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TEACHING PRONUNCIATION David Abercrombie (1956) Is it necessary for a language teacher to be a phonetician ? It is merely a question of how efficient their Phonetics is to be. PHONETIC SYMBOLS a very value part of phonetician’s technique, but it is perfectly possible to teach pronunciation without making use of them without succeeding in teaching pronunciation How much training will he or she need to be an effective one ? *- On the theoretical : 1.how the organs work 2.how spoken utterance may best be analysed and described for teaching purposes 3.a knowledge of the phonetic structure of English and his pupils’ native language • - On the practical : an ear sufficiently trained to diagnose mistakes vocal organs sufficiently under control to produce isolated English sounds and, imitations of pupils’ mispronunciations provide short cuts in correcting mistakes FOUR POINTS IN THE APPLICATION OF THIS KNOWLEDGE WHICH NEED CONSIDERATION 1. the danger of misplaces zeal -phonetics is a technique for the teacher not a subject to be taught. 2. concerns the use of phonetic transcription – IPA - four different course when starting to teach a language to beginners a). may give the traditional orthography only, leaving transcription to be introduced later 2. CONCERNS THE USE OF PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION b). He may give transcription as the only written form, leaving the orthography till later c). Both transcription and orthography may be given from the start d). He may avoid written from at the beginning, *the late 19th century advocates of language teaching to adopt (b), either (b) or (c) ; a good deal to be said for (a) In the beginning stages : not difficult for the learner to master Later on : the learner has began to feel at home in the language , should be taught phonetic transcription and so made able to us such things as pronouncing dictionaries. Result (a) has an advantage for pupils whose mother tongue is not written in the Roman alphabet, (c) would mean , learning two Roman systems of writing simultaneously “ imitated pronunciation” : gives approximate equivalents of the sounds of the language being in the spelling conventions of learner’s mother tongue. 3. To be considered is that people vary, to a surprising extent, in ability to learn the pronunciation of foreign languages. - musical ear : mainly concerned with pitch differences - phonetic ear : discriminates between complex noises - poet’s ear Whatever a good ear may consist of the teacher who finds a pupil so gifted is lucky ; he has a useful stimulus for the rest of the class, and sometimes for himself in moments of despair. 4. What standard of performance is expected to produce in the pupil? - that a different answer will imply different planning of the pronunciation side of the course. Is it necessary for most language learners to acquire a perfect pronunciation? - most other language learners need no more than a comfortably intelligible - young children : remarkable facility for acquiring strange sounds - puberty : the faculty for each imitation is lot, If language learning starts after this time, systematic instruction in pronunciation is necessary. “after a certain age we cannot learn to produce a new language” Limited goal in pronunciation teaching (a) which features of English pronunciation are important for intelligibility(phonetic structure) (b) Which of these features will require the learner’s attention (learner’s mother tongue) ex : law-low ; bad - bud ; leaf - feel Muscular habits – good habits are vital from the outset , even if this means going from a particular vowel to a consonant and back to another vowel. Rhythm – be quite as important as the articulate (rhythm need not concern) Received Pronunciation : that foreigners should be taught to speak the style of English (Daniel Jones) Suggestion : - providing an efficient and economical programme , capable of inclusion in the most crowded syllabus. Thank you ! Joanna