Teach English in Youyilu Jiedao - Tianjin

Phonetics and phonologyPhonetics and phonology are important concepts in any given language; German, spanish, italian, english, etc. It is the root of all languages but the importance it deserves isn?t expressed. Language isn?t taught with sound practice as the first lesson but instead with simple vocabulary and simple pronunciation drills. Dictionaries are books with vocabulary words and definitions but pronunciation symbols next to the words are rarely taught and so never used making the use of dictionaries not worthy. Phonetics and phonology is a language all in its own but deserves up most importance especially with the teaching of a foreign language. Phonetics and phonology are two different branches in the study of sound. Phonetics is the production of speech sounds by humans without having prior study of the language being spoken. On the other hand, phonology is about patterns of sound, especially patterns of sound in different languages or within a language or between words. As you can see, phonetics and phonology are two branches of linguistics, phonetics focusing on theories of speech production and perception, and phonology focusing on the systems of rules that determine how the sounds of a language combine and influence one another. Creating a great importance and need for the study of phonetics and phonology when studying language. Teaching phonetics and phonology with foreign language can be difficult but there are recommended ways. It seems ironic to teach students how to say words before they know the meaning but meanings have no sense if the word itself can?t be pronounced. To express an example, teaching the word ?best? and ?vest? is very valuable. The pronunciation of ?b? and ?v? in the english language are difficult for foreigners and so frequently misunderstood when said by foreigners. First step would be to teach these two words without definitions, practice drilling as much as possible, familiarizing the tongue with these new sounds and also familiarizing the brain with the sound difference. As mentioned before, what difference would it make if students learned the definitions to the words ?best? and ?vest? when their pronunciations of ?b? and ?v? are nonexistent. The words ?best? and ?vest? are nonexistent or ?b? and ?v? sound the same, creating a wall in communication. So, first step in phonetics and phonology is teaching letters that sound the same before the actual words are taught. Having said how difficult teaching phonetics and phonology can be, those who teach it need passion. Most students will say learning a different language isn?t hard. Students believe it?s all memory and with practice, you can create a sentence before you know it but that isn?t the case. Once students realize they aren?t saying the words correctly or can?t pronounce the word period, a sense of confidence is lost. Teachers need much patience when teaching phonetics and phonology. All language phonetics and phonology are different creating difficulty in those that are foreign. This would mean an extreme amount of drilling, repetition and patience with students that have more difficulty with specific sounds. Students can become unmotivated with the difficulty and that is why teachers need to also be motivators, they need to encourage, be patient and create interest in students so students don?t give up. Students can lose much interest if this section in learning language is lengthened and if students aren?t reminded of the importance of phonetics and phonology. In conclusion, phonetics and phonology are extremely important concepts in the teaching of language. They are two branches to the study of sound, phonetics the production of speech sound by humans and phonology the pattern of sound. When teaching language, it?s more important to teach sound before meaning but it?s not practiced much. Also, those who teach, need much patience, be great motivators, and encourage. Language teaching should create a higher importance to the teaching of phonetics and phonology. Without phonetics and phonology, language teaching is taking a step back and students aren?t and won?t advance as desired. I vote for a higher importance in the teaching of phonetics and phonology in the teaching of language. http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/jcoleman/PHONOLOGY1.htm http://www.lcs.pomona.edu/page15/page1/page1.html