TEFL Centre Hall Pennsylvania

There are significant differences between the english and Korean Languages that make pronouncing english words difficult for Korean Students. These differences include individual letter sounds, sound combinations and the timing of syllables. The english Language consists of sounds that do not occur in the Korean Language. Most of these sounds are consonants, and Korean students tend to have a difficult time not only producing the correct sound but also hearing the difference between the sound they are making and the correct sound that is being modeled for them. An example of this is the sound associated with the letter ‘f' in english. This sound doesn't exist in Korean, and Koreans tend to pronounce this sound more like the sound of the english ‘p'. These two sounds are similar when voiced on their own, but are more noticeably different when included with other letters to form a word. Focusing on the mouth and tongue placement may be helpful to explain the difference between some of these sounds. In this case, to create the ‘f' sound air is pushed through the teeth with the mouth slightly open. To create the ‘p' sound however, the lips are pressed together and air is then pushed between the lips. Another sound difference between english and Korean involves homologous pairs. Homologous pairs are sounds created where the mouth makes the same movement for both, but in one case voice is used, and in the other no voice is used. An example is the sounds ‘ch' and ‘j'. The mouth makes the same movements for both, but for ‘ch' voice is used, and for ‘j' no voice is used. Some homologous pairs occur in Korean, but not all do. This can make learning the new pairs easier. However, for the homologous pairs that occur in Korean, the voiced or unvoiced pair is often used with only certain letter combinations. This can cause Korean students to use the wrong pair when speaking in english. Many sound combinations in english to not occur in Korean. For example, Korean words only end in vowels or certain consonants. No Korean words end in ‘s', making this common english word ending difficult. Koreans tend to add a vowel to the end of a word ending with an ‘s'. Encouraging students to focus on letting the sound of a word fade away as opposed to placing a definite end sound can be helpful. The Korean Language also doesn't have consonant clusters. A consonant cluster is a group of consonants where a vowel is not pronounced between them. Korean students will tend to pronounce the vowel in these words. Practice and exposure is a helpful approach to consonant clusters. The timing structure is different between english and Korean. Korean is a syllable-timed language, meaning each syllable takes roughly the same amount of time to pronounce. english is a stress-timed language, which means each syllable can take up differing amounts of time due to the stress, but there is roughly the same amount of time between stresses. This difference can cause Koreans to sound flat when speaking english because of the difficulty in hearing and producing the stressed syllables. Knowing the difficulties that Korean Students may face can help teachers prepare lessons to address these issues. An important part of each lesson should include pronunciation practice and drilling. The differences between english and Korean are significant, but with proper attention paid to pronunciation, great strides can be made. References: Frankfurt International School. (1996). The Differences Between english and Korean. Retrieved from http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/korean.htm Jumping the Asymptote. (2009, January 9). The Korean Learner of english: english- Korean Cross-Linguistic Challenges. Retrieved from http://koreanalyst.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/the-korean-learner-of-english-english-korean-cross-linguistic-challenges/