Section 1 Teaching Pronunciation

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I.Thinking

【Case Reflection】

Mr M, a junior middle school English teacher, is very strict with his students' pronunciation. He thinks that teaching English pronunciation is mainly teaching basic English speech sounds. If students read phonetic symbols, letters of the alphabet and words correctly, they will, according to Mr M, have good pronunciation. When students pronounce words incorrectly, Mr M always carefully explains the details of the pronunciation and corrects every mistake his students make. But after a term, his students' oral English has not improved and it is still very difficult for them to express themselves fluently in English.

2.What do you think are the problems in Mr M's approach to teaching pronunciation?

II.What is Teaching Pronunciation?

(I) Significance of teaching pronunciation

Pronunciation is the heart of language and the source of its development. It is the external expression of a language, and it is one of the three main components of language. Learning English pronunciation directly or indirectly influences and affects the development of skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Relative to the learning of vocabulary and grammar, errors in the learning of pronunciation and intonation are more likely to become fossilized. Many adult English learners find that they can make rapid progress in most aspects of language acquisition, but have trouble with pronunciation. Therefore, in elementary and middle schools, pronunciation teaching should be carried out in a highly effective manner to enable students to understand and master pronunciation and intonation well enough to use it with competence.

(II) Goals of teaching pronunciation

The goals in learning pronunciation vary according to the different stages in foundational education. According to the National Curriculum Standards, the goals of teaching pronunciation in elementary, junior and senior middle schools are as follows:

Table 9-1 Goals of teaching pronunciation in each stage in basic education

To sum up, the goals in learning pronunciation should reflect the stages of language learning, developing from the mastery of pronunciation knowledge to the cultivation of skilled pronunciation measured by how clearly one can express oneself. The ultimate goals of learning English pronunciation are for students to understand what speakers are really saying based on the different features of pronunciation; and to use pronunciation correctly to express their own intentions, feelings and objectives in communication.

(III) Teaching pronunciation

Teaching pronunciation includes the following:

1.Pronunciation knowledge and skills

Pronunciation mainly covers pronunciation knowledge and pronunciation skills. Knowledge includes phonemes, the phonetic alphabet, letters and syllables; skills include stress, strong and weak forms, linking, aspiration, reduction, assimilation, incomplete plosion, intonation and rhythm.

2.Pronunciation pragmatics

Pronunciation pragmatics refers to different meanings in the same or different contexts. A sentence achieves different meanings through the use of different stresses, rhythm and intonation. The same words can, in short, produce different meanings in the same context.

For example, “excuse me” expresses different attitudes if spoken with different intonation.

Excuse me. → The level intonation is used to show courtesy in order to be forgiven.

Excuse me. ↗The rising intonation is used to express the speaker's impatience, and thus the politeness implied in this sentence disappears.

(IV) Similarities and differences between English and Chinese pronunciation and the influence on pronunciation teaching

Foreign language learning is always through the filter of one's native language. If native language knowledge and skills have the effect of promoting foreign language learning, this is called positive transfer. If, on the other hand, they impede foreign language learning, it is referred to as negative transfer. English and Chinese languages belong to the Indo-European Language Family and Sino-Tibetan Language Family respectively, and between these two families there are considerable differences in pronunciation. In addition, China has a vast territory, and its different dialects have different effects on the learning of English pronunciation. Such similarities and differences between the native language and the target language should be taken into consideration when teaching pronunciation. Contrastive analysis should be adopted to make use of similar pronunciations to promote pronunciation learning. The differences should also be considered to avoid negative transfer.

1.Similarities

There are many similarities in how the phonemes are pronounced in both Chinese and English. For example, the two languages have the same phonemes /b, p, t, d, k, g, h/. The pronunciation of initials sh, ch, zh, r, c in Chinese is similar to the consonants /ʃ, tʃ, dʒ, r, ts/in English. The pronunciation of final ong in Chinese is similar to the consonant /ŋ/in English, but is longer than the English counterpart. The similarities of the two languages can help students master knowledge of English pronunciation with relative ease.

