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Pronunciation pronunciation is probably the most neglected aspect of the English language teaching. Confidence is often lacking in foreign teachers to teach it methodically, and English teachers sometimes also lack the training and confidence to tackle this area. Applied phonetics is rarely taught at school or even university and it seems an alien, abstract subject to the adult trainee teacher. Then there is the fact that many native English speakers find it difficult to hear certain features, such as the fall or rise of speech, particularly at the end of a sentences. The reaction to this is often: "Well, I am an educated English person and if I cannot detect things like that, the foreign student will not be able to either. So what does it matter anyway?" Most pronunciation, as a result, tends to concentrate on individual sounds, which although the most obvious, is not necessarily the most important part. An effective teacher considers the teaching of pronunciation an integral part of the course. For one thing, students are as concerned about it as they are with any other aspect of learning English. In a recent study of 500 adult students from Cordoba, Barcelona, Paris, Turin, and Rome, one of the questions asked was:"What do you find most difficult in English: Grammar, Speaking, Understanding, Pronunciation, Idioms or Writing?" Among these alternatives, pronunciation was in a substantial majority. Skilled pronunciation teaching also gives life to a class because it reflects feelings and personal reactions to different situations. In a classroom practice it gives variety to repetition or dialogues which, otherwise, have only a neutral meaning. As a simple example, the meaning of YES, depends on whether it is YES!, or YES? or YES (with stress). One argument that the unversed teacher has against teaching pronunciation is that it varies so much, depending on the situation and mood of the speaker, that it seems impossible to standardize anything. This argument, however, could also apply to grammar, as structure also depends on what the speaker is trying to say. Never the less, it is possible to make some attempt to break up English grammar into general rules and formula. In the same way it is possible to lay down general guidelines for English pronunciation.The following texts are an attempt to do this. It is, for reasons of practicality, a broad overview. Once the basic concepts have been grasped, the dedicated reader can extend his/her own personal knowledge by further reading and with classroom practice. Phonology Definition Phonology is the study, science, analysis, and classification of the physical properties of sounds. The terms phonetics and phonology is increasingly used to indicate the whole sound system of a particular language, e.g. the phonology of English. In the following texts we will deal with the areas of STRESS, RHYTHM, and INTONATION, as well as concentrating on the international Phonetic Alphabet and its use in helping students to come to an understanding of the pronunciation of English. Individual sounds, sounds in connected speech, stress within words, and stress within whole utterances, are all difficult for students to perceive in isolation. The main reason for this is that the main interest of someone engaged in the act of communication is in trying to understand the meaning of what is being said. However, some sort of instinctive perception is essential for a full understanding of what is being said, and some sort of analytical perception is useful for those features in order to highlight them, even when students are examining other aspects of form or listening for meaning, in the classroom there should be time given to pronunciation, stress and intonation practice so as to make students aware of the importance of accuracy and clarity of communication. Intonation Intonation is generally considered to be the variation in volume and pitch in whole sentence, whereas stress is more connected with individual words. This distinction becomes blurred in examples such as "Yes" on the previous definition when a single word can be a sentence in itself! Intonation carries the message in a sentence. It is particularly important in questioning, agreeing or disagreeing, or confirming statements. It is also fundamental in the expression of emotions or feelings, e.g. sadness, happiness, disbelief, uncertainty etc. The normal patten of intonation is a statement in the rise/fall intonation. Consider: i haven't seen him for a week. Normally the pitch would gradually rise until the word him and then fall right down to where the speaker started, and frequently even lower. The same applies to short utterances like OK. If you agree with someone, or agree to do something you will say OK with intonation rising on the O and falling right down on the K. With the falling intonation you are also indicating that you have finished what you want to say. e.g. I'll see you at six, then. (Voice falls after six-nothing more to said). Note also that native speakers normally use the same intonation