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SeasonedVet
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 236
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:45 am Post subject: |
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sorry posted twice.
Last edited by SeasonedVet on Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:49 am; edited 1 time in total |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:46 am Post subject: |
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| womblingfree wrote: |
I had to sit through an excrutiating lesson observation once as a teacher drilled her class on the correct pronunciation of 'karaoke', not realising it was a Japanese word.
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Yes, but it is pronounced differently in English, just as a lot of katakana words in Japanese are pronounced differently. As teachers surely it is our responsibility to make our students comprehensible to other English speakers many of whom will be in the native-English speaking world and may not be as sympathetic as we are when listening to them.
If a student is talking to their business client about an upcoming erection or does so in an interview for a Western firm then it's no use saying that their listeners are just going to have to adjust to this type of "diversity". |
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SeasonedVet
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 236
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:46 am Post subject: |
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furiousmilksheikali wrote:
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SeasonedVet wrote:
About the "l" and "r" situaition. In Japanese language the two sounds are quite similar. However there is something I have noticed and it would make a good study. I just tested it out on a friend.
Me: (pointing at the light hanging from the ceiling) What's that?
Friend: "right"
Me: What letter starts the word?
Friend "l"
Me: What did you say again?
Friend: "right"
Me: and what letter starts the word again?
Friend: "l"
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Reading and writing are completely different from speaking and listening. The students can easily understand how to spell "light" in English without having a clue about the pronunciation. Non-Japanese speakers can know what a kanji means without having to be able to pronounce it too. There doesn't seem to be anything strange about this at all.
It only shows that the student hasn't trained themself to pronounce distinct "l" and "r" sounds and their ears are probably not tuned to hearing the difference. |
I understand what you are saying.
However I was more concerned with the fact that many Japanese (and Chinese and Thai) often Substitute "L" for "R", so that there must be some brain process that tells them that the Sound for "L" is written "R" and the sound for "R" is written "L",
I am not getting at the training in the differences of the sounds or as Others mentioned that "R" can be pronunced in different ways. I understand that. I understand that if trained and taught they will eventually do it the way native English speakers pronunce And write the sounds.
What I am getting at is What tells them in the First Place that the Sound for "R" is Transcribed as "L" and what tells them that the sound for "L" is transcribed as "R"
Moreover seeing that Chinese and Japanese languages are related (but the sound systems are different?) and Thai and Sanskrit/Hindi are related, how come Thais do the same with the "L" and "R" but Indians don't? Indians go heavy on that Retroflex. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:49 am Post subject: |
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| The students can easily understand how to spell "light" in English without having a clue about the pronunciation. Non-Japanese speakers can know what a kanji means without having to be able to pronounce it too. |
I teach university students who cannot spell simple words properly, whether because of L and R problems or similar ones (S vs. TH, V vs. B, etc.).
SIMPLE words. After 6 years of high school studies and a couple more in college, they still can't get these right.
chket = ticket
led = red
vely = very
Non-Japanese and Japanese speakers can learn kanji meanings without knowing the pronuciation. It's a whole different situation. There are many ways to pronounce a single kanji, but usually only one way to pronounce an English word (even if it has several meanings). |
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johanne
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
Posts: 189
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 1:00 am Post subject: |
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| If you want Japanese to pronounce English clearly they need native or near-native speakers to teach them phonics in Grades 1 and 2. As it is fairly straight forward to teach phonics once you are given the system it would be a perfect job for Jets as it doesn't require a great deal of teacher training. A half hour a day would probably be sufficient and in the process the kids could aquire some good vocab and simple sentence structure. |
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Mark
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 500
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 1:12 am Post subject: |
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| johanne wrote: |
| If you want Japanese to pronounce English clearly they need native or near-native speakers to teach them phonics in Grades 1 and 2. As it is fairly straight forward to teach phonics once you are given the system it would be a perfect job for Jets as it doesn't require a great deal of teacher training. A half hour a day would probably be sufficient and in the process the kids could aquire some good vocab and simple sentence structure. |
Phonics is a way for English-speaking children to learn how to read English.
It's based on the assumption that the students have acquired the sound system of English.
The best way for small children to acquire clear pronunciation is for them to listen to lots and lots and lots of the language either directly from a native speaker or from CDs/DVDs and whatnot.
Teaching kids that the letter "s" stands for the sound /s/ and the letters "sh" stand for the sound /sh/ doesn't make much difference if the kids can't tell the difference between the two sounds in the context of see and she.
