Teach English in Wanghe Zhen - Tianshui Shi

PRONUNCIATION: ? Most neglected in English language as well as applied phonetics. Most pronunciation concentrates on individual sounds. Teaching pronunciation is most integral part of teaching. Skilled pronunciation teaching reflects feelings & personal reactions to different situations. Pronunciation depends on the situation & mood of speaker. PHONOLOGY: DEFINITION: Study of science, analysis & classification of the physical properties of sound. Terms ?phonetics? & ?phonology? are used interchangeably but phonology used to indicate whole sound system of particular language i.e. the phonology of English. INTONATION: The variation in volume & pitch in whole sentence whereas stress is more concerned with individual words. Intonation carries message in a sentence. Particularly important in questioning, agreeing, disagreeing, confirming statements. Also fundamental in expression of emotions/feelings i.e. sadness, happiness, disbelief, uncertainty etc. ?Normal pattern of intonation in a statement is rise/fall intonation. With falling intonation you are indicating that you have finished what you want to say. When you finished what you want to say intonation falls ? in positive & negative statements, questions, greetings, instructions. If person is being addressed wants to reply they can ? it?s up to them. ?Second common intonation pattern is fall/rise pattern. This indicates surprise & disagreement, but above all indicates the speaker wants the person to whom he?s speaking to respond or confirm. A fall/rise pattern can also indicate the speaker hasn?t yet finished what he /she has to say. ?Lastly level intonation which is basically flat which often indicates speaker doesn?t really have that much to say & perhaps doesn?t want to communicate. Intonation patterns can be powerful predictions of nature of forthcoming information. Example of newsreader reading football/soccer results. This can be used as classroom activity to attune students ears to intonation by predicting results. The teacher & then students take turns ?reading the results? This is how reader sounds, pausing between name of each club & number of goals they have scored: ?ARSENAL 3______BOLTEN WANDERERS (rising intonation to 3 & then falling on to Bolton Wanderers, denoting a normal statement with expected information .e. the visitors lost)?..1 ?FULHAM 2_______EVERTON (level intonation, not rising to 2 & falling on Everton to indicate no change of information, Everton scored the same)?.2 ?CHELSEA 2____LIVERPOOL (rising intonation to 2, then starting to fall on Liver but rising on Pool to indicate surprise coming! The reigning champions, playing on their home ground & so expected to win, have in fact been beaten! The speaker has prepared for us a score greater than 2!) ?.4 Intonations in English not a simple matter but if understand the principles of two main patterns then doing ok. TECHNIQUES FOR INDICATING & TEACHING INTONATION: Much difficulty on knowing how to emphasize different parts of sentence. Number of ways to help?. ?Nonsense Words ?By gesture ?Humming or Singing ?The Board STRESS: Consider ?He didn?t mean to kick the dog? Strong part is the stressed words or words that bears the principal emphasis in sentence. In sentences that follow it is also the place in the sentence where the intonation begins to fall. Stressed words are in bold: 1.He didn?t mean to kick that dog, Somebody else meant to do it. 2.He didn?t mean to kick that dog, Here the speaker is contradicting somebody who thinks he did mean to do it. 3.He didn?t mean to kick that dog, He kicked the dog accidently. 4.He didn?t mean to kick that dog, This implies that he meant to do something different. 5.He didn?t mean to kick that dog, He meant to kick a different dog. 6.He didn?t mean to kick that dog, He meant to kick something else nearby. All multi-syllable words in English have one or more parts that are stressed. Which part should it be? Here are some basic rules of words stress in English. 1.One word has only one stress ? can?t have two. There can be a ?secondary? stress in some words but is much smaller than the main (primary) stress & used in longer words. 2.We can only stress syllables. Not individual vowels or consonants. 1.Stress on first syllable: RULE: EXMPLE: Most 2 syllable nouns China, table Most 2 syllable adjectives happy, clever 2.Stress on last syllable: RULE: EXAMPLE: Most 2-syllable verbs create, decide 3.Stress on penultimate syllable: RULE: EXAMPLE: Words ending in ?ic Jurassic, pathetic Words ending in ?sion & -tion television, competition Note table 3 ? for many words the stress can change according to where the native speaker of English is from i.e. television ? television and controversy ? controversy 4.Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate = third from end) RULE: EXAMPLE: Words ending in ?cy, -ty, -phy & -gy democracy, photography, geology Words ending in ?ive relative, comparative Words ending in ?al critical, geological 5.Compound words (words with 2 parts) RULE: EXAMPLE: Compound nouns ? stress is on first part blackbird, post office Compound adjectives, stress is on second part bad-tempered, old-fashioned Compound verbs, stress is on second part understand, overflow LACK OF STRESS: In normal speech more syllables without stress or unstressed than with stress. He?s gone to the supermarket with his friend. The stressed syllables in bold. There would be secondary stress on third syllables of supermarket. Counting that one, there are four stressed syllables & seven unstressed. Rough rule ? only vital syllables in words conveying essential information are stressed. The rest, because needed by grammar are not stressed. Therefore in answer to question ?Where?s Joe?? ? Both syllables stressed ? essential answer info is gone, sup?, friend. Auxiliary verbs in all forms ?be, have, do ? are rarely stressed except for special emphasis i.e. ?He didn?t lose it? (Don?t say he did!) Articles normally unstressed ? a, an, the - and are pronounced like very short ?er with no hint of the ?r? sound ? see the phonemic script ? vowel 36! So pronouns & prepositions normally unstressed i.e.