pattern in straightforward questions. If a teacher said: How do you spell "rough"? When you finish what you want to say, the intonation falls-in positive and negative statements, questions, greetings, and instructions. If the person being addressed wants to reply, they can; it's up to them. As in the following: This book is fascinating. Where did you buy it? I didn't. (pauses and decides to give more detail) It was given to me. Hi! Hello! How you doing? Have a nice day. Good morning! Have fun! Sit down. And keep quiet. Please shut the door. Enjoy your meal. Say the above to yourself. You should find that ALL the above examples have falling intonation since you (the speaker) intend to say no more. The second common intonation pattern is the fall/rise pattern. This indicates surprise and often disagreement, but above all indicates that the speaker wants the person to whom he's speaking to respond or confirm. Look at these four greetings again: Hi! how you doing? Hello! Good morning! If these are said with a final rising intonation. Then they all require an acknowledgement or return greeting. Similarly with: You don't really mean that do you? (Pattern-gradual rise to mean, then fall, and rise on do you?) The speaker may be surprised, but certainly needs confirmation, e.g. No, I don't or some other reply, such as of course I do!) Are you ready yet? With the fall/rise on yet the questioner is demanding a reply. A fall/rise pattern can also indicate that the speaker hasn't yet finished what he she has to say: e.g. I was in the market the other day (Pattern-rise to market, fall to day and then rise at the end of the day)(The fall/rise on day denotes "don't speak, I haven't finished yet!") And do you know who I saw? (same pattern with fall/rise on saw, effectively saying "I don't want you to answer that!") You'll never guess! (fall/rise on guess, indicating "don't! I'm going to tell you!") It was Stanley! (fall on Stanley and end of the story so far, telling the listeners that they can react if they like.) Finally, we can have a kind of level intonation which is basically flat, which often indicates that the speaker doesn't really have that much to say, and perhaps doesn't want to communicate. Common instances are normally short ones like: Carry on Don't stop I understand etc... To summarise the three patterns,three different ways of answering the phone might serve as an example. Hello! indicating "please speak. Its your turn "polite and welcoming." Hello! indicating that the speaker has finished what he wants to say and is generally not very happy with the situation!(Perhaps this is the sixth call in ten minutes!) Hello! Not very welcoming, but grudgingly (?) Allows the caller to speak! Finally, intonation patterns can be powerful predictors of the nature of forthcoming information. An example of this is a BBC newsreader reading the football/soccer results. This can also be used as a classroom activity to help attune students' ears to intonation by predicting the results. The teacher and then students can take turns "reading the results". This is how the newsreader sounds, always pausing between the name of each club and the number of goals they have scored: Arsenal 3 Bolton Wanderers (rising intonation to 3 and then falling on Bolton Wanderers, denoting a normal statement with expected information i.e. the visitors lost)...1 Fulham 2 Everton (level intonation, not rising to 2, and then rising and falling on Everton to indicate no change of information, Everton scored the same!)...2 Chelsea 2 Liverpool (rising intonation to 2, then starting to fall on liver but rising on pool to indicate surprise coming! The reining champions, playing on their home ground and so expected to win, have in fact been beaten! The speaker has prepared us for a score greater than 2!)...4 Intonation in English is not a simple matter, but if you can understand the principles of the two main patters, you are doing well!Techniques for indicating and teaching intonation if we have difficulty ourselves knowing how to emphasize different parts of a sentence, along with the unspoken implications that go along with that, imagine the frustrations that the students must have! There are a number of ways we can help them in this regard: Nonsense words (just "pure noise"!) can be used to practice conveying attitude. You could ask your students to utter a nonsense sentence such as "Ching dar fee boo" several times, telling them what attitude (e.g. warmth, indifference, pride, hostility, boredom, interest) you want them to communicate on each occasion. Once you have done this with nonsense words, you can then repeat the exercise with real sentences such as "I love you " or " My dog has no hair". While drama teachers working with native speakers try to get learners to sing with expression, the challenge for language teachers is to get learners to speak with expression. By gesture Give a clear sweep of the hand either up or down in order to indicate the general direction. Hands can also be used to indicate whether the sentence starts on a high or low pitch and then indicate