TEFL Sarepta Louisiana

I as non-native english speaker myself, agree that anyone learning a new language is going to have issues with pronunciation at first. I also had some problems with my pronunciation when I started learning english and it took a long time to get over them and to become a better english speaker. So I've chosen to research the problem areas in english pronunciation, focusing on Korea, as that is where I'm currently staying and planning to use my tefl skills. There are the detailed errors that native Korean speakers likely make below. 1. F vs. P This is one of crucial distinctions in english. There are many english words where the only difference is the initial sound, such as "for" & "pour," "feel," & "peel" etc. But native Korean speakers likely sound these same. 2. B vs. V As above, Korean speakers often sound them same and it does inhibit understanding. For example, “bet” & “vet”, “vest” & “best”. 3. J or Ch vs. Z and Z Sounds This problem occurs when Korean speakers pronounce the letter "z" like a "j" or “ch.” The same problem applies to "tz" and "ts" sounds. A word like "pizza" ends up pronounced as "peach-eu," for example, "result" often gets pronounced as "rezhert" [where "zh" indicates a voiced "sh" sound] by Koreans learning english. In this case, the word sounds more like "dessert" than anything else. 4. The Letter "S" Many Koreans have a tendency to simply skip this letter. This is unfortunate, as "s" carries a lot of meaning in english. While one can probably get away with saying "He eat broccoli, not ham," the speaker will confuse people if she is talking about nouns. For example, "peas" can be pronounced “pee” which is totally different word. 5. Extra "eu" and "ee" Sounds Particularly with the "ee" sound, an english speaker might think the Korean learner of english is trying to make an adjective, and consequently will still be listening for some other information that is not coming. For example, the native speaker hears “church,” mispronounced as “churchy,” and thinks the noun is an adjective. 6. L vs. R Due to there are no such words pronouncing “L” or “R” in Korean theirs sounds are completely foreign to Koreans. Even if they get to pronounce one of them right, they can't really pronounce them differently at first. So they could say “I want some lice” instead of saying rice. 7. Short "A" vs. Short "E" An excellent example is the english word "fax," which commonly gets pronounced by Korean learners as "pekseu." In this case, only one sound in the original english word is left, the "ks" or "x" sound. Not only has the "f" been turned into a "p," but the short "a" vowel has been turned into a short "e" vowel. One should expect that english speakers will fail to understand this short word when only one sound remains correct. 8. Th (unvoiced) vs. S english speakers are used to hearing this mistake, and can usually understand what is being said. However, when combined with all the other pronunciation errors common to the Korean community, this error can contribute to making understanding difficult. Rhythm and stress Rhythm and stress are more important in english than in many languages. Unlike in Korean, english tends not to give vowels equal length or stress. Also, voice inflection in english, like body language, carries a great deal of meaning. Look at the following examples: These all answer different questions or exclamations: I am eating rice. ? Who is eating rice? I am eating rice. ? You're not eating rice! I am eating rice. ? Are you cooking rice? I am eating rice. ? What are you eating? Many Korean learners of english are reluctant to speak normally in english. They prefer a monotone and a quite one, because Korean language is monotone and they are used to that sounds. I think it is very important to encourage them to listen to their english teacher, language partner or recording very carefully and try to make the sounds. I believe the teachers can use this research to approach to some different ways of teaching english to Korean learners in order to overcome these problems.