Press. NY

Chela Flores, B. (2001) Pronunciation and language learning: An integrative

approach. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 39, 85-101.

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Derwing, T.M. & Munro, M.J. (1997). Accent, comprehensibility and intelligibility:

Evidence from four L1s. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, 1-16.

Derwing T, Munro M., (1995).Second Language Accent and Pronunciation teaching: A

Research- based Approach. TESOL Quarterly, 39, p379-398.

Gilbert, J. (2008) Teaching Pronunciation Using the Prosody Pyramid. CUP. USA

Jenkins, J. (2000) The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Kachru, B. (1982) Models for non-native Englishes. The other Tongue: English Across Cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Levis, J. (2011). Assessing speech intelligibility: Experts lisn to two students. In J. Leis

& K. Le Velle (Eds) Proceedings of the 2nd Pronunciation in Secon Language Learning

and Teaching Conference, Sept. 2010, Ames, IA: Iowa State Universisty.

Munro, M. J. (2011:13). Intelligibility: Buzzword or buzzworthy?. In. J. Levis & K.

LeVelle (Eds.). Proceedings of the 2nd Pronunciation in Second Language Learning

and Teaching Conference, Sept. 2010. (pp.7-16),Ames, IA: Iowa State University

Smith, L., & Nelson, C. (1985). International intelligibility of English: Directions

and resources. World Englishes, 4, 333–342.

Stevick. (1991) “Toward a practical philosophy of pronunciation : another view”.

Teaching English Pronunciation: A Book of Readings. London. Routledge.

Wennerstrom, A (2001). The Music of Everyday Speech: Prosody and Discourse

Analysis. Oxford University Press. NY.

Webography:

Chela-Flores, B. Otimizing the teaching of English suprasegmentals.Universidad Simón

Bolívar.Caracas,Venezuela retrieved from

http://www.publicacions.ub.edu/revistes/bells12/PDF/art02.pdf on

February 19th, 2013.

Darcy I., Ewert D., Lister R. “Bringing pronunciation instruction back into the classroom”. An ESL Teachers' pronunciation "toolbox". Indiana University retrieved from http://www.iub.edu/~psyling/papers/DarcyEwertLidster_2011ProceedingsPSLLT_webversion.pdf on February 20th, 2013.

Emmerson, R (1802-1882) retrieved from

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/29687.html on February 20th, 2013

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Fraser, H. 2000. Coordinating Improvements in Pronunciation Teaching for

Adult Learners of English as a Second Language. Canberra: DETYA (ANTA

Innovative Project) retrieved from http://helenfraser.com.au/downloads/ANTA

%20REPORT%20FINAL.pdf on February, 19th, 2013.

Mac Donald, S. Pronunciation – views and practices of reluctant teachers. La Trobe University. Retrieved from

http://www.ameprc.mq.edu.au/docs/prospect_journal/volume_17_no_3/17_3_1_MacDona

ld.pdf February 20th.

Maum R (2002), JCPS Adult and Continuing Education. Nonnative-English-Speaking

Teachers in the English Teaching Profession retrieved from

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0209maum.html on February 20th, 2013.

Yates, Karen. Teaching linguistic mimicry to improve second language

pronunciation.. Denton, Texas. UNT Digital Library.

http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4164/. Accessed February 19, 2013.

Walker, R. (2011). Pronunciation for International Intelligibility. Blackboard Webinar

on December 14th retrieved from http://oupeltglobalblog.com/2011/12/ on February 20th,

2013

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Name and surname(s): Fabiana Emilia MallonLogin:ARFPMTFL972619Group:31Date:February 28, 2013

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