One of the main purpose of this magazine is to show the knowledge acquired throughout this course and some helpful reflections and techniques that will help to improve pronunciation in the educational system in Costa Rica.
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Entry 1………………………………………………………………………….4 Chart of consonant sounds in English…………………………………..11 First activity for teaching pronunciation……………………………….13 Second activity for teaching pronunciation………………………….15 Crossword Puzzle……………………………………….............................17 Analysis of activities used for teaching pronunciation……………..19 Third activity for teaching pronunciation………………………………24 Editorial – What experts say………………………………………………27 10 tips for teaching pronunciation………………………………………31 Entertainment section and answers…………………………………….42
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Through this course, we are going to examine some essential questions that will help us, as future professionals, to determine what would be the best for our students. 1. What is pronunciation and its importance in learning a language? Ăź With this question, we can ask ourselves what it is and why it is important to teach in a foreign language. According to Cambridge Dictionary, it refers to how words are pronounced or how we make the sound of words. However, why is it important in learning a language? Because it is the way you can communicate your ideas effectively along a conversation. The teaching of pronunciation is key to language learning. 5
2. What aspects are important in teaching pronunciation? Ăź There
are
some
important
aspects
in
teaching
pronunciation.
Articulation
Vowels
Phoneme
Intonation
Rhythm
Consonants
For
example:
Stress
Ăź All those aspects are important in order to teach and improve an effective pronunciation in classes.
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3. What aspects should a teacher take into consideration when teaching pronunciation? Ăź As teachers, we must take into consideration some aspects in order to teach successfully. For example: 1.
The atmosphere or environment that our students are involved or we are creating in our classes.
2.
Students’ needs: nobody is equal or has the same way to learn. Taking into consideration their needs will help us to identify those problems and provide better solutions to our students.
3.
Students’ level: according to their level, we can start and cover those needs in order to move forward.
4.
Resources: teaching pronunciation is so important to count with good resources in order to provide proper lessons to our students. 7
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DIRECT METHOD (1800'S - 1900'S) Intuition, imitation, and repetition
By listening and then imitating the modeler
REFORM MOVEMENT (1890'S) Development of the IPA by phoneticians
Analyze and describe the sound systems of languages by written symbols
AUDIOLINGUALISM-ORAL APPROACH (1940'S AND 1950'S) Grammatical explannations are kept to a minimum
Pronunciation should be worked on right from the beginning of language instruction and any mispronunciation should be corrected by the teacher.
COGNITIVE APPROACH 1960'S It determines how one feels and behaves.
SILENT WAY The learner is not learned by repotting
The teacher is a facilitator
COMMUNITY LANGUAGE 1976 Students decide what they want to learn
Teacher is a resource
COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (NOWSDAYS) The ultimate goal is communication
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1. Dictionaries ONLINES
3. English Program ONLINES
2. Pronunciation Software
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Places / Manners
Bilabial
Stops Plosives
/p/ /b/
Labiodental
Interdental
Alveolar
/t/ /d/
Affricative voiced voiceless
Nasal voiced
Velar
Glottal
/k/ /g/
[tʃ] [dʒ]
/m/
Fricative voiced voiceless
/n/
/f/ /v/
Liquid voiced Glide voiced
Palatal
/w/
[θ] [ð]
[ŋ]
/s/ /z/
[ʃ] [ʒ]
/l/
/r/
/h/
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ü Students will have to work in pairs. ü By helping each student, they will have listen to his/her partner in order to identify and distinguish the different sound at the end of the following flash cards. ü Then, they will give a reasonable answer about it.
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Objectives: ü
Students will be able to improve their listening skills by different audios provided.
ü
Students will be able to distinguish the right pronunciation of the word given in the practice.
ü
Students will be able to recognize the right sound according to its written symbol by reading and listening.
Description of the activity: The activity consists of a series of images, audios clips, and sentences in which the students must guess the correct symbol and sentence according to the previously heard audio clip. Furthermore, the students must analyze a text and look for the consonants. The teachers will give a brief explanation of the activity. This activity has the intention of improving the students’ listening and oral skills. Procedure: This activity will be developed by the following way: 1.
