Teaching Integrated

Language Skills

Pronunciation

Week 7
Source: Nunan, D. (2015). Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages: An Introduction.
New York: Routledge.
When some teachers and learners complain about
difficulties in speaking, they are often talking about
pronunciation. The amount of attention given to the
teaching of pronunciation in language courses varies
considerably, partly as a result of the teacher’s
attitude to error and the learners’ language learning.
Having a good pronunciation of the language can
help in normal communication, particularly
intelligibility (Derwing and Munro, 2005). However,
that is not the only reason for developing a stable
pronunciation of a new language. There is a very
important mechanism involved in working memory
called the phonological loop. In essence, the
phonological loop is the brain saying a word or
phrase over and over to itself in order to keep it in
working memory or to help it move into long-term
memory.
Learners differ in the amount of information that
they can hold in the phonological loop at one time.
For second language learners it is likely that
the size of their working memory in the second
language is affected by their knowledge of patterns of
pronunciation and grammar in that language. It is
thus important that attention is given to
pronunciation in the course so that learners can
quickly develop a stable pronunciation, and become
familiar with the patterns and rules that work within
the second language.
Key Principles

1. Begin with Comprehension Before

Production
This principle is as important in pronunciation
work as it is in any other aspect of mastering a
language. It is important because we can’t
pronounce sounds or other phonological features
of a language that we can’t discriminate aurally.
This is true regardless of the language that we
speak.

If they can’t hear the difference, they will never be

able to produce the difference.
Key Principles

2. Set Realistic Goals

The goal for the learner should be to speak
intelligibly, rather than speaking like a native
speaker. (An unrealistic goal as no two native
speakers are alike!) When getting learners to
practice individual sounds, don’t have them
produce the sounds in isolation but in connected
streams of speech.
Key Principles

3. Teach the Connections Between Form and

Function
In communicative language teaching, the aim is to
show learners the relationship between form and
function, to demonstrate that we have different forms
to express different meanings. It was the development
of communicative language teaching that led to a shift
in focus away from the discrete point teaching of
individual sounds to the ways in which stress, rhythm,
and intonation allow for the expression of attitudes,
feelings, degree of certainty, and so on.
Key Principles

4. Keep Affective Considerations Firmly in Mind

The way we speak is an integral part of our
personality. In foreign language situations,
schoolchildren are often reluctant to speak
because they are embarrassed at making ‘funny’
sounds in front of their friends. Technology has an
important role to play here. There are many
software packages and web-based programs that
allow students to work on their pronunciation in
their own private space where they will not run
the risk of being teased by fellow students.
Pronunciation includes the articulation of individual
sounds and the distinctive features of sounds like
voicing and aspiration, voice-setting features (Esling
and Wong, 1983), and stress and intonation.
Attention to these aspects also requires attention to
the blending and omission of sounds, and the effect of
the various aspects on intelligibility. Thus, although it
can be very useful to provide practice with individual
sounds, it is also important to give attention to other
aspects of the sound system.
A teaching technique called minimal pair drilling.
The creator of the drill would identify two
contrasting phoneme such as ‘i’ /i/ and ‘e’ /iy/ as in
the words ‘ship’ and ‘sheep’ and create a lesson
designed to get the learners to hear the difference
between the two sounds, and then to produce them
accurately.
The learners would have to listen to an utterance
such as ‘Point to the ship’ while the teacher held up
two pictures, one of a ship and one of a sheep. They
would then have to point to the appropriate picture.
This would be followed by a production exercise in
which the teacher would say, “Listen and repeat,
‘ship,’ ‘ship’.” The students would chant “ship, ship.”
Then the teacher would say “ship, sheep” and the
students were supposed to make the appropriate
oral discrimination.
Two terms that you need to know are ‘segmental
phonology’ and ‘suprasegmental phonology.’

Segmental phonology has to do with the

individual sounds of the language (the phonemes)
and the differences in conceptual or semantic
meaning brought about by different phonemes.
‘Buck’ and ‘duck’ both belong to the animal
kingdom, but are very different creatures. The
words denoting the creatures are identical except
for the phonemes /b/ and /d/.
Suprasegmental phonology also has to do with
contrasts. However, the contrasts here are
concerned, not with differences in individual
sounds, but with differences in stress, rhythm, and
intonation. These signal differences, not of
semantic meaning, but of attitudinal meaning.
The three aspects of suprasegmental phonology that
you need to be familiar with are stress, rhythm, and
intonation. These all signal attitudinal meaning.
Stress refers to the emphasis we give to individual
syllables within a word as well as the emphasis given
to words within utterances. Emphasis is provided by
making a syllable longer, louder, and higher in pitch.
In words of two or more syllables, one syllable will
be more heavily stressed than the others.

