If we keep in mind the development of writing we
never should neglect pronunciation of the words. It’s a common knowledge
phenomenon that many of the learners misspell the words as they write them the
way they hear or pronounce them. Very
often my students ask me about the importance of pronunciation of the words the
way the native speakers do. They recognize that mostly without living in a
country where English is a mother tongue you may never talk like them. Of
course you will always consider the peculiarities of pronunciation in the
system of the mother tongues (some sounds may be absent in the sound system of
the language), but the matter is that what we call “inner” skills while
speaking are very important. “Inner” speaking implies the movements of the
facial and mouth/throat muscles while speaking. If they are trained correctly
it doesn’t matter much what quality of the sounds a person produces - it will
be close to the pattern, recognizable and understandable. In this case the
spelling will be better as well. In relation to articulation sounds and words
in the target language video clips or animation of the speaker’s mouth in
motion during the pronunciation of sounds and words are very effective as they visualize
the process and the learner can easily follow the pattern. It would be nice to
have a CALL software as I’d prefer it to
very good quality videos, one of them (http://www.howcast.com/videos/487785-English-Pronunciation-Sh-vs-Ch-Sounds
by Megan Brach in which people train pronunciation. Psychologically for adults in
our country ethically it’s more preferable to follow the digitalized example
than to watch the mouth of a person.
Hi Olena,
ReplyDeleteI can say your post came just on time.Let me explain. Personally, speaking I do not expect my students sound like native speakers, their Turkish-English pronunciation is allright for me as long as their speech is comprehensible. However, I know that my student feel different. They pay a lot of attention to the pronunciation of the words and want to work on that skill. Just a few hours ago one of my students asked for a website or another tool for pronunciation practice. I will refer to the site you mention here in addition to the ones I
have visited for this week's tasks. Thanks a lot Olena. I believe my students will like these videos and the related ones recommended on that page.
Hi Olena and Sebnem,
ReplyDeleteMy students also sometimes misspell the words as they write them the way they hear or pronounce them.It must be the case because in our languages we write the way we pronunce.
I agree with both of you about pronunciation, I think it should be understandable because it can never be perfect or as a native speaker`s.No matter how much we try, we can never sound like native speakers. We will always have an accent.
I love the tutorial, Olena I think it is very useful. I will tell my students to look at it. Thanks for sharing.
All the best,
Dragana
Hello Mrs. Olena
ReplyDeleteMy students have the same problem in misspell the words, I taught them basic rules in pronunciation how to pronounce the words and focus on pronunciation while writing. I think it goes perfectly. Also, I will use the website you have shared.
Thanks
Eman
Pronunciation training with English Meeting ESL Lesson
ReplyDeleteDear friends,
I am really happy that you can find practical value of my post and the links. Teaching pronunciation is always a kind of problem due to the fact that the teacher becomes a model for the students in this process. In spite of all our skills the students follow us, teachers with all our sounds and peculiarities in intonation. As 90 per cent of English teachers in the secondary schools in our country are women it leads to what is called feminization of the male students in sound/intonation patterns. Women modulate sounds a bit differently and the intonation pits are used not the same way as men do. Thus, it is important if male students would have the chance to be trained by male teachers. Dave Sconda is great in this case. If you find time to visit http://englishmeeting.edu20.org you will find how to register for the free course online. This site is powered by EDU 2.0 for school, the free, easy way to teach and learn online. YouTube videos will be very helpful as well with a variety of different sources including teaching/learning pronunciation skills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qOCL6dbyfBQ
I hope you will enjoy the links and can suggest them to your students for some independent learning.
Hi Olena,
ReplyDeleteAmong my students there are many problems in pronunciation. This difference in pronunciating words in English is directly related to their mother tongue. Specially Tamil students' pronunciations are quite different and even we feel difficult to understand.
As you all had said, I never expect my students to speak like natives. It needs lots of training and its very hard to achieve by everybody. But I encourage them to pronounce the words correctly.
My first objective is to make them come out with some English words first. Motivating these students towards speaking is the challenge. Once they are in the track, I try to correct their pronunciation. I'm sure your videos will help me in future. Thanks Olena.
Chandy
Hi Olena,
ReplyDeleteNice reflections. Are you familiar with the term "Free writing". Check out the link and decide for yourself whether grammar, punctuation or spellings are needed to enhance the creativity in the learners at early stages.
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Dickson-Freewriting.html
Hi Tariq,
ReplyDeleteNice of you to mention about free writing. I use it very often in my class and think much of this technique. I meant somewhat different when I pointed to the connection of pronunciation and spelling. I have an adult group of people. If a learner perverts the sound he may very often have difficulties in writing correctly if even he recognizes the word in the text while reading. This leads to difficulties in writing and thus, in ccommunication. Of course if we type the text on the computer that is not so important due to the checking spelling.