2.Differences

The main differences between the two languages are the character and composition of phonemes. What characterizes English pronunciation is that most of its phonemes are “tense”, while Chinese ones are mostly “relaxed”. In the structure of phonemes, there are 12 pure vowels in English, with only 6 in Chinese. English phonemes can be distinguished from each other in length, while Chinese phonemes cannot. The two languages are different in the vocal composition of vowels and consonants and those that appear similar are different to some extent in the way the phoneme is produced vocally. Examples are the s in Chinese and /s/in English, o in Chinese and /ɑː//ə/in English, c in Chinese and /ts//tr/in English. In Chinese there is some pinyin which is similar to some English phonetic symbols in form, but which is different in pronunciation. For example, students consider/e/in English to be the equivalent of the pinyin e in Chinese, so they read/bed/as /bəd/. There are differences between English and Chinese in the structure, stress, length and speed of syllables, rhythm, the voicing of consonants; and intonation and tones. All of these may hinder Chinese students, to a greater or lesser extent, from learning accurate English pronunciation.

III.Models of Teaching Pronunciation

(I) Models of teaching pronunciation

With research in second language acquisition theory and the development of teaching theories, the teaching of pronunciation has undergone significant changes since the 1950's. The teaching focus has shifted emphasis from teaching individual phonemes to teaching supra-segmental phonemes. The approach to practice has developed from mechanical pronunciation to meaningful communicative practice.

1.Pronunciation teaching from a behaviorist perspective

Behaviorist learning theory regards learning as the link between stimulus and response. Its thesis is that a stimulus will come to produce a fixed response after a period of conditioned practice. Under the influence of this theory, mechanical practice was widely adopted in teaching pronunciation from the 1950's to the 1960's. It incorporated an emphasis on listening, distinguishing sounds and developing pronunciation accuracy. The teaching stressed standardization of pronunciation, from the pronunciation of letters and the learning of phonemes to the repetition and imitation of sentences and dialogues, and students' errors were, as a matter of course, corrected the moment they happened.

2.The effect of the theory of Contrastive Analysis on pronunciation

Contrastive Analysis in pronunciation explains and predicts students' difficulties in their foreign language learning through the analysis of similarities and differences between the native and foreign languages. Pronunciation teaching from the 1960's to the 1970's mainly focused on contrastive analysis and contrastive practice using the similarities and differences in pronunciation between the students' native language and English. Methods used included phonological and pronunciation charts explaining the mouth shape and tongue positions to help students understand the pronunciation differences between their mother tongue and the foreign language being learned. The goals of teaching pronunciation under contrastive analysis were not confined to isolated vowels and consonants, but developed to higher level pronunciation to cover sentence stress, linking, rhythm, intonation and so on.

3.The effect of the Communicative Approach on teaching pronunciation

Communicative Language Teaching Methodology advocates authenticity in teaching contexts and language materials, and proposes learning language as a communicative process. During the rise of Communicative Teaching Methodology in the 1970's, there were linguists who pointed out that the difficulties caused by incorrect stress, intonation and rhythm would bring greater obstacles to listeners' understanding in their daily communication than those of inaccurate pronunciation of individual sounds. Therefore, the teaching focus was shifted from the pronunciation of phonemes and words to linking, assimilation, contraction, elision, word and sentence stress, rhythm and intonation, etc. (Xu Luzhi, 2004) . It became the practice to combine the teaching of pronunciation with communicative and interactive learning activities and language functions, but analysis and interpretation of pronunciation rules were rarely provided.

4.The effect of Humanistic learning theory on teaching pronunciation

Humanistic psychology, which arose in the 1960's, advocated that teaching should meet students' needs, and should be concerned with their feelings, potentials, and physical and mental development. Pronunciation teaching affected by this theory pays more attention to emotional factors in the learning process. Hence, teaching materials affected by this are designed to meet students' interests, and reduce their tension while learning. Teachers avoid publically correcting students' pronunciation mistakes and try, instead, to guide students towards self-correction.