the direction of the pitch. Humming or Singing By humming or singing out sentences to hear the stress and intonation. The students don't even need to produce words. The board By making marks on the board using strait or angled arrows to emphasize the point made, and the direction of the intonation. Stress Let's now turn to stress. Consider the sentence "He didn't mean to kick the dog". There are many different ways of interpreting this sentence. Out of context, we really don't know what the speaker was trying to say or imply, as we don't know where the 'strong' part of the sentence lies. The strong part is the stressed word, or word that bears the principal emphasis in the sentence. In the sentence that follow it is also the place in the sentence where the intonation begins to fall. The stressed words, different each time, are in capital below: 1. HE didn't mean to kick that dog. (somebody else meant to do it) 2. He DIDN'T mean to kick that dog. (Here the speaker is contradicting somebody who thinks he did mean to do it) 3. He didn't MEAN to kick that dog. (He kicked the dog accidentally) 4. He didn't mean to KICK that dog. (This implies that he meant to do something different) 5. He didn't mean to kick THAT dog. (He meant to kick a different dog) 6. He didn't mean to kick that DOG. (He meant to kick something else nearby) All multi-syllable words in English have one or more parts that are stressed. But which part should it be? There are some basic rules of word stress in English. Here are two very simple rules about word stress to start: 1. One word has only one stress, and can't have two stresses. There can be a "secondary" stress in some words, but a secondary stress is much smaller than the main (primary) stress, and is only used in longer words. 2. We can only stress syllables, not individual vowels or consonants. The following description contains some more, rather complicated, rules that can help you understand where to put the stress. But don't rely on them too much, because there are many exceptions! It is always better to try to explain to students that they should try to "feel" the music of the language and to add the stress naturally. 1. Stress on first syllable: rule example Most 2-syllable nouns CHina, TAble, EXport Most 2-syllable adjectives SLENder, CLEVer, HAPpy 2. Stress on last syllable: rule example Most 2-syllable verbs creATE, decIDE, beGIN 3. Stress on penultimate syllable: rule example Words ending in -ic JurASSic, geoGRAPHic, paTHEtic Words ending in -sion and -tion teleVIsion, reveLAtion, compeTItion Note about table 3: for many words, the stress can change according to where the native speaker of English is from. E.g. some native speakers say "teleVIsion" and others say "TELevision". Another example is: "CONtroversy" and "conTROversy". 4. stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate= third from end rule example Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy deMAcracy, dependaBIlity, phoTOGraphy, geOLogy Words ending in -ive RElative, comPArative, inDIcative Words ending in -al CRItical, geoLOgical 5. Compound words (words with two parts) rule example For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part BLACKbird, GREENhouse, POST office For compound adjectives,the stress is on the second part bad-TEMpered, old-FASHioned For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part underSTAND, overFLOW Stress is in reality a much easier area to get across to students as it doesn't change inmost cases. Once a student has learned the correct part of a word to stress, he or she doesn't need to worry about it. Lack of stress In normal speech there are more syllables without stress, or unstressed,than with stress! To hear and reproduce unstressed syllables are often the most difficult activities in English for a learner. Look at-and say aloud-this sentence: He's gone to the supermarket with his friend. How many stressed syllables are there-excluding any secondary stress? He's GONE to the SUpermarket with his FRIEND THe stressed syllables are in capitals above (we assume we all know who we are talking about). There would frequently be secondary stress on the third syllable of supermarket. Counting that one, there are four stressed syllables and seven unstressed! A rough rule to explain this is that only the vital syllables in the words conveying the essential information are stressed. The remainder, because they are needed by the grammar, are not stressed. So, in answer to the question Where's Joe?-and both syllables are stressed, the essential information is gone, sup..., friend. Auxiliary verbs in all their forms-be, have, do-are rarely stressed, except for special emphasis, e.g. He DIDN'T lose it. (Don't say he did!) Articles are normally unstressed-a, an, the-and are pronounced like a very short er with no hint of the r sound-see the phonetic script later-vowel 36! Similarly pronouns and prepositions are normally unstressed, e.g.