Since my good friend Farzana shared my interview with her for the ESL Globe, I would like to share the article she kindly invited me to publish in the book about English teaching in Bangladesh that she (as a Fulbright scholar) coordinated and edited. Teaching Pronunciation: Some Key Elements When I say to my students: You can pronounce every English vowel and consonant sound perfectly and still not be understood by a native speaker, they are puzzled. They wonder how this can be true, since, surely, the goal of pronunciation study is to succeed in replicating as closely as possible the basic sounds, or phonemes, of native English speakers. But this is just the starting point. Mastery of these basic sounds is Important, and students will have different challenges in this area, dictated by their mother tongues. For example, many Chinese speakers have trouble pronouncing the r sound and some Hindi speakers may not make a distinction between the b and p sounds. These basic sounds are termed segmentals. Again, mastery of these segmentals is important, but it will not produce near-native - or even comprehensible - English speech. So where do we go from here? What else do students need to do to express themselves clearly and effectively in English? The answer is that they need to pay attention to suprasegmentals. Suprasegmentals are those key elements of pronunciation which go beyond individual vowel and consonant sounds. They are the elements of speech which convey meaning and emotion. These elements include thought groups, rhythm, focus, intonation, and reduced forms. Thought Groups Thought groups are chunks of words within a phrase or sentence. These words fit together logically and are usually said in one breath. Pausing in the middle of a thought group can make listener comprehension difficult or change meaning; pauses should come between thought groups. The two identical sentences below (with thought groups separated by forward slashes) are classic illustrations of how manipulating thought groups can affect meaning. A woman / without her man / is nothing. A woman / without her / man is nothing. Rhythm While students usually grasp quickly the concept and importance of using appropriate thought groups, they are often challenged by the peculiarities of English rhythm. They first need to understand that English rhythm is stress-based, whereas their native language rhythm is likely to be syllable-based, with every syllable being equally important and equally stressed. Using this syllable-based rhythm of another language when speaking English is a prime source of miscommunication. It can also make a learners speech sound monotonous or robotic. In his publication Rhythm and Unstress Howard B. Woods observes that English has a pre-determined rhythm requiring a major stressed syllable every 0.6 seconds and there are normally one or two unstressed syllables surrounding each major syllable. If there are no unstressed syllables nearby, the stressed syllables are lengthened in order to fill the spaces of 0.6 second intervals. Lets apply this observation to the two sentences below, keeping in mind that stress is created by pronouncing the stressed syllable clearly, by lengthening it, and by using a rising voice pitch or tone. Today I will go to the gym to work out. Most men like cars. Both sentences take the same amount of time to say, even though the first has more than twice as many words as the second. The sentences take the same amount of time to say because each sentence has four stressed syllables, or four beats, and we hear a stressed syllable every 0.6 seconds.: ToDAY I will GO to the GYM to work OUT. MOST MEN LIKE CARS. In the first sentence the unstressed syllables are said more quickly and less clearly; they are crowded in around the four major beats. In the second sentence, which has no unstressed syllables, each word is said clearly and lengthened so that it will take 0.6 seconds to say. Students enjoy testing out this observation for themselves. Divide the class into two groups. One group can practice saying the first sentence; one group the second. Then have the two groups say their different sentences simultaneously and see if everybody ends up at the same time. Somewhat surprisingly, they usually do. Once students understand that rhythm in English is created by stress patterns, they will want to know how to determine which words are stressed and which are not. This is easily explained by noting the difference between content words, which carry meaning, and function words, which are grammatical elements used to glue together the content words. Stress content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, negatives, question words, and interjections). Do not stress function words (articles, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs). To underscore the idea that content words are the important ones that listeners need to hear, lets look at the following sentence: Now Im going to the market to buy oranges and grapes. Say the sentence using only content words: now...going...market...oranges...grapes The sentence above is comprehensible, even without function words. Now, say the sentence using only function words: Im...to...the...to...buy...and The sentence above conveys no meaning. This simple illustration helps learners to understand that they must acquire the habit of stressing content words, while reducing function words. Focus Just as a painting or photograph should focus on the main subject and put everything else in the background, each thought group should have a focus word, a word which is the most important one in the thought group and which receives the strongest stress. Within thought groups there will be several stressed words, but only one focus word. Generally, the focus word is the last content word in a thought group. For example: Today we will talk about global WARMING. If information is new or just introduced, focus shifts to the new piece of information: Lets look at the CAUSES of global warming. Focus is also use to highlight words that contrast with each other: Is global warming FACT or FICTION? Focus corrects or modifies a previous statement: A: I believe Lincoln was the first president of the United States. B: Actually, WASHINGTON was the first president. Use focus to emphasizes agreement: A: She is a good teacher. B: Yes, she IS a good teacher. Native English speakers use focus naturally, without even thinking about it. English language learners must be made aware of the necessity to use focus to highlight important content words and thus enhance meaning. Intonation A lot of study and practice are required before English language learners are able to easily incorporate the intonation patterns of English into their speech. Intonation is the pattern or melody of voice pitch changes in connected speech. Pitch may rise, fall, or only partially rise or fall, according to the message the speaker wants to convey. Using appropriate intonation contributes to the smoothness, musicality and fluency of speech. Pitch generally rises on a focus word. But then where does it go? Up or down? It depends on the sentence type. When making a statement or giving a command, pitch drops completely at the end of a sentence. When asking a yes/no question, pitch jumps up. However, with information questions (who? what? when? where? how?) there is a pitch fall. Then, there are closed choice questions. For example: Would you like coffee or tea? The pitch rises on coffee and falls on tea. Sometimes pitch does not rise or fall completely, but it either stays level, with no change, or rises or falls only partially. This is the case when enumerating items in a series. In the sentence: Ill have chicken, beans, corn and rice. pitch rises partially on chicken, beans, and corn. It rises on rice, but then falls completely to indicate that the statement has ended. Another instance where pitch will rise/fall partially or stay the same is after a non-final thought group. In the sentence: I cant see / how he can do these problems so quickly. a partial pitch fall after the first thought group would indicate that the speaker plans to continue speaking. A complete fall would mean that the speaker has finished. Many English learners use mostly falling tones and are unaware that this practice can make them sound unfriendly, or even angry, to native speakers. Conversely, too many rising tones can make them sound as if they are uncertain or lack confidence. A good way to understand and acquire native-like intonation and rhythm is to mirror native speakers. Students can listen to various speakers and try to say exactly what they are saying, speaking right along with them. Intonation in speech can be likened to punctuation in writing. We punctuate with our voices. Rather than using a period, we use a full pitch fall. Rather than a comma, a partial rise or fall. Instead of a question mark, we use a full pitch rise. Intonation, then, provides a guide to meaning. Speaking without using it appropriately is like writing without using punctuation marks. Reduced Forms A final key element of English pronunciation is reduced forms, or contractions. The three most frequently used reduced forms are wanna (for want to), gonna (for going to), and hafta (for have to). Some students dont quite believe me when I tell them these forms spring naturally from the speed of native speech and are okay to use, that even highly educated people use them. Most students will never get used to using many of the dozens of reduced forms, but they need to be able to recognize them in the speech of others. While it seems that most English language teachers have little class time to devote to pronunciation, teaching some basic principles of stress, rhythm and intonation can pay off for learners. The goal is not to eliminate accents. Indeed, students can feel uncomfortable with, if not threatened by, being expected to assume radically different speech and breathing patterns. It is as if they are expected to lose their cultural identities. The objective, rather, is to eliminate those problems which interfere significantly with the speakers comprehensibility. And to help learners feel confident that they do indeed own the English language.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 04:17:05 +0000
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