Teach English in Changjia Zhen - Zibo Shi

Many teachers pay little attention to pronunciation. A good and experienced teacher will not leave out the importance of pronunciation. In my school years one of my foreign language teachers gave me an assignment to translate a newspaper article using a dictionary. The teacher gave me a good grade for my homework. The following translation exercises helped me a lot in my studies of the foreign language because I could learn very useful word collocations and therefore my vocabulary was greatly enhanced. However, pronunciation remained to be my weak point. I had learned many words that I pronounced incorrectly and later on I had to re-learn my pronunciation. Only after I had an opportunity to be in the in the midst of English speaking coworkers I had an opportunity to improve my pronunciation. That's why it is important to teach the students pronunciation and phonology. Pronunciation is defined as how to say a word. Phonology is defined as the study of sound patterns and their meanings, both within and across languages. (www.your dictionary.com) In this essay will deal with the areas of stress, rhythm, intonation and articulation, as well as concentrating on the International Phonetic Alphabet. Stress When it comes to the falling intonation stress is the most important part of the speech where the intonation begins to fall. Stress helps us to understand the semantic load of the sentence in the context. 1.Sentence level stress: The stressed words are underlined below: 1). He didn't want to buy that cake. (Somebody else wanted to buy it) 2). He didn't want to buy that cake (Here the speaker is arguing with someone who thinks he wanted to buy that cake) 3). He didn't want to buy that cake. (He bought that cake because somebody persuaded him to buy it) 4). He didn't want to buy that cake. (This implies that the speaker just wondered about the price of that cake but actually he didn't want to buy it) 5). He didn't want to buy that cake. (He meant to buy another cake) 7). He didn't want to buy that cake. (He meant to buy something else) Auxiliary verbs and articles remain unstressed in English speech. Since the student knows how to pronounce a word and where to put stress, the speech will flow naturally. 2. Word level stress: 1). Stress on most 2 syllable nouns and adjectives: tiger, cable, trouble, fire, hungry, thirsty 2). Stress on last syllable: 2 syllable verbs: decide, return, design 3). Stress on penultimate syllable: authentic, specific, recognition, revolution 4). Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (third from end): probability, capability, positive, informative, geographical 5). Compound words: woodpecker, grasshopper, double-minded, new-born, bypass, override In order to teach the students stress the teacher may use the following technique: Contrastive stress: voiced and unvoiced sounds are placed alongside Gesture: knocking on the desk, clapping hands, clicking fingers Choral work: to produce sounds that don't make sense as a chant or rhythm The board: to write sentences underlying stressed words Stress marks: to mark stress words. Linked speech Many prospective immigrants to an English speaking country take lessons from private teachers who use textbooks. But when they move to those countries they don’t understand native speakers there. It is not because the teachers or the textbooks were wrong, just because the way the local residents talk is different than it was taught in text books. A teacher speaks slowly, projecting every word correctly and clear, while native speakers speak naturally, fast and sometimes slurred. When they are speaking in casual conversation they combine words in many different ways. As long as an English learner pays attention to the way that the words are combined, some private teachers recommend to imitate native speakers so that the student could avoid to pronounce every single word the way is written in a textbook. These teachers may reason if we pronounce every word clear it will be difficult for a native speaker to understand us because they really want to focus on what we are saying and put the words together in their head because it'll be spoken in a very distinctive way. For example if I can say "Hi|, |what| are| you| doing| today?" it sounds kind of slow and it is choppy. But when a native speaker says this phrase quickly we can hear, "Hey, wadju doing today?" "What| are| you| doing| later?" will sound "Whatcha doing later". Or "What| are| you| doing?" becomes "Whattarya doing later?" During the casual conversation many sounds are reduced and the sentences can be heard slurred. This is one more reason why it is important to learn phonetic in both ways: how it should be pronounced according to a textbook samples and how the native speakers pronounce in their normal conversation. When native speakers speak their sounds join together. The sounds are joining together in four ways: Linking: "Ice Cream" may be heard as "I scream" Sound dropping: (t) "I can't stand the rain" may be heard as "I can stand the rain" "I want to go" becomes "I wanna go" Extra lettering: "We can go now" sounds like "We cang go now" In my school years we had no internet in order to get information such as written texts. I had to listen to lyrics in English in order to practice in understanding the content of those songs. And since I misheard texts I made wrong interpretations. I remember one song with the following text: "Put me up, put me down, put my feet back on the ground". I heard it like this: "Put me up, put me down, put my feedback run aground", that didn't make any sense. In another song, the singer sang, " I'm fourteen carats", one could hear, "I'm farting carrot" That's why many teachers suggest translating texts from lyric songs having a written text printed on the paper. Moreover, today there are many lyrics and movies with English subtitles available online aimed to teach understanding an oral speech. Intonation While stress is more concerned with individual words, intonation