(we know who we are talking about) I told him he looked stupid with a spoon on the top of his hat! Six stressed syllables and ten unstressed. That's par for the course in English! Constructive stress A student can be more readily perceive a sound that is voiced by placing it alongside a sound that is non-voiced. A rising questioning tone is easier to recognize when it is heard immediately before or after a falling tone. Stress on a syllable can be shown by saying it correctly and then repeating the word with the stress on a different syllable. An important point to remember though, if using this technique, is that if you stress sounds unnaturally, for whatever reason, it should then be repeated normally so that the final thing in the students' mind is a correct example. By gesture Clapping, clicking fingers, tapping on desk, etc. Choral work By chanting or singing typical rhythms of English, for example "tit tum titty tum tiity tum" for "I went to the moon in a bus" or "di dah di dah di dah di" for "Just put it on the table". The board Underlining e.g. He wanted to go. Stress marks e.g. He 'wanted to 'go Sound joining There are four major ways that sounds join together in English. Linking Marble Arch becomes marblarch Sound dropping (t,d): Bond Street becomes bon street Sound changing Green Park becomes Greem Park Extra lettering Anna and the king becomes Annner and the king Dancing with tears in my eyes becomes Dancing with tears in my yeyes Read across from one column to the other. When spoken in most dialects of English, the sounds will be practically identical! Meaning will often be gleaned from context. mice pies my spies grey tapes great apes send the maid send them aid car pit carpet it's an aim it's a name grade 'A' grey day ice cream I scream the way to cut it the waiter cut it Linked speech How it sounds How it is written Where dja wanna go? Where do you want to go? Whatcha wanna do? What do you want to do? I'm no'too sure. I am not too sure. I'leave it ta you. I will leave it to you. Doncha wanna go to town ta see a show? Don't you want to go to town to see a show? I don' know now, but I'letcha know. I don't know, but I will let you know. Whatcha recommend? What do you recommend? Wheredja like ta dine? Where do you like to dine? This isn't laziness-this is simply the way that native speakers of English usually naturally speak. The closer that students can get to this idea of linking words together, the more natural their speech will sound. The phonemic alphabet How closely does spelling match pronunciation in English? Have a look at the poem below (att. to George Bernard Shaw) Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble but not you Oh hiccough, through, laugh and through. Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird, And dead: it's said like bed, not bead- Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt) A moth is not a moth in mother Nor both in bother, broth in brother, And here is not a match for there Nor dear and fear for bear and pear, Just look them up-and goose and choose, And cork and work and card and ward, And font and front and word and sword, And do and go and thwart and cart- Come, come, I've hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Man alive. I'd mastered it when I was five. You should have noticed one of the most problematic areas of pronunciation in the English language, spelling of words and their pronunciation often differs. Many words are written with similar individual or groups of letters but are pronounced very differently. How are students to know how to pronounce a new word? The phonemic alphabet A dictionary can be very helpful as its class (noun/adjectives/verb etc) and sometimes gives example sentences but also it provides the pronunciation. Have a look at a dictionary and you will probably notice that immediately after the traditional spelling of the word it is written again using some rather strange symbols. These are usually the symbols of the international phonemic alphabet. Once the students (and the teacher!) are familiar with this alphabet, they should be able to accurately pronounce any word in the dictionary. It is perfectly possible to work on the sounds of English without ever using these phonemic symbols but we would perhaps be doing our students a disservice. The students will see them in their course books and some of them may even already know this alphabet and expect the teacher to know it too! It will certainly make things easier for the teacher and the students if they can develop a working knowledge of the system. One of the most important skills, when using the phonemic alphabet,is to forget about the way a word is traditionally spelt and focus only on the sounds you make when saying a particular word. Find the symbol that produces each individual sound and put them together to form the phonetic spelling. It doesn't matter where you are from, or what variety of English you speak. The phonetic alphabet is simply a set of symbols that represent the way we, as English speakers, put sounds together to form words. There are many occasions when, for example, as speaker of English from the north of England, will write a word phonetically in a different way to a compatriot from the south