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Teaching Pronunciation: Fernando Trujillo Sáez

This document discusses various aspects of teaching pronunciation, including: 1. What is pronunciation and how it involves both the production and perception of significant sounds used in a language. 2. That there is no single "correct" pronunciation, and the goal of teaching pronunciation is to establish models rather than norms for imitation. 3. Key considerations in selecting pronunciation elements to teach include the size and focus of the linguistic unit as well as learner first language interference and communicative value in the second language.

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97 views12 pages

Teaching Pronunciation: Fernando Trujillo Sáez

This document discusses various aspects of teaching pronunciation, including: 1. What is pronunciation and how it involves both the production and perception of significant sounds used in a language. 2. That there is no single "correct" pronunciation, and the goal of teaching pronunciation is to establish models rather than norms for imitation. 3. Key considerations in selecting pronunciation elements to teach include the size and focus of the linguistic unit as well as learner first language interference and communicative value in the second language.

Uploaded by

david mak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPS, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Teaching Pronunciation

Fernando Trujillo Sáez


What is Pronunciation?
• The Production of Significant Sound.
– Significant because
• it is used as part of a code of a particular language
• it is used to achieve meaning in contexts of use.
• Auditory Phonetics = The perception of the sound.
• Articulatory Phonetics = The production of the
sound.
Is there a correct pronunciation?
• “insisting on “correct” pronunciation may not always
be desirable. And it may not be feasible, either.” (8)
• “The relevant question to ask is not: what is correct in
relation to a native-speaker norm (RP or otherwise),
but: what is appropriate and necessary to be able to
communicate in specific situations?”(12)
• “The task of pronunciation teaching, as in the teaching
of any other aspect of language, is to establish
models for guidance, not norms for imitation.” (6)
– Dalton, Christiane & Barbara Seidlhofer (1994):
Pronunciation. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
Selection
• Size of unit
– Sound segments
– Prosodic units
• Focus of attention
– L1 interference
– L2 communicative value: frequency and
functional importance.
Presentation
• Exposure Procedures:
– Communicative tasks with no explicit teaching of
pronunciation.
• Exercise Procedures:
– Identification of sound features.
– Practice in perception and production.
• Explanation Procedures:
– Sensitizing and Awareness-raising activities about
phonetic and phonological facts.
Teachability and Learnability
• There is an inverse relationship between
communicative importance and teachability.
• Sound segments =
[+easy to teach, - communicatively important]
• Intonation =
[-easy to teach, + communicatively important]
Sounds
• Ear training and Awareness building
– Before learners can be asked to produce the sounds of a
new language, they need to learn to perceive them.
– So, one of the first objectives of PT is to help learners
perceive the differences between the significant sounds
of English.
– Important: We tend to hear the sounds of a new
language through the filter of our first language.
Sounds
• Communicating vs. Noticing
– Foreign Language Learning =
• Comprehensible input + Comprehensible output
( + Language Awareness)
– The need of reconciling a narrow focus on
sounds with the communicative objectives of
learner involvement and meaningful
interaction.
Sounds
• Innocence vs. Sophistication
– The younger the learners, the more able they
are to learn pronunciation by mimicry.
– The older the learners, the more sophisticated
the instruction that can be used (and the higher
the standard of achievement per hour of
instruction).
Intonation
• Paradox:
– A decisive element for communication but
– A continuous problem for pronunciation teaching.
• Topics:
– Prominence: a combination of loudness, length, paralinguistic
features and, above all, pitch movement.
– New and Given information (fall-rise for given info & fall for
new info).
– Floor (high for keeping it and low for yielding it).
• Subliminal activities: Sensitizing and Awareness-
raising.
Stress
• Two aspects:
– Word-stress patterns = important for
intelligibility.
– Prominence = important for communication.
• Procedures:
– The impossibility of providing rules.
– The contrast between stressed and unstressed
syllables (foregrounding and backgrounding).
Connected Speech
• Three processes of connected speech:
– Assimilation: the changes of a sound provoked
by the surrounding sounds.
– Elision: The leaving out of a sound or sounds in
speech.
– Linking: the insertion of a sound in order to
make a smooth transition from one sound to
another.
• Modelling and mimicry.

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