is considered to be combination of volume and pitch in a whole sentence. Intonation makes our message more understandable because it includes emotions. With the help of intonation we can know if the message includes questioning, agreeing, disagreeing, confirming statements and so on. If we look at the sentence, "Do you need some help?" The question is simple but by changing the intonation, we can change the meaning completely. For example, it can be a simple question, when we are really offering to help. But it can be a rhetorical question. We don't really think the person needs any help, but we want to be polite. It can show that we are annoyed with the person that we are talking to. It can be sarcastic. It can show surprise that the other person might need our help. The tone patterns can be: rising, falling, rising-falling, falling-rising, flat, high, low The most important tone patterns are rising, falling, combination of rising and falling tones. Rising: (arrow points upward) Fallen: (arrow points downward) Rising-fallen: (upward and downward) Falling-rising: (downward-upward) The normal pattern of intonation is rise/fall pattern. A falling tone shows the end of sentence. For example: I live in Haifa The doctor is a surgeon We might be a bit late We can use the rising tone to show that our sentence isn't finished yet: For example: I live in Haifa but I was born in Russia The doctor is a surgeon but he isn't working at the moment We might be a bit late because we don't finish work until six o'clock If we don't use rising or falling tones in the right place people won't understand whether we have finished speaking or not. Here are a number of ways to indicate and to teach intonation: 1. To produce noises that makes no sense. Once we done this with nonsense words we can repeat the exercise with real sentences. 2. By gesture: To make sweep up and down movements with the hand to indicate general direction. 3. By humming or singing. 4. By making marks on the board using straight or angled arrows. Since my mother tongue is Russian I have to say that same principle is applied in Russian language. The Russians use falling tone at the end of the sentence. But unlike English sentence the Russian falling tone vector is steeper . While the English falling tone is less steep and it seems slightly rises at the end If we use Russian intonation in English speech we will sound very rude. Therefore the correct use of English intonation is important. The intonation is a very powering tool. Controlling our intonation will help us a lot in communication. When we teach our students we have to pronounce the words very carefully. Because pronunciation means a lot to understand and grasp exactly what vowel and consonant sounds, what this word consists of in order to understand how exactly to pronounce each word separately and in one line in the speech. Non-native speakers' speech apparatus muscles are not developed enough for English pronunciation. For this reason the teacher needs to know how to use articulation, and the following information should be useful. Articulation When it comes to the articulation we have six different ways in which our breath is produced to make our sounds. We have: 1. Plosive 2. Affricates 3. Fricatives 4. Nasal sound 5. Lateral sound 6. Approximates Plosive sounds as the word might indicate we have a basically a little explosion of sound with our breath. The plosive sound is made through three step process. First – there is a closure somewhere in the vocal track. Second – there is a build-up of air. Third and finally there is a sudden release that air, like a little explosion. They are [p], [b]; [t], [d]; [k], [g]. Affricates are very close to plosive but there is one significant difference. The same as with plosive sounds we have a closure somewhere, we have a build-up of air however with this manner of articulation we have a gradual release of air. They are [ʧ] and [ʤ]. Fricative – in the beginning we have a friction going on in the vocal tract. And they are placing the two vocal organs together and making them vibrate to the point which is audible. We have nine of these sounds and they are moved from the front to the back of the vocal track. In the front of the mouth we have two sounds which involve our lips [f] (unvoiced) and [v] (voiced). We have also "th" sounds that involve our tongue in between our teeth: /th/ [δ] (voiced), /th/ [ᶿ] (unvoiced). Moving the further back in the mouth we have some friction that comes from the middle of our mouth. Those sounds are [s] (unvoiced) and [z] (voiced), and /Sh/ [ʃ] (unvoiced) and /J/[dʒ] (voiced). Then we have a sound that is moving back all the way into the back and that is in the glottis back here where we have differentiation between voiced and unvoiced sounds, it's the [h]. Nasal sound - closure in a vocal tract, except aside from the plosives and affricates what we have is air escaping through our nasal cavities. We are moving from the front of the mouth to the back of the mouth. There are three nasal sounds: [m], [n], [ᵑ]. Lateral sound – [l], the tip of the tongue is placed on the alveolar ridge and air escapes through the mouth laterally along both sides of the tongue. Approximants – there are three approximates, [w], [ɑ:]/r/, [ʒ]/j/. Our vocal organs are approximately in the middle of our mouth. There isn't any audible friction. Air is moving freely but the vocal organs are not close enough together to create audible friction. Place of Articulation Place of articulation deals with the placement of the vocal organs when producing a sound. We have to take a look at the various vocal organs and their location moving from the front to the back, we begin with our lips what can use both lips, in order to create a sound or we can use one of our lips with one of our rows of teeth, usually the top, in order to produce another sound. We also have other sounds which use both of the rows of teeth, further back we have what's called the alveolar ridge. Behind our top two teeth we have alveolar ridge, just