of England.They speak slightly differently! Similarly, Australians speak a different style of English to Americans. Does that mean that a different chart for every conceivable variety of English should be produced? Obviously not, as this would go against the universal system of one set of phonetic symbols for ALL speakers of English. This is why the International Phonetic Alphabet(IPA) was conceived. The example words in the International phonemic Alphabet chart happen to be based on British English, but the individual sounds, represented by the bold text within the words, are universal, and are pronounced identically whatever style of English the speaker uses. You can download a phonemic chart with examples of each sound at www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teaching/files/TEphonemic.zip Please note that although the example sounds are from a person speaking British English, the sounds themselves apply to any variation of English. The pronunciation of individual words will inevitably change according to the speaker's accent. To compare voiced and unvoiced consonants, put your hand gently on your throat and say 'bat', followed by 'pat'. You should feel a vibration in your throat with the /b/ sound and nothing at all for the /p/ sound. This is because /b/ is voiced, i.e. you make a noise when your vocal chords are vibrating, and /p/ is unvoiced- this is purely the movement of air, with no vibration of the vocal chords. Your voice doesn't produce any sound at all here! This is also a useful way of explaining the different to students-get them to put their hands on their own throats, to 'feel' the difference. Also compare how your mouth and lips move when you produce the /b/ and /p/ sound. You should find that your mouth does exactly the same for each; it's only your voice that changes. This area is explored in more detail in the following section, "Articulation". Articulation The speech Organs Human speech is an enormously complex area of study; linguists are constantly learning more about this amazing human instinct. We've begun our investigation by looking at the vocal cords, but other organs are involved as well. They include: The tongue The alveolar ridge The larynx The hard palate The glottis The soft palate The three items in the right-hand column are not separate speech organs, but rather areas in the mouth. Place of Articulation Linguists use this weighty phrase to describe the physical location of phoneme's production. Each is connected to a different organ or area. Let's explore each turn: Velar The soft palate is also known as the velum. When the back of the tongue is raised and strikes the velum, velar consonants are produced. Palatal Here, the central part of your tongue comes in close contact with the central part of the roof of your mouth, as in the /j/ sound at the start of yellow. Palatal-alveolar Make the /s/ sound. can you feel where your tongue is? the tip of your tongue should be between the alveolar ridge (the bony area just behind the top teeth) and the palate. If you can't, take a deep breath and make the /s/ sound again. Now, add voice. Can you recognize this sound? How about the final sound in "beige" or "massage' or the "s" in leisure'? Alveolar In alveolar sounds, the front or tip of the tongue is raised toward the alveolar ridge. Dental When you think of words like "dentist", you imagine that dental consonants somehow involve the teeth. In English, there are two dental sounds in which the tongue is placed between the teeth. Say the word "think". Where is your tongue at the beginning of the word on the "th" sound? Now say the word "this". What is the difference between the dental "th" consonant in "think" and "this"? If you say the words "think" and "this" very slowly, you should notice that on "think", the "th" sound is voiceless and with "this" it is voiced. We therefore have two phonemes for the "th' sound. Labio-dental The word "labio" has to do with the lips, and as you know, "dental" has to do with the teeth. In English, there are two consonants that are produced by having the top teeth come in contact with the lower lips. One of them is /f/. The other is /v/. Bilabial As you can probably guess, "bi" means "two", so "bilabial" means two lips. Several sounds in English are made by putting the lips together, like the/p/ sound. Three other bilabial are /b/,/m/, and /w/. Glottal The opening between the vocal cords is called the glottis. In English, there is one sound in which air is restricted at the glottis. Can you identify the sole glottal consonant? There is only one sound that uses the throat only. Manner of Articulation As you probably found out in the last section on bilabial sounds, /p/,/b/,and /m/ are all made by putting the lips together. Although /p/ and /b/ are essentially formed in the same way (with /p/ being voiceless and /b/ being voiced), there is a definite difference between /b/ and /m/, for example. This difference is referred to as manner of articulation. Plosive a. Prepare to make the /p/ sound, but do not make the sound. Your mouth should be closed (i.e. your