And, I'd add, that it's not realistic (or even desirable) that Japanese kids develop a near-native accent of English. They're not native speakers. They're Japanese. There's no problem with sounding Japanese, the same way I sound like the place I come from. But the students can still produce clear Japanese-accented English. Think of Ken Watanabe in The Last Samurai. |
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Mark
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 500
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 1:28 am Post subject: |
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| SeasonedVet wrote: |
I understand what you are saying.
However I was more concerned with the fact that many Japanese (and Chinese and Thai) often Substitute "L" for "R", so that there must be some brain process that tells them that the Sound for "L" is written "R" and the sound for "R" is written "L",
I am not getting at the training in the differences of the sounds or as Others mentioned that "R" can be pronunced in different ways. I understand that. I understand that if trained and taught they will eventually do it the way native English speakers pronunce And write the sounds.
What I am getting at is What tells them in the First Place that the Sound for "R" is Transcribed as "L" and what tells them that the sound for "L" is transcribed as "R"
Moreover seeing that Chinese and Japanese languages are related (but the sound systems are different?) and Thai and Sanskrit/Hindi are related, how come Thais do the same with the "L" and "R" but Indians don't? Indians go heavy on that Retroflex. |
Eh? Chinese and Japanese are not related at all. Japanese has borrowed kanji and some vocabulary, but the languages are not related. And the sound systems are completely different.
Thai and Sanskrit/Hindi are also not related. Hindi is an Indo-European language, while Thai is most definitely not.
When people learn a foreign language, they usually try to pronounce it using only the sounds in their native language. This is basically ok if the two languages have almost all common sounds, but it's a big problem if the languages have very different sound systems.
So, if someone has only "r" in their native language, they'll probably use it to pronounce both "r" and "l". In the case of Japanese, which has neither sound but rather something in between, they use that sound for both English sounds.
As for the spelling mistakes, it's probably just that students have absolutely no idea which letter to use and they're just guessing. They probably write "The light is on" as often as they write "The right is on". Over time, some of them successfully memorize when to use "l" and when to use "r" in their writing. |
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womblingfree
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 10:23 am Post subject: |
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| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
Yes, but it is pronounced differently in English, just as a lot of katakana words in Japanese are pronounced differently. As teachers surely it is our responsibility to make our students comprehensible to other English speakers many of whom will be in the native-English speaking world and may not be as sympathetic as we are when listening to them. |
The English speaking world (ie: The World) has more people speaking English as a second language than as a native language. Most of whom are far better able to use English to cross national boundries than native speakers who refuse to try and understand linguistic diversity.
The variety between English speakers is just as diverse as the Englishes spoken in non-English speaking countries as well. Which branch of English do you suggest is taught?
If Japanese businessmen are going to work in India should we teach Indian pronunciation? New York? Devon in England? Scottish? Outback Australian? Nigerian?
Effective communication is what is most important and getting hung up on a natural diversification of language is pointless and helps no one.
Last edited by womblingfree on Sat Jan 27, 2007 11:02 am; edited 4 times in total |
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womblingfree
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 10:31 am Post subject: |
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| Mark wrote: |
| This seems like a strange comment to me. Why would North Americans be given phonetics/phonology lessons to correct their natural pronunciation of their first language? |
And by the same logic why would we teach phonetics to correct the natural pronunciation of peoples second language? Practically everyone that speaks an L2 speaks it with the accent and inflections of their L1.
| Mark wrote: |
| We could accept all kinds of speech "diversity", but we don't, which is why we have speech therapists. |
You are confusing diversity with people with speech disorders. We accept diversity every time we leave our house, there are millions of variations of English from town to town, state to state and country to country.
Claiming that people who speak differently to you have a speech disorder will get you a one way ticket to E.R.
Try it in New York!  |
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womblingfree
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 10:40 am Post subject: |
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| Mark wrote: |
| nobody is forcing them to correctly pronounce "r" and "l". They're perfectly free to substitute their Japanese "r" for both sounds and we can call it "diversity". However, and it's a big "however", this seriously limits the understandability of Japanese English. |
No more so than the understandability of any other English variant from anywhere else. If there is misunderstanding it is just as likely to come from the listeners lack of communicative ability than from the L2 speaker.