The classroom will be organized in lines
2.
The instruction will be given
3.
Start with the presentation which has the following instructions:
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Showing images and sentences with their respective options
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Playing the audios
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Choosing an answer from the words given in parenthesis.
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The text will be projected in the board
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Showing the right answer and its symbol
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Explaining why that answer would be correct.
Materials: We will use the following materials in order to develop this activity. Ø
Edited Video
Ø
Audios
Ø
Images
Ø
Sentences
Ø
Papers
Note: This plan is designed for B1 English students. 16
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ACROSS 7. Occurs when the nasal consonants color the sound of a preceding vowel (the velum is partially open during the vowel sound). 9. The position of the body to the tongue (which influences the shape of the oral cavity) is represented by these sections. 11. Syllables without a final consonant sound, as in Tea, May, Pa, Law, Hoe, and Zoo.
DOWN 1. English vowels in unstressed position (at both the word and phrase level) to be articulated as reduced vowels; /schwa/ is a reduced vowel, /schwa to the power of r/, /I/, /i/, /o/, /u/ 2. Lip position can be described in these ways. 3. Vowels consisting of a vowel sound followed by a nonadjacent glide within the same syllable, as in boy.
14. Tense vowels are /iy, ey, a, open o, ow, uw/; these vowels are articulated with more muscle tension than lax vowels.
4. The volume of the oral cavity increases as the jaw opens, with the high, mid, and *low sections of the vowel quadrant being differentiated both by 15. Vowels accompanied by /y/ or the successive opening of the jaw /w/, as in pain /ey/, and the or stone /ow/. lowering of the tongue. 16. Syllables terminating in a consonant, as in team, main, pop, lawn, hole, and zoom.
5. A form with a stressed vowel when the word is spoken alone, out of context (example: word is "a" and citation is /ey/).
8. English vowels in unstressed position (at both the word and phrase level) to be articulated as reduced vowels; /schwa/ is a reduced vowel, /schwa to the power of r/, /I/, /i/, /o/, /u/. 10. A voiced sound that can function as the peak of a syllable; includes all vowels, the semivowels /w,y/, the nasals /m, n, engma/, and the liquids /l,r/. 12. / small capital I, episilon, ash, rUssikoff, pUt/ 13. Sounds in which there is a continual vibration of the vocal cords and the airstream is allowed to escape from the mouth in an unobstructed manner, without any interruption.
6. Vowels without an accompanying glide movement (epsilon, or the symbol in put). WORD BANK VOWEL / SIMPLE VOWELS / VOWEL WITH AN ADJANCENT GLIDE / DIPHTHONGS / VOWEL QUADRANT / FRONT, CENTRAL, BACK / ROUNDED, SPREAD, NEUTRAL / TENSE VOWELS / LAX VOWELS / OPEN SYLLABLES / CLOSED SYLLABLES / SONORANT / /r/-COLORING / NAZALIZED / REDUCED VOWELS / CITATION FORM / REDUCED FORM.
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• Adapting pastimes games to teaching pronunciation can be useful for students, as well as teachers. There is an infinitive games that you can modify in your ESL/EFL classrooms. There will be always factors come up to your lessons and we, as teachers, have to face them by being ready. 20
• Depending on person, it will find vowel sounds harder than consonant sounds or the other way around. In my case, I found all the sounds hard at the beginning. Nevertheless, throughout many practices and persistency, now, I am able to distinguish and pronounce those sound properly. • I have found teaching pronunciation class interesting and funny because it reminds my moments at INA when I started studying English and I was a complete mess at that time, but, today, I see learning English easier than the first time. 21
• I do like the teacher’s creativity, adopting a typical domino to reviewing vowel sounds or Find the Missing Object were incredible; you are playing, learning, and having fun at the same time. It is the best way that a learner can acquire new knowledge. Everything depends on how the teacher manages his/her lessons, but, I would definitely like to apply those activities to my future pronunciation classes. 22
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ü
Students will be able to develop proficiency in the English language.
ü
Students will be able to improve their speaking skills by creating oral sentences.