lips should be together). b. Now, release the sound. c. Do the same for /t/. Simply put your mouth in position to make the/t/ sound. Can you breath? If you are doing it right, you shouldn't be able to. d. Now release the "t" sound. e. Do the same for the following sounds: /b/,/d/,/k/,/g/ What do all these sounds have in common? These sounds are identified by linguists as plosives. Why? think of the word "explode". Before you make each of these sounds, the air is completely blocked before being released in an explosive manner. Fricative a. Take a deep breath. b. Make the /f/ sound. Your upper teeth should be touching your lower lip (labio-dental!). Hold the sound("ffffffff"). c. Do the same for the /v/ sound. Remember, don't say the letter "v", just hold the sound. It should sound like an electric razor. d. Do the same for the /sh/ sound. It should sound like you want someone to be quite. e. Now try the /s/ sound. You should sound like a snake. What do these sounds have in common? These sounds are known as fricatives. Can you see the connection to the word "frication"? Can you think of some other sounds that are fricatives? A couple to start with are /f/ and /v/. In all these sounds, an obstruction is made, but the air is still forced through. As air is being pushed through a very small space, turbulence or friction is produced. Nasal All nasal sounds are produced by making an obstacle in the mouth and lowering the soft plate so that air can only escape through the nasal cavity. Three sounds can be identified as nasals: /m/,/n/ and /ng/. Lateral Lateral consonants are pronounced with the air escaping on the side of the tongue rather than on the front. Strictly speaking, the lateral quality is not really a "place of articulation" as such, and can be combined with other properties of consonants. Affricate One sequence commonly found in English is the succession of a plosive by the corresponding fricative. It then often happens that the release of the plosive merges with the attack of fricative to form an affricate. In other words, an affricate pair is a plosive with consonants release. Examples of affricates found in English are the /ch/ sound in the word "church" and the /j/ sound in "judge" (the voiced counterpart) Approximant a sound which is produced by narrowing (but not blocking) the vocal tract, by placing the tongue near another part of the vocal tract. Teaching techniques for the pronunciation of individual sounds The teaching of individual sounds can be good fun for the teacher and the students. Here are some activities that work well: Peer dictation students reading and speaking words or sentences for a partner to write down is very useful and is an effective way for students to analyze pronunciation problems for themselves. Of course the partner shouldn't be able to see the original text! Your own mouth Over-emphasising individual parts of a word can be beneficial, allowing the students to see as closely as possible exactly what your mouth is doing. As with contrastive stress, you need to finish by pronouncing the word normally, so that students don't come away with a false idea of what is correct. Visuals by drawing a diagram of the mouth showing how a particular sound is made. Phonemes Symbols for common or difficult sounds can be introduced to help the class note down problem areas more easily. Tongue twisters Need we say more? When to teach pronunciation Just as with other areas of the language, teachers must decide when to include pronunciation work into their lessons. Different teachers have different ideas on the subject but the following are the most common: Whole lesson Some teachers like to devote whole lessons to pronunciation, working on a variety of issues relevant to their students' needs. Lesson slots Some teachers prefer to slot a certain amount of particular pronunciation work into each lesson. As and when required Other teachers deal with pronunciation issues as they come up in the classroom. There is right or wrong way. Each teacher has to decide what is best for their particular circumstances. Some recommended materials for practice is English pronunciation, stress and intonation patters are: Elements of pronunciation by Colin Martimer, (Cambridge University Press) which comes with a student book and cassette. this book consists of practice materials for "stress time", "weak forms", "liaison" (linages between words) and "consonant clusters". Another great resource is the Headway pronunciation series, by Sarah Cunningham, Bill Bowler and Sue Parminter (Oxford University Press). It was originally designed to complement the Headway general course books, but each level of the pronunciation series can also be used in isolation. It should be remembered that we are unlikely to ever get 100% perfection in our students' pronunciation. In all likelihood they will never speak English with the same pronunciation as a native speaker, and for many students that is not even their goal. At the end of the day, we must be realistic in our teaching and sometimes be prepared to accept intelligibility instead of perfection.