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Firecat · Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 14

I have a good friend who is Colombian and living in the United States. She speaks almost fluent English, but her near-fluency gets lost in her heavy accent. We live in an area where there is a large Colombian population and some of our common friends do not speak English as well as she does; however, they sound more knowledgeable than her because they speak more clearly. My friend does not want, or need, to lose her accent, she just wants to pronounce better in English. I have been trying to work on phonics with her, but had little success. Any suggestions?

BTW, she is forty-eight-years-old and her ways are bit engrained.

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Give your friend some kind of audio to repeat into a cassette recorder. For example, she could play a DVD with native speakers talking and the English subtitles on, then replay a scene with the sound OFF but the subtitles ON, and record herself reciting the subtitles out loud. She can then play back both the original audio track and listen to herself talking; this way she can hear how her pronunciation differs.

If she has a computer, there are many languag training programs that do this. The student wears headphones and a mike; a phrase is spoken over the headphones, and then she reads that phrase off the screen while her voice is recorded. She can then play back both soundtracks to hear the difference.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Have you ever tried this, or seen a student for whom it was successful? I haven't tried, though have been looking around for software that could do something similar.

I ask because a previous discussion on this by some experienced people brought up the problem that students cannot often hear accent or pronunciation errors. My own limited experience has been similar, particularly when trying to point out v/b differences and that little -th- sound Spanish speakers apply to the end of words that end in -d or -ed. eg. usted, called, pared

Firecat · Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 14

I haven�t had the opportunity to use those either. My friend has the same problems with v/b and also pronouncing �es� as the letter �s,� example: �es-pecial� instead of �special.� I try to correct her, but she does not hear the problem. Her biggest problem is that her accent is just so heavy! Much of what she says is not understandable, but I know that she is saying the correct words. I tell her to try to sound like me when she speaks, but then she just puts on what sounds like an insulting drawl and says that she can�t do it.

She is helping me with Spanish. When I speak I try to imitate her accent and I have been told that what little Spanish I speak sounds like perfect Colombian Spanish.

Isn�t that �th� sound what the Spanish (Spain) do? Just something that I have heard in the past.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

MixtecaMike · Joined: 19 Nov 2003 Posts: 643 Location: Guatebad

From my days as a linguistic student I recall that accent is often a sign that the second language speaker does not wish to identify him/herself too closely with the second language community. This can be on a conscious or subconscious level. The example we were given was that Henry Kissinger spoke with his accent, despite being very fluent in English, and his brother spoke English with no discernable accent. Of course I never mix with any of those interferring imperialist types, so I cannot vouch for the truth of the anecdote.

As to how to "help" your student with the accent, as stated above first you need to make him or her aware of the difference, so he/she can hear there is a difference, than the production of the correct sound will follow automatically. Studying any basic text on phonetics will help you understand the mechanics of speech sound production, and thusly identify the exact changes that need to be made. Recommended are O'Connor, Phonetics, or even better Ladefogard (something like that) A Course in Phonetics. Or the phonetics section of any general linguistics textbook, for an easier introduction.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Thank you, #$%^ linguist.

Laughing

no harm intended Mike. See you on Thursday! You bring kimchi. I trade chili.

Firecat · Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 14

Brynita · Joined: 27 Jun 2005 Posts: 23 Location: New Haven, CT, USA

My boss in Chile was an American from California, and despite living in Chile for over 25 years, he spoke with a heavy US accent, even though his vocabulary and grammar were fairly solid. In his case, I think it was because there is a certain cach� in being a gringo, and he most certainly wanted to set himself apart as "important."

With my students, since we didn't have access to any of those fancy audio or software things, I usually resorted to phoenetically spelling things out for them (according to Spanish phoenetic spelling). This worked with some things, such as "tokt" for "talked" or "uiken" for "weekend," but not so well with others. For example, no matter how I tried to spell "woman" (uamen, uoman, etc.), I always had some students who continued to pronounce it "goo-man."

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

MixtecaMike · Joined: 19 Nov 2003 Posts: 643 Location: Guatebad

Don't have any "goo-mans" here, but I hear a lot about some unusual building material called "ude" (Note: the e represents a schwa) and a ferocious pig-eating animal called the big bad "ulif."

Let's have a vote on which English phoneme needs axing in order to make the language more internationally friendly.

1 /w/
2 /v/
3 /I/ as in pit
4 /Symbol unavailable/ the voiced interdental fricative a.k.a. "th" in this.
5 Any other nominations.

aisha · Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:46 am Post subject:

/R/

What about the English r? My Spanish/Linguistic professor told me that it's one of the hardest sounds to teach. Have you guys had any problems with it?

Perpetual Traveller · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 651 Location: In the Kak, Japan

Well I guess it doesn't help that it changes from accent to accent. For example the North Americans tend to give it a lot of emphasis, particularly at the end of a word: yeaR, caR. Whereas the Aussies and Brits are more likely to ignore it: cah, yea.

PT

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 9:22 pm Post subject:

I as in "pit."

Been teaching English to Spanish speakers for a lot of years. One or two have finally mastered it. (eet)

I think Mike is onto something in recommending a good phonetics text as essential reading for a good TEFLer. In the beginning, few Spanish speakers, for example, hear a difference between "snake" and "esnake." The physical positioning of the tongue is easy, though. If you repeat the sound for them to copy, you're wasting your time, cause they won't hear it. If you show/tell them where to put their tongues and how to make the sound, it's a piece of cake. The physiology of sound production is something many teachers should know more about.

Regards,
Justin