behind that we have hard palate and we will use that to create some sounds and behind our hard palate we have soft palate (vellum), we use those to create some sounds as well. Within that from the front to the back we do have our nasal cavity. Finally we have our vocal cords that we use for a few sounds as well. Sounds that utilize both the top and bottom lips are called bilabial sounds. They are typically come together: [b], [p], [m], but they also be used closed when saying the sound [w]. In either instance we are either closing our mouth or using both lips to create that [w] sound. Sounds that utilize the bottom lip and the top row of teeth are known as labial dental sounds, they are [f], [v]. Dental sound involve placing the tongue between both the top and the bottom rows of teeth, they are two sounds /th/[ѳ] (unvoiced) and /th/[δ] (voiced). Alveolar sounds get their name from the fact that the alveolar ridge is being used. The alveolar ridge is behind the front top row of the teeth. Here the tip of the tongue is on or very near the alveolar ridge: [t] (unvoiced) and [d] (voiced), [s] (unvoiced), [z] (voiced). The blade of the tongue is very near alveolar ridge. [l] (voiced) – the top of the tongue is very clearly touching the alveolar ridge, and nasal [n] sound. Palatal alveolar sounds have the tongue moving slightly back in the vocal tract but not quite back to the soft palate if you compare these sounds to those of alveolar group we should be able to feel those differences with the tongue moving just a bit slightly back. The sounds of this group include sound /sh/ [ʃ] of closely related to that is the sound /j/[dʒ], /ch/[tʃ] and also the /r/ sound. Moving further back we have our palatal sound. There is only one and that is [j] sound. Here we have a tongue rise up against the palate in order to make that sound and therefore it involves the palate. Further back now we have our velar sounds [k] (unvoiced) and [g] voiced, as well as [ᵑ ]. They involve the tongue being raised against the soft palate. Finally we have our glottal sound and it is made furthest back in the vocal tract to the glottis. It's being produced way back in the throat and not in the mouth and the only sound made there is the [h] sound. The mouth is open, the air is flowing through and there is no vibration anywhere in the vocal tract. One can learn all the vocabularies of the world but if one is not being understood by speaking clearly there is very little point. Therefore the teacher has to let the students to exercise to ensure that their speech is as crisp and clear is possible. The facial and oral muscles must be strengthened to help the speech to become clear. For this reason the teacher should use different exercises, teach students to repeat after him the words slowly, use tongue twisters and another drills. A phonetic alphabet A dictionary can be useful tool as it gives not only the meaning of the word, but also its pronunciation. We often did not pay attention to the strange characters in square brackets alongside English words when we are using English dictionaries, for example: Banana [bənænə] Baloon [bəluːn] Bed [bed] Bird [bɜːrdz] Let's put ourselves in the place of our students when trying to understand how to say the following words: Car, far, bar, chart. These words share one sound [ɑ:]. The non-native learner who is only just beginner can handle something like this. Spelling combination can produce [ɑ:]. But when they get to the situation where they can come across such words like: cap, map, tap, or draw, they will be confused by the fact that the same patter can't produce [ɑ:], but different sound [æ] or [ɔ:]. However the International phonetic alphabet (symbols that help us to pronounce a word correctly) takes care of this problem, therefore it is important to learn it. Another example: we see a new word in a book and we do not know what it means. And we don't know how to pronounce it. So, the first thing we do is we look in the dictionary. And first of all we look at the definition. And we learn what this word means. For example the word "calm" [cɑ:m]. (Adjective), translation: "a person who doesn't show nervousness, anger or strong emotion". If we can read the international phonetic alphabet we can see that this word is being pronounced without /l/. The teacher should know this alphabet and it is a good idea for the teacher and the students to develop a working knowledge of this system. Summary: the essay topic on "Why teaching pronunciation and phonology is important" relates to the area of English language teaching that is highly important to most students but overlooked by many teachers that is pronunciation. It covers such areas as the importance of word stress and intonation in communicating feelings and intentions, as well as the various ways in which native speakers change and adapt their spoken language, articulation ( how we use the mouth to produce different sounds) and using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Many students can study grammar and vocabulary, they can work really hard on prepositions, adjectives and verb tenses. And after all of that hard work, it's really frustrating when it's our pronunciation that lets us down. The ultimate goal of learning another language is communication, e.g. to communicate the message to someone else. And our pronunciation is the first impression that another person gets when they hear our English. Poor pronunciation can actually bring our English down. Because even if we are speaking very good English grammar, our English level seems to be lower because the listener can't understand what we are saying. Good pronunciation can actually raise the level of our English. Grammar mistakes are easy to overlook but if we sound good, if the listener can understand the words that we are saying and the message still gets across. Improving our pronunciation will help the native speakers to understand us and make communicating English so much easier. That's why teaching pronunciation and phonology is so important.