( we know who we are talking about) I told him he looked stupid with a spoon on the top of his hat?.. Six stressed syllables & ten unstressed. TECHNIQUES FOR INDIVCATING & TEACHING STRESS: CONTRASTIVE STRESS: Students can more readily perceive sounds voiced than sounds non voiced. Rising questioning tone easier to recognize when heard before or after a falling tone. Stress on a syllable can be shown by saying it correctly then repeating the word. Important point ? if using this technique that if stress sounds unnaturally it must be repeated normally so that the final thing in students mind is a correct example. BY GESTURE: Clapping, clicking fingers tapping etc. CHORAL WORK: Chanting/singing rhythms of English i.e. ?tit tum titty tum titty tum? THE BOARD: Underlining i.e. He wanted to go STRESS MARKS: He ?wanted? to go. SOUND JOINING: Four major ways: ?Linking: Marble Arch becomes marblarch ?Sound Dropping (t, d): Bond Street becomes bon street ?Sound Changing: Green park becomes Greem Park ?Extra Lettering: Anna and the King becomes Annner and the King Read across: When spoken sounds will be practically identical. Meaning will often be gleaned from context. ?Mice pies my spies ?Send the maid send them aid ?Car pit carpet ?It?s an aim it?s a name ?Ice cream I scream LINKED SPEECH: How it sounds: How it?s written: Where dja wanna go? Where do you want to go? I? leave it ta you. I will leave it to you. Whatcha wanna do? What do you want to do? I don? know now, but I?letcha know. I don?t know, but I will let you know. Whatcha recommend? What do you recommend? This isn?t laziness ? just simply the way native speakers of English speak. The Closer students can get to idea of linking words together the more natural their speech will be. THE PHONEMIC ALPHABET: ?Read poem by George Bernard Shaw One of most problematic areas of pronunciation in English language is spelling of words & their pronunciation often differs. Many words written with similar individual/groups of letters but are pronounced differently. How must students know how to pronounce a new word? Dictionary very helpful ? states meaning of word, gives its class i.e. noun, adjective, verb etc. & gives examples of sentences & provides pronunciation. Words in dictionary also written with strange symbols. These are symbols of international phonemic alphabet. If students familiar with this alphabet should be able to accurately pronounce any word in the dictionary. Easier if students develop understanding & working knowledge of the system. Most important skills when using phonemic alphabet is to forget about the way a word is traditionally spelt & focus on the sounds you make when saying a particular word. Find the symbol that produces each individual sound & put them together to form phonetic spelling. Phonetic alphabet is simply set of symbols that represent the way we English speakers put sound together. Many instances where speaker of English from England will write word phonetically different to compatriot from South of England. Also Australians speak different style of English to Americans. This does not mean different chart for all English should be produced. There is one phonetic symbol chart for all speakers of English i.e. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) ? SEE EXAMPLE WORDS IN INTERNATIONAL PHONEMIC ALPHABET CHART ON PAGE 14 ? PHONEMIC SYMBOLS: SEE pg. 14 ARTICULATION: The Speech Organs: Human speech is complex.. Apart from vocal cords other organs are involved as well: ?Tongue ?Larynx ?Glottis ?Alveolar Ridge ?Hard Palate ?Soft Palate First three items are areas in the mouth Place of Articulation: Linguistics use this phrase to describe physical location of a phoneme?s production. Each is connected to different organ or area. They are: Velar: Soft palate known as velum. When back of tongue is raised a& strikes the velum, velar consonants are produced. Palatal: Central part of tongue comes in close to roof of mouth as in the /j/ sound at the start of yellow Palatal-alveolar: Make /3/ sound. Tip of tongue should be between alveolar ridge ? bony area just behind top of teeth) and palate. Alveolar: Front/tip of tongue is raised towards alveolar ridge. Dental: In English two dental sounds in which tongue is placed between the teeth i.e. ?think? ? ?this? Labio-dental: Word Labio has to do with lips and dental has to do with teeth. In English two consonants produced by having top teeth come into contact with lower lips i.e. /f/ &/v/. Bilabial: bi means ?two? so bilabial means two lips. Several sounds in English are made by putting the lips together like /p/?/b/?/w/. Glottal: opening between vocal cords is called glottis. There is one sound in which air is restricted at the glottis. MANNER OF ARTICULATION: Plosive Fricative Nasal Lateral Affricate Approximant ? SEE CHART MANNER & PLACE OF ARTICULATION pg.19 TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR THE PRONUNCIATION OF INDIVIDUAL SOUNDS: Peer Dictation: Students read or speak words for partner to write down. Is an effective way for students to analyze pronunciation problems? Your Own Mouth: Over-emphasising individual parts of word beneficial, allowing students to see closely what your mouth is doing. As with contrastive stress you need to finish by pronouncing word normally. Visuals: Draw diagram of the mouth showing how particular sound is made. ? See examples pg. 20. Phonemes: Symbols for common/difficult sounds can be introduced to help note down problem areas more easily. Tongue Twisters: WHEN TO TEACH PRONUNCIATION: Teachers must decide when to include pronunciation work into lessons. Different teachers have different ideas. Most common are: Whole lesson: Some teachers like to devote whole lesson working on student?s needs. Lesson Slots: Some prefer to slot a certain amount of pronunciation into a lesson. As and when Required: Some deal with pronunciation issues as they come up in class. Recommended materials for practice in English Pronunciation, stress & intonation are: Elements of Pronunciation by Colin Mortimer Headway Pronunciation Series by Sarah Cunningham, Bill Bowler & Sue Parminter In the end?.be realistic in our teaching & be prepared to accept intelligibility instead of perfection.