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Many teachers,
especially if they are new to teaching ESL classes, may be a little
intimated by the prospect of having to teach pronunciation. But,
just like almost every thing else, if the process is broken down
into small manageable steps, the task is not all that daunting. This
site is an attempt to do just that- to break the process of teaching
pronunciation down into smaller steps.
Why is proper pronunciation
important? Because without correct pronunciation- no matter how vast
the students vocabulary may be, no matter how well the student
understands and uses grammatical rules, no matter what their level
of reading or writing skills may be- if they don't use correct
pronunciation it may be very difficult for listeners to understand
what they say. And that is a huge hindrance to communication. In
addition, some research indicates that if a student can not
pronounce a word correctly, they may not be able to hear it when
spoken by another person either, which furthers hinders
communication.
Students from different languages have different pronunciation
difficulties. Not all sounds in the English language are common to
other languages. For example, some languages do not have an 'r'
sound, so students use a similar sound 'l' instead. So when a
students says "What a lovely libbon", the native English is totally
confused. Or maybe in a student's native tongue there is no
distinction between 'b' and 'p'. Just imagine the misunderstanding
that will result if a teachers says "I need to be on that bus"
and the student hears "I need to pee on that bus".
When teaching
pronunciation, teachers are giving feedback to their student about
how they are saying things. This feedback includes what the problem
is and what they need to do to correct it. This feedback may include
where to place the tongue in the mouth to say particular words, or
how the lips should be formed, or the action of the tongue when
saying specific sounds.
Mastering proper pronunciation is not just a matter of learning
individual sounds. Many students can hear and make the different
sounds for all the vowels and consonants in English. Unfortunately,
they also have to contend with the sound changes that occur with
different letter combinations resulting from linking or reduction of
vowels and consonants, not to mention stress, pitch, and intonation
differences between their native tongue and English.
That's basically all
there is to teaching pronunciation- giving feedback and ensuring
that the student uses the feedback to improve their speaking skills.
That along with providing adequate practice to the students to hear
the sounds AND practice making the sounds. Remember (as some
research implies) if a student can't say a sound, they won't be able
to hear it either.
Below is a list of the topics that are covered in this site. Just
click on the link and go to that page. Each page will have examples
of correct pronunciation of the topic chosen.
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