Student: Phạm Khánh Linh

Class: CT1- 05

ASSIGNMENT
Subject: Teaching Methodology
Teacher: Đoàn Minh Nguyệt
Topic: About Teaching Pronunciation
Length: 2000 words
Teacher’s comment:

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1, Introduction
 The role of pronunciation in the different schools of language
teaching has varied widely from having virtually no role in the
grammar-translation method to being the main focus in the audio-
lingual method where emphasis is on the traditional notions of
pronunciation, minimal pairs, drills and short conversations. The
pronunciation class was one that gave primary attention to
phonemes and their meaningful contrasts, environmental
allophonic variations, and combinatory phonotactic rules, along
with ...attention to stress, rhythm, and intonation. In many
language programmes the teaching of pronunciation was pushed
aside, as many studies concluded that little relationship exists
between teaching pronunciation in the classroom and attained
proficiency in pronunciation; the strongest factors found to affect
seem to have little to do with classroom activities.
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

 English pronunciation has various components such as sounds,

stress, and variation in pitch, and the learner needs to understand
the function of these as well as their form. Once learners are
aware that English words have a stress pattern, that words can be
pronounced in slightly different ways, that the pitch of the voice
can be used to convey meaning, then they will know what to pay
attention to and can build upon this basic awareness.

2, What’s Pronunciation?
• Pronunciation : the way in which we pronounce a word (or we
make the sound of word)

• Pronunciation refers to:

- The way a word or a language is usually spoken;
- The manner in which someone utters a word.
• The concept of ‘ pronunciation ‘ may be said to include:

- The sounds of the langguage, or phonology

- Stress and rhythm
- Intonation

3, The objective of learning

Pronunciation:
Why you should study English
pronunciation?
First impressions

Pronunciation is definitely the biggest thing that people notice

when you are speaking English. Let us tell you a personal
anecdote about this:
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

Notice that we just said three words, and the teacher could already
tell if our English was good or bad. Why did the teacher think our
English was good? Because of the difficult words we used? No.
Because we used advanced grammar structures? No. It was our
pronunciation.

When you meet a person, and you just say a sentence or two, do
you think they will notice your poor vocabulary or bad grammar?
Probably not. But they will notice if your pronunciation is good or
bad. If your pronunciation is poor, they will immediately think
about you as "the guy/girl who speaks bad English". Your
pronunciation creates the first impression you make.

Communication

Good pronunciation should be one of the first things that you learn in
English. You can live without advanced vocabulary — you can use
simple words to say what you want to say. You can live without
advanced grammar — you can use simple grammar structures
instead. But there is no such thing as "simple pronunciation". If you
don't have good pronunciation, you have... bad pronunciation.

And the results of bad pronunciation are tragic. Even if you use great
vocabulary and grammar, people may simply not understand
what you want to say.

 How to learn English pronunciation

1. Learn the sounds of English

English uses different sounds than other languages. For

example, the first sound in the word thin and the first sound in the
word away are never heard in many languages.
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

Therefore, you have to:

1. know all the English sounds

2. listen to how they sound in real words and sentences

3. practice your pronunciation — listen to English words and

sentences, and try to repeat them as well as you can

4, How to avoid making mistakes in

English
Learners make mistakes and reinforce them because they produce
sentences 1) too carelessly or 2) too early. You will avoid mistakes if
you follow a couple of rules:

Rules of error-free speaking and writing

1. Use simple language. Some beginners try to build very complicated

sentences with things like the present perfect tense or conditionals.
They make horrible mistakes. Don't do this! If you've just started to
speak or write in English, you should say what you can say (simple
sentences that you have seen many times) — not what you want to
say (complicated sentences). You may feel you're talking like a child
or that you are not expressing your thoughts, but don't worry about
it. Right now, your task is not to express your thoughts freely; your
task is to learn the language.

2. Be slow and careful. In the beginning, you should write very slowly.
If you need 2 hours to write an e-mail message with 10 correct
sentences, that's okay. That's how long it should take if you're just
starting to write.

