Teach English in Tietong XiAng - Anqing Shi

Pronunciation problems in japanEnglish pronunciation can be a massive hurdle for native speakers of japanese to clear when studying english. The difficulties stem from many factors which range from inadequate teaching practices of the recent past, to the fundamental differences between the sounds that exist in japanese and english. Having spent the past four years teaching EFL to japanese adults in tokyo, I have gained an understanding of how important it is to be able to effectively teach pronunciation. Until recently, for many japanese people, their first english studies took place during junior high school and continued through to the end of high school, a total of six years. Many students were subjected to lessons which were taught solely by non-native english speakers and focused almost entirely on grammar, reading and writing. There was very little work done on pronunciation or conversation skills. This was in a large part due to the teacher's inability to model correct english pronunciation and conversation. In the more recent past, greater efforts were made to bring more native english speakers into the classroom to act as assistants and provide a clear model of their particular english dialect. This approach seemed to have many positive effects in regards to conversational english, but was limited to the individual teachers, their attention to the pronunciation difficulties and their knowledge of effective teaching/correction methods. In more recent times, the demand for professional EFL teachers has risen and a new cast of teachers have been making steady gains towards the goal of helping japanese students overcome their difficulties with spoken english. The fundamental differences between the sounds in english and japanese need to be understood and worked on thoroughly if fluency in english is to be achieved. For the majority of japanese students, the difficulties exist because many sounds in english simply do not exist in japanese, or the english sound is very similar to a sound in japanese and is substituted. Most of the adult students that I have taught have had a tendency to rely on the japanese pronunciation of english words. They substitute the sounds of english with the more comfortable japanese syllables. Again, a lot of this goes back to their formative years of english learning. This type of blended pronunciation becomes habitual and can go unnoticed by the student. As a teacher it is especially helpful to know the patterns if correction is to take place. One of the most common and noticeable substitutions is the addition of a vowel sound at the end of a word. In japanese, the words are built from a finite set of syllables. Of these syllables, only one is a stand alone consonant sound, [n]. All other consonant sounds must be followed by a vowel sound in japanese. This is why many beginner and even some more experienced japanese EFL students tend to have trouble with words that end with a consonant sound, such as 'rent', which often becomes 'rent-o', or 'egg' which becomes 'egg-u'. Aside from adding syllables and blended speech, another challenge that is faced by students is producing sounds that are not found in japanese. The following sounds are an example of just a few of the common consonant sounds that do not exist in japanese and can be a challenge for japanese EFL students: [f] [v] [s] [?] [r] [l] This list is by no means complete, and only includes consonant sounds. When one considers that japanese only has five vowel sounds versus english, which has nearly triple that amount (depending on dialect) plus all the diphthongs you get when vowels are combined, it is easy to see just how challenging pronunciation can be. The most important thing that I have learned when correcting pronunciation is to do it methodically and avoid over correction. A good rule of thumb is to only stop to correct when the meaning is not clear. It is also a good idea to keep note of what sounds present the most difficulty for each student, and then set aside some time in a following lesson to work on those sounds. Incorporating a small amount of time in each class to work on pronunciation can really build your students skill and confidence levels. As with any part of an EFL class, pronunciation lessons should be light, fun, and have a clear, practical aim.