Entry #8 Veronica Acuña ULACIT
4. Think about the learners that you have taught or plan to teach. What challenges do you believe these learners will face in the areas listed in question 3?
Teaching pronunciation is an area that it is very important but it is a process to that does not give the due importance. Many learners have a really hard time learning pronunciation patterns. Especially, stress and intonation because every language has different outlines. I think, also the fluency and the pronunciation of the mother tongue pronunciation is a feature that many students keep in mind and it is really hard for them to avoid. And if the teacher is not a native speaker the students will have problems to pronounce the words correctly. Not everyone in the classroom in an ESL classroom has the same abilities and it is really hard for all of them and for the teacher gather all the group on the same level. For that reason, all the material that teacher will use to teach pronunciation have to be clear and easy to follow. I think, teachers have to make activities and worksheets easy to follow according to student’s needs. Likewise, it is essential to work in students’ motivation because learn stress intonation and this kind of subject can be really boring. However, grammar goes together with pronunciation because there are some rules that the student has to follow in order to understand why the article “a” goes after a
consonant and “an� goes after a vowel. It sounds simple but this is a common mistake that learners of a second language make many times. Hence, if the student has good basic grammar knowledge it will be easier for him/her to learn pronunciation.
Another challenge that students have to face is that they do not have the opportunity to practice with a native speaker which it is the best way to learn correctly the second language. However, non-native speaker teachers have the knowledge to teach pronunciation. At the same time, they have to work with different tools that may help them with the topic. Nowadays, there are many tools like phonetic charts that have been developed by native speakers or YouTube channels that can facilitate it teaching pronunciation.