Why should it take so long? Because you should read your sentences
many times, looking for mistakes. You should correct your own
sentences frequently. You should check if your sentences are correct
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

by using a dictionary and the Web. And you should look for example
sentences to imitate.

3. If you're not sure how to say something, don't say it. If you
can't say something correctly, it's almost always better not to say it.
You don't want to teach yourself the wrong way to say it. You can try
to look for the correct sentence in a dictionary or on the Web (see
next point), but when speaking, usually you don't have time for that.
So it's a good idea to say something else — something that you know
is correct. It can even be something on a different subject.

4. When writing, always look things up. Whenever you're not sure
how to use a word, look it up in a good dictionary to find example
sentences with it. When you've written something, and you are not
sure if it's correct, search for it on the Web with Google. If many
pages contain your phrase, then it is probably correct. Dictionaries
and Google should be your everyday tools, and you should use them
even many times in one sentence (especially if you've just begun
writing in English).

5. Know where you can screw up. Sometimes learners don't even
realize how different English is from their native language. When
speaking, they translate word for word from their native language,
and they think their sentences are okay.

When reading or listening in English, pay close attention to things like

word order, articles, prepositions, and tenses. Compare sentences in
English with equivalent sentences in your native language. Notice the
differences in words and in word order. This will make you more
careful when speaking in the foreign language, because you will
realize which parts of your sentences can be wrong and should be
double-checked.
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

5, Integrating pronunciation into

classroom activities

Pronunciation work has traditionally taken a secondary role in

language teaching to work on grammar and more recently
lexis. This is not surprising, however; like all other areas of
language teaching, pronunciation needs constant attention
for it to have a lasting affect on students, which means
integrating it into daily classroom procedures.

• Using student talk to teach pronunciation

• Word stress

• Vowel sounds

• Diphthongs

• Weak forms

• Sentence stress

• Conclusion

Top of page

6, Some techniques for teaching

Pronunciation:
Exercise should be simple, accessible , fun and combine reception
and production. Some students (usually adults) do feel
embarassed to pull ridiculuous faces when practising vowel sounds
(this may be personal or cultural or both) but I have generally
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

found that this soon passes and students enjoy the pronunciation
work. Where possible, exercises should be communicative in that
they should (and do generate differences of opinion and
disagreement about what was said/heard. Below are two
examples.

Exercise A :

After having taught or exposed the students to long and short

vowels through listening and oral work, the teacher can check
recognition, retention and ability to discriminate in the following
way. This could also be used simply for teaching.

Stage 1 :
The teacher writes a variety of words containing the target sounds
(long and short vowels) on the board. The following is just one
possible set.
PORT PIT PAT PERT PET POT PUTT PUT PART PEAT
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Here, the only difference in sound is that of the vowel - familiar to
anyone who has done minimal pair work. As in these examples,
the word should begin and end with the same consonant. 0, 3, 8,
and 9, are long vowels and the rest are short.

Stage 2 :
The teacher then models each word and individal repetition
follows. The vowel sound can be isolated and the procedure
repeated until the teacher is reasonably sure that there are no
major problems. He or she then tells the students that they are
going to hear one of the words and must write the number which
corresponds to the word they hear. What the students have written
is then checked and compared.
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

This automatically leads into a discussion of what they heard and

what sounds they are confusing. If student X heard1 when the
teacher said 9, they are confusing the short vowel / I / with the
long vowel / i: / . The teacher gives feedback and the sounds may
then be modelled again and practised.

Stage 3:
Two or three words are then presented together and the procedure
repeated. The teacher then tells the class they are going to hear
six words and that the numbers correspond to an important
telephone number. The teacher delivers the words and asks ,
"What's my number?". Again there will be differences in what was
heard. This allows a focus on which sounds are not being
discriminated effectively by which students and where their
problems lie. Later discussion may revolve aroud what strategies
students may employ to improve their discrimination skills - songs,
minimal pair games with friends, movies, radio, etc.