There are enough English speakers who are all but unintelligible to people outside of their social grouping. Japanese pronunciation sounds like Hugh Grant compared to someone with a thick localised English dialect, whch will not only contain wildly different pronunciation, but also local phrases and words that are completely unknown to the listener. |
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johanne
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
Posts: 189
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Phonics is a way for English-speaking children to learn how to read English.
It's based on the assumption that the students have acquired the sound system of English. |
Actually you will find plenty of ESL kids learning English phonics before they have learned to speak it. It is a common occurance in primary school classrooms in any major English speaking city with an immigrant population. Phonics is nothing more than teaching how the letters used to write down a language are connected to the sound of the language. You can teach this to people who do not yet speak the language fluently, or even at a beginner level. I've been doing for the last 7 years.
If you start teaching phonics at 6 six years, the children naturally pick up the sounds. They have no problems differentiating 's" and "sh". Children that age are natural mimics and in fact some ESL speakers master phonics before native speakers and appear to be "reading", although their limited understanding of the language means they are not understanding what they are decding. If you combine the teaching of language and phonics you will get kids learning English words and pronouncing them clearly and in many cases the kids will be thinking in English from almost the beginning of their language learning.
I don't think Japanese need to speak like natives, especially considering "native" English is full of different accents, but by learning phonics the majority of students will speak in an accent that is clear to most other native and ESL speakers and communication is the point. Teaching phonics from Grade 1 will help them read the words as it sounds in English and not as they sound in katakana and that makes a difference in how understandable they will be to other English speakers (native or second language).
If you look at the French Immersian program in Canada 5 year old kids are taught French phonics when they can say little more than "bonjour" and while only some kids go on to become fluent French speakers the vast majority of them (over 90%) pronounce French words clearly and are easy to understand. |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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| womblingfree wrote: |
The English speaking world (ie: The World) has more people speaking English as a second language than as a native language. Most of whom are far better able to use English to cross national boundries than native speakers who refuse to try and understand linguistic diversity.
The variety between English speakers is just as diverse as the Englishes spoken in non-English speaking countries as well. Which branch of English do you suggest is taught?
If Japanese businessmen are going to work in India should we teach Indian pronunciation? New York? Devon in England? Scottish? Outback Australian? Nigerian?
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This is a fashionable and yet foolish stance.
Why tell a student that the word "erection" should be pronounced "election"? After all, so many speakers aound the world make the same mistake that the weight of numbers is in their favour?
Sure, believe that if you want. But what happens when a distraught student returns to you saying that his clients laughed him out of the room for his pronunciation errors? Or else simply couldn't understand his "universal" English?
No one here is in the business of teaching "universal English". If you think you know what that is then you are surley making a mistake. What is the differnece between this and pidgin English?
Of course we shouldn't be teaching "Indian" English or "Scottish" English. You should concentrate on teaching the English that you are most intimate with, whilst tailoring it so that you use English spoken by a large number of "reasonably educated" people.
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| Effective communication is what is most important and getting hung up on a natural diversification of language is pointless and helps no one. |
Nice idea. What happens if not everyone in the world listening to students from the school of diversity didn't understand words like "bumbaklaat"? |
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womblingfree
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
This is a fashionable and yet foolish stance.
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It's not a stance it's how people speak.
If you want to drill your Japanese students to pronounce their R's then that's up to you.
Have fun.
Last edited by womblingfree on Sat Jan 27, 2007 7:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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womblingfree
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 826
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
| Why tell a student that the word "erection" should be pronounced "election"? After all, so many speakers aound the world make the same mistake that the weight of numbers is in their favour? |
Assuming linguistic diversity is a mistake labels entire speech communities as defective just because they don't replicate your personalised experiences of pronunciation.
We aren't norm-providing custodians of English, although it's this kind of fallacy that keeps the eikaiwa industry rolling. |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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| womblingfree wrote: |
| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
| Why tell a student that the word "erection" should be pronounced "election"? After all, so many speakers aound the world make the same mistake that the weight of numbers is in their favour? |
Assuming linguistic diversity is a mistake labels entire speech communities as defective just because they don't replicate your personalised experiences of pronunciation.
We aren't norm-providing custodians of English, although it's this kind of fallacy that keeps the eikaiwa industry rolling. |
Do you understand the distinctiom between is and ought? In a perfect world we could babble anything we want and everyone will and should understand us. The inconvenient truth is that this doesn't happen. You have studied an MA in Applied Linguistics so please post me a study that shows, conclusively, that diversity in English is an unmitigated benefit to the student. |
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