(II) Principles of teaching pronunciation

Teaching pronunciation should follow the principles of accuracy, long-term development, comprehensiveness, pertinence, interest, communication, and authenticity.

1.Accuracy

Accuracy is the primary principle in teaching pronunciation. Teachers should ensure, through a range of teaching techniques, that student pronunciation is accurate and standardized. They should adopt success-oriented teaching methods, diverse teaching techniques, and start from the basics of the mechanism and position of articulation, so as to enable students to master correct pronunciation and form accurate pronunciation habits.

2.Long-term development

Teaching pronunciation is not just a teaching task for students who have begun to learn; it must run through all stages of elementary, junior and senior middle school. It must be carried out consistently according to the teaching content, tasks and requirements in each of the different stages.

3.Comprehensiveness

Teaching pronunciation is not teaching isolated speech sounds. All aspects including phonemes, phonetic symbols, words, sentences, meanings, and uses should be included. In other words the teaching of pronunciation and language activities based on meaning, communication and interaction, should be integrated together.

4.Pertinence

Pertinence means that the focus of the pronunciation practice should be on particular phonetic needs, and appropriate teaching methods should be used based on specific student pronunciation difficulties which may spring from differences in their mother tongues. For instance, many students from southern China usually pronounce “know” as “low”, “night” as “light”, so teachers should carry out targeted instruction depending on the difficulties experienced by students.

5.Interest

In order to avoid the tedious nature of pronunciation practice, teachers should use methods suited to students' age, maturity and psychological state in the different stages of their learning process. Ways to boost interest include games, contests, tongue twisters, ballads, singing songs, etc. Pronunciation can also be made more interesting by using pictures, cartoons and other teaching aids. Pronunciation teaching should be brief and the methods used should be varied.

6.Communication

Communication means that pronunciation should be put into a particular communicative context to enable students to analyse the meaning of speech; apply the pronunciation knowledge in communication, master skills such as intonation, stress and rhythm; and to express their intentions accurately. The evaluation of pronunciation should be carried out in communication, involving not only the accuracy of pronunciation, but also whether it promotes communication.

7.Authenticity

Students should be given significant exposure to authentic, natural language. Students can easily access audio-visual teaching materials either on the Internet or through modern technology at home, or in the classroom. The teaching of pronunciation should be integrated into meaningful language exercises and task-based language practice. This method enables students to acquire knowledge and achieve their learning goals of meaningful language use.

(III) Specific methods and skills in teaching pronunciation

1.Skill training and pronunciation knowledge

(1) Sound distinguishing

Sound distinguishing practice is primarily to foster students' ability to identify and distinguish different sounds and is the foundation of improving listening skills. Specific methods are as follows:

1) Using minimal pairs: soap—soup set—meet

2) Same or different? Say if the pairs of the words are the same or different: red—red (same) rain—lane (different)

3) Which order? Order the words according to the sequence heard in a listening text: dear—tear—beer—ear dear—tear—beer—ear

4) Odd one out. Identify the word that doesn't fit in a group of words: ship—ship—ship—sheep (The fourth one is different.)

(2) Stress and intonation

Stress is classified into word stress and sentence stress. What is between two stressed syllables is called the stress interval. Intonation usually consists of five types: flat, rising, falling, rising-falling and falling-rising intonations. The practice methods mainly include making use of gestures, raised voice and writing symbols to indicate the stress and intonation on the blackboard.

2.Pronunciation pragmatics

Pronunciation pragmatics improves student pronunciation and intonation skills mainly through the analysis of speech flow in discourse in communicative contexts. This helps students both understand and express their intentions and attitudes reflected in changes in stress and intonation. Specific methods are visual aids, learner self-recording, context practice, reading, reciting, and speaking with visual prompts.