For example:

EMphasis
unHEALTHy
exPLAIN
According to Celce-Murcia et al. the origin of the
language from which a word derives will be an
important determiner of word stress. Those words
that came into English from German, for example, will
tend to have the stress on the first syllable. Within an
utterance, a speaker will emphasize or stress the
word that is most important. Most utterances will
have what is called an unmarked form.
Stress can be taught in the following ways.

• The teacher taps the stress pattern of a word,

with a hard tap for the stressed syllables and soft
for the others. The learners say the word.
• When the teacher provides a model she can
make the stressed syllable longer than usual and
the unstressed ones very short.
• When the learners say a word, they make a
gesture to go with the stressed part of the word.
This gesture can be a hand movement.
• The teacher says a sentence and she stops before a word
that gives the learners problems with the stress. Instead of
saying the word she taps the stress pattern on the table.
The learners must guess the word by listening to the
context and stress pattern, and then say it. “Very well, I’ll
come tap TAP tap tap.” (immediately) If the learners need
extra help to guess the word the first letter can be given.
• The learners are given a list of words. The teacher reads
them and the learners underline the stressed syllables.
• The learners are given a list of words and they put them
in groups according to their stress pattern. The teacher
can give them some model words to represent each stress
pattern. When practicing stress the teacher can present
words with the same stress pattern for practice.
Teaching Sentence Stress
• The teacher taps the rhythms of sentences with his finger on the
table. The learner practices saying the sentences while tapping in
time with the teacher.
• The teacher explains the way rhythm works in an English
sentence and gives models for the learners to copy.
• The teacher says a short sentence with two stresses and the
learners repeat it. Then the sentence is built up in several steps into
a long sentence that still has only two stresses and is repeated in
almost the same length of time as the short sentence.
The boy’s in the house.
The boy’s in the old house.
The little boy’s in the old house.
The little boy’s not in the old house (Robinett, 1965).
• Reading poetry aloud can help to teach learners the rhythm of
English sentences.
Rhythm refers to the way that the alternation of
stressed and unstressed syllables within an utterance
gives a ‘tune’ to the utterance. In English, rhythm is
important, because the language does not always
follow the stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed
pattern of many other languages. There are utterances
that do follow the pattern, for example, ‘I need to see
you now .’ Languages such as Spanish and Chinese,
which follow the stressed/unstressed pattern, are
called ‘syllable timed.’
English, which doesn’t follow the pattern, is called
stressed timed. In stressed timed languages, the
unstressed syllables are spoken quickly and squashed
together so that the ear is drawn to the important,
content words. In an utterance such as ‘I was late
because of the weather,’ the words ‘because of the’ will
occupy approximately the same amount of time as the
content words ‘late’ and ‘weather.’ Mastering stress
timing is a major challenge for speakers of syllable
timed languages.
While stress and rhythm refer to the emphasis or
loudness given to individual syllables and words,
intonation refers to the up and down tones that are
produced. Some languages, such as Chinese and Thai,
use different tones to signal differences of semantic
meaning. In English, rising and falling tones signal
differences of attitudinal meaning.
Consider the utterance ‘That’s my drink, isn’t it?’
spoken with a rising intonation.

The rising intonation indicates the speaker’s lack of

certainty as to whether the drink is his or not.

The utterance spoken with a falling intonation

signals a very different meaning, namely that the
speaker believes the drink to be his but is seeking
confirmation.
Learners can practice intonation in the following ways.
• The learners can copy the teacher.
• The learners can make gestures to go with changes in
intonation. The rise at the end of a Yes/No question can go
with the speaker raising her eyebrows, or lifting a shoulder
(Robinett, 1965).
• The learners say the last word of a sentence by itself with
the correct intonation, rising or falling. Then word by word
they build up the sentence from the end to the beginning
while keeping the correct intonation (Robinett, 1965).
“tea. or tea. coffee or tea. want coffee or tea. etc.”
• The learners can be shown drawings of intonation
patterns to help them understand what they should try to
do.
Question : Why is it important to integrate
pronunciation with other aspects of language such
as listening and grammar? Wouldn’t it make more
sense to teach it separately?
Response : As far as possible, all aspects of
language should be integrated. If you teach a
particular pronunciation feature in isolation, it
makes it more difficult for learners to
appreciate the communicative purpose of the
feature than if it’s taught in context. That doesn’t
mean we never teach items in isolation. However,
the pronunciation feature should be presented
and practiced in context.
The usual sequence is, first, to present the
pronunciation feature in context, for example in a
conversation or some other listening text. Second,
draw the attention of the learners to the feature in
question and explain the communicative function
of the feature. Third, create an exercise that
focuses on the form, for example an exercise to
discriminate between minimal pair phonemes
such as /t/ /d/ or word stress. Next, get the
learners to practice the item. Finally, create a
communicative exercise such as a role-play to give
the learners further practice in context.
Next Week:

Grammar