Whaddaya Say? Using Yourself as a

Reference for Teaching

Pronunciation

MELL Conference, 2010Cheryl Eason

University of Central Missouri<eason@ucmo.edu>

Participants will be able to:

1. Identify why we speak as we do.

2. Describe how we articulate sounds,

morphemes and sentences that are

difficult for learners.

Participants will be able to:

3. Use what we discover and a few

simple tools to help learners.

“Grandma’s Going to the

Grocery Store”

from Carolyn Graham’s

Jazz Chants for Children

P&R’s metaphor

Many syllables between strong stresses:

drop sounds, syllables

reducevowels

blend sounds

Strong stresses close together:

pause

elongate vowels

Tools/Process

• Existing knowledge

• Mirror, cork/stopper,

mouth

• Thoughtful reflection

• Informed decision

making

Target: Phonemes /l/ and /r/

Articulatory descriptions:

/l/ alveolar lateral liquid

/r/ alveopalatal retroflex liquid

(approximants)

Sagittal drawings

Avery & Ehrlich (1992)

Positional variations of /l/

Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin (1996)

/l/ articulations

• Syllable initial: lie, low

– (Assimilation!)

• Syllable final: lid versus dill

• Initial clusters: blue, sly, clean, glass

• Final clusters: sells, build, field

/r/ articulations

• Syllable initial: reed, rule

– (Assimilation!)

• Syllable final: reed versus deer

• Initial clusters: try, cry, prince

Listening to /l/ & /r/

• This isn’t a good lime/rhyme.

• Collect/correct the papers.

• It was lost in the file/fire.

Nilsen & Nilsen (2010)

Target: Phoneme /t/

Articulatory description:

Voiceless alveolar stop

Sagittal drawing

Avery & Ehrlich (1992)

/t/ articulations

• Syllable initial: tea, tool

– (Assimilation!)

• Syllable final: eat, oat

• Initial clusters: steam, tree

• Mid-word: little, button, eat it

• Final clusters: fist, fits, cents

Allophones of /t/

Parker & Riley (1994)

Target: Past tense morphemes

What we teach--citation forms:

• Looked, packed, pushed (voiceless)

• Clogged, pleased (voiced)

• Potted or kidded (/d/ or /t/)

What do we say--in context?

• He packed the bag.

– Affricate.

• The clogged drain is in the kitchen.

• His response pleased John.

– Disappeared? Merged? Elongated?

• They pushed some tables together.

Same with the plural morpheme?

• Rules we teach: cats, bags, buses,

badges

• The cats are under the bed.

• The bags take up the whole trunk.

• Those buses don’t stop here.

Numbers

Listening &

speaking

confusion

Fifteen or fifty?

• Ten-fifteen or ten-fifty? Fifteen dollars

of fifty dollars?

• What do we say?

• Context:

– Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen (Stress?)

– Fifty or fifteen? (Stress? /t/ in fifty)

Ordinal numbers

• Tenth Avenue

• Sixth Street

• Fifth Street

• The fifth time

Listening to Numbers

• You owe me seventeen/seventy cents.

• Be there at ten fifteen/fifty.

• Thirteen/thirty percent of the students

speak Spanish.

Target: Vowels in Unstressed Syllables

Now you see ‘em . . .

• Camera, chocolate, restaurant,

interesting, family, every, comparable

• Camera, chocolate, restaurant,

inteeresting, family, every, comparable

– Unstressed, middle of multisyllabic word,

preceding syllable stressed

Target:

Vowels in

front

of /l/ and /r/

Coloring--vowels + /r/ or /l/

• Compare: knee & near, ow &

hour/our

• Put & pull, eye and aisle/isle

• Coloring = + schwa /l/ or

schwa /r/ (hire & higher)

Coloring--vowels + /r/ or /l/

• knee & near: /niy/ & /niər/

• ow & hour/our: /aw/ &

/awər/

• put & pull: /pʊt/ & /pʊl/

• eye and aisle: /ay/ & /ayəl/

Fun & fern--/ə/ & /ər/

Modisett & Luter (1988)

Target:

Questions--

Whaddaya

say?

Whaddaya say?

• What’s your name?

– Whuh cher name?

• Where are you going?

– Where ya goin’?

Whaddaya say?

• What did you do with it?

– Whuh juh do wi--it?

• What do you need?

– Whuh duh ya need?

– Whuh chuh need?

Whaddaya say?

• You had it first, didn’t you?

– Din--cha? Di--n--ya?

• It’s there, isn’t it?

– I--ni--?

The greatest tools at our disposal

Problems your students have?

References

• Avery, P. & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching

American English. Oxford: Oxford.

• Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M., & Goodwin,

J. M. (1996). Teaching pronunciation: A

reference for teachers of English to speakers

of other languages. Cambridge: Cambridge.

(2nd ed.--2010)

References

• Graham, C. (1979). Jazz chants for children.

New York: Oxford.

• Modisett, N. F., & Luter, J. G., Jr. (1988).

Speaking clearly: The basics of voice and

articulation (3rd ed.) Edina, MN: Burgess.

• Nilsen, D. L. F., & Nilsen, A. P. (2010).

Pronunciation contrasts in English (2nd ed.)

Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

References

• Parker, F., & Riley, K. (1994). Linguistics for

non-linguists: A primer with exercises (2nd

ed.) Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

• Prator, C. H., & Robinett, B. W. (1985).

Manual of American English pronunciation

(4th ed.) Fort Worth: Holt.

References

• Temperly, M. S. (1987). “Linking and deletion

in final consonant clusters.” In J. Morley

(Ed.), Current perspectives on pronunciation

(pp. 59-82). Washington, D.C.: TESOL.

• Weinstein, N. (2001). Whaddaya say?

Guided practice in relaxed speech (2nd ed.).

White Plains, NY: Longman.