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Name: Akbar Shirini User: teflcoursenet_245414 Course: 60-hour course with tutor By studying linguistics, I have been able to fully understand, decode and overcome many insurmountable hurdles that in long run discourage language learners. One flagrant problem for native Persian speakers learning English is the difference between syllable structures in English and Persian. At least for Persian speakers, the syllable structure rules, e.g. dividing a word into component syllables, are substantially affected by orthography- the spelling of words. All through years of teaching, I have tried to explain the reasons of the difference between these languages and consequently have expected my students to subconsciously master the rules. Having thoroughly studied this course, I have come to the conclusion that I must update some methods of my teaching. Fortunately, according to what I have learned in this course, I applied the updated approach and the results have been much better than ever. Because of NEGATIVE TRANSFERENCE- applying knowledge or structures of L1 in L2-, some consonant clusters are wrongly divided by Persian speakers and consequently wrong pronunciations are produced. This transference is markedly obvious in simple words like ‘between’ and ‘agree’. Instead of producing ‘/bɪˈtwiːn/’ and ‘/əˈgriː/’, Persian speakers produce ‘/ˈbɪt. wiːn/’ and ‘/ˈæg. riː/’, respectively. Although they know how many syllables there are in a word, Persian speakers’ difficulty is saying when one syllable ends and when the subsequent syllable starts. LESSON PLAN: Right pronunciation of some everyday words in English NECESSARY EQUIPMENTS/ MATERIAL: TV monitor, copies, dictionary installed on the class computer LEVEL: pre-intermediate students and higher ENGAGE On the TV monitor, a picture like this is displayed to get the students talking and thinking about what they see. All students are asked to get involved. STUDY To achieve the pre-programmed goals and elicit information on their pronunciation, I ask this question: “There is a cat between spiders. Do you agree?” or similar questions. All students are encouraged to participate in the class. Having analyzed the responses, I continue to introduce ‘SYLLABLE STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH’: (My students already know the difference between CONSONANTS and VOWELS) SYLLABLE STRUCTURE Nucleus: is a vowel Onset: consonants before a nucleus Coda: consonants after a nucleus Rhyme: a nucleus + coda For example, in ‘task’, ‘t’ is onset, ‘a’ is nucleus and ‘sk’ is coda; or in ‘strong’, ‘str’ is onset, ‘o’ is nucleus and ‘ng’ is coda. Then, I want my students to learn a rule which is an application of above figure. RULE: for every syllable, onset must be the longest permitted sequence of consonants Further explanation is necessary as some language learners seem confused. Once again it is necessary to repeat the rule and ask the students to pay attention to where a syllable ends and following syllable starts. Most Iranians pronounce ‘between’ as: (1) /ˈbɪt. wiːn/ But we can have a different pronunciation for this word: (2) /bɪˈtwiːn/ Students are asked to compare the pronunciations with the given rule and specially focus on the second syllable. In (1), the onset has just one syllable; but in (2), the onset has two syllables. So the second pronunciation is compatible with the rule. Here students are wanted to listen to the correct pronunciation and repeat it individually/in group. The visual division of syllables is also displayed on the TV monitor. Now students are asked to check/guess the pronunciation of ‘agree’. Later, I distribute a piece of paper among students; every two students are given a paper containing some words in English and I want them to decide which words they pronounced wrongly; and what is the correct pronunciation. After giving students the necessary time to think on this task, all pronunciations are checked by their active participation. ACTIVATE In this stage I want my students to keep working in their groups to create their own story based on the words they have learned in this session in English and present it to the class to get back feedback.