Stage 4:
Learners are then invited to model the telephone number. This
stage usually generates much discussion and disagreement along
the lines of - "You said ...... ", "No I did'nt ", "Say it again" and so
on and is usually very lively. The teacher is, of course, the final
arbiter of what was really said. The important thing is that the
learners are thinking actively about their pronunciation and how to
repair it if necessary. They also begin to hear themselves (often for
the first time) and this is of immeasurable importance in the
retention of sounds.
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

Some Conclusions

1. The exercise allows clear practice in production and reception and

gives concise feedback to individual learners as to where their
problems lie in these areas and how to repair them. Often these
are very simple physical questions such as not roundig the lips as
in / u: / in fool , which the teacher can help them focus on.
2. This, in turn, allows discussion on learning strategies for
pronunciation which can be drawn up it the classroom.
3. It is a communicative exercise as it involves disagreement, repair
and ( hopefully !) agreement among other things.
4. Many language learners feel self concious and negative about their
pronunciation . To effectively deal with this question in the class
and enable learners to see an improvement, is invariably a great
psychological boost.
5. I have used these activities with learners from many different
cultural and language backgrounds and they have invariably been
seen as both very useful and fun.
6. As teachers, we are often not the best judges of the accuracy of
our students' pronunciation . We are accustomed to it and usually
very tolerant when in general, native speakers are not. Such
exercises help us to be more aware of real problems learners have
in their oral production and to help to correct them.
7. Such activities should be an integral part of any language teaching
programme as they make pronunciation an active element of the
learning process and focus learners on the language they are
producing.

*** Below are tips for pronunciation activities you can do

with your students, including links to printable resources and
games and links to related web sites. Enjoy!
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

• Poetry
• Drama
• Bingo
• Contrastive stress
• Pronunciation Partners
• Humming
• Pronuciation Scavenger Hunts

Example utterances

Student A Student B

I like pizza, pickles, and Not all together, I hope.

chips.
(list intonation)

Would you prefer coffee Tea, please.

or tea?
(choice intonation)

Would you like some ice No, thank you. I'm not
cream and cake? hungry.
(double-rising
intonation)

Next week we are flying Really? How long will

to Rome. you be there?
(falling intonation)

Is he going to the Yes. He has a toothache

dentist?
(rising intonation)

Pronuciation Scavenger Hunts. These are so fun and

successful that they deserve a section of their own.

Segmentals • Ask students to find as many objects as they can

with a specific vowel or consonant sound. If the
weather is nice, send them outside. Bring in
books or magazines with lots of pictures to
stimulate their minds.

Example: Find things in the classroom that have

 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

an /r/ sound.

• room
• clock
• blackboard

• eraser
• Have students compete to build syllable
pyramids. The teacher gives a topic (clothing,
objects in the classroom, animals, food, etc.) and
students race to build a pyramid. (One syllable
word at the top, the a 2-syllable word, 3-syllable
Syllables
word, etc.) Download the worksheet.

Note: This idea is adapted from a presentation

Holly saw at TESOL. If anyone knows the origin
of this activity, we'd love to give credit.
• Put students in groups and send them outside for
a specified period of time. Tell them to find as
many things in nature with 1,2,3,4 or more
syllables or with certain word stress patterns as
Word Stress they can. (Example: tree, squirrel, waterfall, etc.)

• Have students find examples of items that can be

combined to form a new compound noun. (i.e.
snow + ball = snowball)

7, Testing Pronunciation
What to test
- Sound recognition
- Sound production
- Usage in context
- Stress/intonation/rhythm
- Pausing/phrasing

It's a good idea to rotate the starting team with each round
because otherwise, students will start changing their guesses
 Student: Phạm Khánh Linh
Class: CT1- 05

to match the pronunciation of winning team. I usually do just

ten words and then award candy to the team with the most
points. Students really start to be careful about their
pronunciation when points are involved!

8, Conclusion
Improve your American English pronunciation quickly, easily,

and effectively with the simplest and most practical program

available. No matter what your level of English is - or if

you're trying to lessen a strong regional accent - this

program will help you sound more natural and communicate

with greater ease and confidence.

Better pronunciation means cleaner communication - at

school, on the job, or in any social setting. Easy

Pronunciation is practical, convenient, and simple to use. The

explanations are clear enough for anyone to understand, and

there's plenty of practice to get every sound just right. All

you have to do is listen and repeat.