ü
Students will be able to improve their listening distinguishing from the right pronunciation of the word given in the activity.
ü
Students will reach a level of proficiency in speaking skills.
Description of the activity: The activity consists of playing hot potato with balloons where each balloon will have a symbol of a vowel inside. When the music is stopped, the student is going to, who has a balloon, have to pronounce it properly and make sentences according to the previously sound. Furthermore, the students must utter. This activity has the intention of improving the students’ listening and oral skills. Procedure: This activity will be developed by the following way: 1.
The classroom will make a circle in the middle of the classroom.
2.
Teacher will choose a start point for the activity.
3.
Teacher will start playing the music.
4.
Students will start passing the balloon to the peer sitting next to the right or left side.
5.
When the teacher stops the music, the student will have to burst the balloon.
6.
When the student reaches the paper he or she will have to read the vowel and make a sentence with it.
Materials: We will use the following materials in order to develop this activity. Ø
Symbols
Ø
Papers
Ø
Balloons
Note: This plan is designed for B1 English 25 students.
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Think about the learners that you have taught or plant to teach. What challenges do you believe these learners will face in the areas listed in question 3? Teaching pronunciation for ESL/EFL classrooms will represent a challenge to students, as well as teachers. Why? Because there are certain factors that are involved in this skill, without forgetting that pronunciation is one of the most important skills in English Language Teaching. Therefore, teachers would face several factors that may affect the learning of pronunciation in their classrooms. For example:
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• Level of motivation: it is a keyword when you are teaching pronunciation. Such as stress, rhythm, and connected speech play a huge role in students’ performance in pronunciation; nevertheless, each of those points might alter student’s motivation if he/she isn’t good at one of them. Thus, you, as a teacher, should provide practical exercises where you can analyze and improve their weaknesses.
• Attitude: as we mentioned previously, motivation and attitude are essential when you are teaching something; they go hand in hand in students’ learning process. However, attitude can help more students improve and push themselves far than they would have imagined.
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• Teaching approach: The way the learners adapt to the diverse types of new methodologies used by the teacher. • REFERENCES: • Macrothink.org.
(2011).
Citar
un
sitio
web
-
Cite
This
For
Me.
[online]
Available
at:
http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jse/article%20/viewFile/924/746 [Accessed 4 Aug. 2017]. • Celce-Murcia; M.; Brinton, D. & Goodwing, J. (2010). Teaching Pronunciation: A course book and reference guide (2 Ed.). New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.
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1. Providing helpful feedback: giving feedback to students, it will help them improve their pronunciation and teacher to see their weaknesses.
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2. Using minimal pairs : using this technique will give a better understanding of the sounds and to distinguish them better.
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3. Using the right mouth positions: articulating properly will give a correct pronunciation of the words in order for students to catch the sounds and repeat them correctly.
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4. Using tongue twisters: it is a wonderful way to practice and improve pronunciation and fluency; sometimes it can improve accents by using alliteration.
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5. Using Realia, flashcards, and other visuals: the learning process would be easier and more interactive for the students.
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6. Applying Audio-lingual Approach: by this approach, teacher will be repetiting several times neither words or sounds.
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7. IPA is your best friend: IPA is very helpful for teaching pronunciation because it gives an idea to students how to pronounce without needing the teacher.
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8. Giving dynamic classes: students learn more by dynamic classes than giving non interactive classes. Remember that you have to catch your students’ attention.
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9. Encouraging students anytime: students learn more by dynamic classes than giving non interactive classes. Remember that you have to catch your students’ attention.
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10. Teaching the importance of stress, connected speech, and rhythm along the course given: these points play an important role in students’ performance in pronunciation.
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Program used to crossword puzzle:
create
this
http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/ Answers: http://www.puzzlemaker.com/crossword_Free.cgi http://www.puzzlemaker.com/crossword_FreeSolution. cgi
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• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
• Betty Botter bought some butter But she said the butter’s bitter If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter But a bit of better butter will make my batter better So ‘twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood As a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood •
https://www.engvid.com/english-resource/50-tongue-twisters-improve-pronunciation/
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