Transcript VU corporate - Nationaal Congres Engels

TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION
FOR USE IN AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
DR LAURA RUPP
[email protected]
GLOBAL ENGLISH
English is today’s leading international language
- 80% of communication in English is between nonnative speakers (Osimk, n.d.)
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THE SITUATION ILLUSTRATED
It is no longer the ‘English as we have
known it, and have taught it in the past as a
foreign language’ (Graddol, 2006: 11)
Smack the Pony:
English as a
Foreign
Language
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Faculteit der Letteren
QUESTIONS
What are the implications of the global use of
English for English language teaching?
Should the approach to the teaching of English
pronunciation change?
How do we prepare students best for using English
in the 21st century?
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COOK (2002)
Cook (2002: 335) argues that L2 speakers
need to be seen as people in their own right:
‘The crucial implication for education is ensuring that
the standards against which L2 users are measured
should be L2 user standards, not L1 native speaker
standards. Success should be measured by the
ability to use the second language effectively.’
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SOME PERSPECTIVES ON “ERROR”
Brutt-Griffler (2002: 129): ‘any language is the
linguistic expression of the speech community that
speaks it. It is contradictory to claim that a speech
community can speak its own language with ‘errors’.’
MacKenzie (2014: 66): ‘It needs to be recognized that
for the majority of speakers in ELF [English as a Lingua
Franca] interactions, the ‘errors’ simply don’t matter.’
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UITSPRAAKGIDS ENGELS FOR PROFESSIONALS
http://vuuitspraakengels.wikispaces.com
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Faculteit der Letteren
LANGUAGE AWARENESS (WHITE ET AL., 2000)
Language Awareness does not consider language to
be ‘a static entity to be taught through the analysis
of decontextualised sentences.’
‘Language Awareness […] seeks to move students
from intuitive powers to conscious awareness of
how users create meaning through language.’
‘Tradition has the study of language as an end
itself. In contrast, Language Awareness has
empowerment of the individual through language
as an end.’
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STRATEGIC LANGUAGE LEARNING/USE (RUPP, 2013)
Strategic language learning challenges students to
explore English pronunciation from a range of
different perspectives in an “educational arena” that
offers a variety of different tools.
The educational arena is a learning environment
that gives students the opportunity to make an
informed choice & to assume agency regarding
their English pronunciation (within defined
boundaries).
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TENETS OF STRATEGIC LANGUAGE LEARNING/USE
1. To advance knowledge of the conventions of
standardized English in tandem with familiarity
with variation in English
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ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (ELF)
‘an additionally acquired language system which
serves as a means of communication for speakers of
different first languages’ (Jenkins, 2011: 2)
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RECURRENT ELF FEATURES (SEIDLHOFER, 2004)
Voice project (Vienna)
1. No use of the third person singular –s (I like, she
like)
2. Use who and which interchangeably (things who,
people which)
3. Omit or insert articles (to have a respect for, to be
very good person)
4. Pluralize non-countable nouns (researches, advices)
5. Use the demonstrative this with both singular and
plural nouns (this chair/chairs)
6. Use ‘general’ verbs (to make a
discussion/survey/bicycle)
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RESEARCH ON GENERAL ELF FEATURES
• Dewey (2007): omission of third person singular –s is variable
• Pang & Ann (2000): International word stress rule? Stress on
the syllable with the longest vowel, as in
–ate, -ise: educáte, participáte, supervíse, organíze
• Ranta (2006: 107): extended use of progressive is to make
verbs more prominent, ‘attention-catching’
Hello my name is <NAME> I am coming from er Romania where I am
a PHD student
--> Seidlhofer (2010): features in ELF are naturally occurring
developments
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TENETS OF STRATEGIC LANGUAGE LEARNING/USE
2. To train a set of skills for English language use
(e.g. reception of L2 accents, accommodation --> repair
strategies)
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INTELLIGIBILITY: THE LINGUA FRANCA CORE
Core features
Non-core features
All consonants, except:
Substitution of th (except
by /s/ and /z/)
Consonant clusters,
tapping t  ɾ (e.g. water)
Natural speech (weak
forms, assimilation, etc.)
Aspiration (e.g. phit – bit)
Rhoticity (?)
Voicing and vowel length
(e.g. back – bag)
Vowel quality (consistent)
(e.g. hev  hæv, reks 
ræks)
Nuclear stress (I asked
HER) (not you)
Word stress
Jenkins (2000), Osimk (n.d.)
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REPAIR STRATEGIES
THE BOAT
I:
N:
A:
I:
N:
A:
I:
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I mean we don’t have problems … we all get …
and we are in the same es-cool [school]
yeah?
yeah, so she say__
yeah, how do you say? the es-cool
The ssssssschool [lengthening]
Yeah … in the same school and in the same boat I think.
We understand you. We are all foreigners.
All foreigners (laughing)
TENETS OF STRATEGIC LANGUAGE LEARNING/USE
3. To raise students’ awareness of the implications
that particular choices regarding pronunciation
have for their professional and everyday lives
(e.g. intelligibility, credibility/acceptibility)
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TENETS OF STRATEGIC LANGUAGE LEARNING/USE
4. to develop the ability and encourage agency to
utilize strategic language knowledge in actual
situations of English language use
(including the construction of identity through accent)
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ACTIVITY (5 MIN)
Do you consider there to be features of English
pronunciation that students could take agency
over?
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CONCLUSION (CF. HUDLEY & MALLINSON, 2013)
What is a successful user of English in the 21st
century?
Students (who) can do English!
To do English is fun!
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YOUR QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?
REFERENCES
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•
Brutt-Griffler, J. 2002. World Englishes: A Study of Its Development:
Clevendon: Multilingual Matters.
•
Cook, V. 2002. Portraits of the L2 User. Clevendon: Multilingual Matters.
•
Crystal, D. 2003. English as a Global Language. 2nd edition. Cambridge
University Press.
•
Gradoll, D. 2006. English next. British Council, London.
•
Hudley, A. & C. Mallinson, 2013. We Do Language: English Language
Variation in the Secondary English Classroom. New York: Teachers
College Press,
•
Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
•
Jenkins, J. 2002. ‘A sociolinguistically-based, empirically researched
pronunciation syllabus for English as a second language.’ Applied
Linguistics 23: 83-103.
•
MacKenzie, I. 2014. English as a Lingua Franca: Theorizing and
Teaching English. London: Routledge.
REFERENCES
23
•
Munro, M. & T. Derwing. 2006. ‘Foreign accent, comprehensibility,
and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners.’
Language Learning 45: 73-97
•
Osimk, R. ‘(n.d.) ‘Testing the intelligibility of ELF sounds.’ IATEFL
Pronunciation Special Interest Group Newsletter 42.
•
Pang, L. & J. Ann 2000. ‘Stress and duration in three varieties of
English.’ World Englishes 20:1-27.
•
Ranta, E. 2006. ‘The ‘attractive’ progressive – why use the –ing form
in English as a Lingua Franca?’ Nordic Journal of English studies 5:
95-116.
•
Rupp, L. 2013. Uitspraakgids Engels voor Professionals. Amsterdam:
VU Uitgeverij.
•
Seidlhofer, B. 2004. ‘Research perspectives on teaching English as a
lingua franca.’ Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24: 209-239.
•
White, L. et al. 2000. Language Awareness: A History and Its
Implementations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press