Korean Job Discussion Forums

[le-paul]

(Following on from the 'discrimination about x' thread).

It appears (from reading other threads) that most teachers desire to encourage a 'specific pronunciation', and support their own particular speech patterns etc., often come from prejudice about their own accent (ie heritage).
So, I thought it may be interesting to hear peoples objective comments/professional opinions on the subject.

I took this quote from wiki (apologies but it was the most convenient) regarding sociolinguistics.

It said (on the subject of being understood);

Being understood[edit]

Many teachers of English as a second language neglect to teach speech/pronunciation.[12] Many adult and near-adult learners of second languages have unintelligible speech patterns that may interfere with their education, profession, and social interactions.[12] Pronunciation in a second or foreign language involves more than the correct articulation of individual sounds. It involves producing a wide range of complex and subtle distinctions which relate sound to meaning at several different levels.[12]

Teaching of speech/pronunciation is neglected in part because of the following myths:

Pronunciation isn't important: "This is patently false from any perspective."[12] Speech/Pronunciation forms the vehicle for transmitting the speaker's meaning. If the listener does not understand the message, no communication takes place, and although there are other factors involved, one of the most important is the intelligibility of the speaker's pronunciation.[12]

Students will pick it up on their own: "Some will learn to pronounce the second language intelligibly; many will not."[12]

Inadequate instruction in speech/pronunciation can result in a complete breakdown in communication.[12] The proliferation of commercial "accent reduction" services is seen as a sign that many ESL teachers are not meeting their students' needs for speech/pronunciation instruction.[12]

The goals of speech/pronunciation instruction should include: to help the learner speak in a way that is easy to understand and does not distract the listener, to increase the self-confidence of the learner, and to develop the skills to self-monitor and adapt one's own speech.[12]

Even when the listener does understand the speaker, the presence of an accent that is difficult to understand can produce anxiety in the listener that he will not understand what comes next, and cause him to end the conversation earlier or avoid difficult topics.[12]

While the article may have been referring to specific problems regarding the students own natural, pronunciation being responsible in part for fluency (amongst other reasons), it could be argued that teachers encourage and support that specific pronunciation because it is 'similar to their own', or 'too different' to their own - regardless of whether or not it is understandable.

It is also arguable, that students often learn 'parrot like' and will attempt to 'repeat'/'repeat as a matter of course', the teachers pronunciation (ie: the students pronunciation/flow will develop according to the teachers own accent).

It only becomes objective teaching however, when a teacher deems a students pronunciation 'unintelligible' or 'incorrect' in some way (with the regard to the general populous understanding, rules of grammar, phonetic sounds etc.), and therefore corrects them. The focus then being parroting the teacher rather than educating the learner as to the importance of using sound patterns etc. (a basic example being stress placed on a specific vowel to create intonation as opposed to monotone). (I have heard students parroting me and quickly corrected them, as they have picked up on my regional accent when I was talking informally- i judged that this would not normally be understood).

One big problem (as I see it ) in ESL at earlier/mid level learning especially, is 'pronunciation- phonetic understanding - spelling'.

Examples 'data' -'Dar-duh' 'Day-ta', 'banana' - 'banar-na' 'ban-an-a'.

It should be our professional responsibility to choose which of the two are easier for students to follow, and then they can translate using phonic sounds, into a correct spelling. However, I think teachers may have a tendency to choose the word they believe supports their own culture more.

One word I often have a problem with is 'can't'.
While I appreciate that the majority of students have learned the 'can -t' pronunciation, I have found myself using it for convenience (ie timesaving). However, I still find it to be a word that is very confusing to ESL students (not to mention myself).
For example; 'I can talk now', sounds almost exactly the same as 'I cant talk now'. For the sake of miscommunication (in writing/listening/dictation exercises), I find it is prudent to use 'cannot' or simply say 'can not', to avoid confusion.
I have pointed out to students that English-English pronounces the word as 'car-nt', so it may be less confusing, but as I understand this may be prejudice for my own language, allow the students to choose on their own. I do however point out the problem with using the 'can' pronunciation but that it has more popular. I hope that they can then make an informed choice.



Anyway, in short - there's no consistency, one of the reasons being, that everyone has their own agenda (regardless of whats best for the learner).

And they all lived happily ever after,


The end

[nicwr2002]

I will do may best to teach them pronunciation and try to be as objective as possible. That being said, I will use American pronunciation, but I won't speak in "southern" American English. The biggest difficulty I find is making the kids say the short vowel I sound correctly. They were taught by Korean teachers that it is pronounced like ee which would make it sound just like the long vowel E. So, you have students saying Please have a seet, instead of sit. They even argue with me that I'm pronouncing the I sound wrong. Also, "What's wrong with IT?" as opposed to "What's WRONG with it?" I think it's an uphill battle.

[Captain Corea]

Yeah, for that sound, I practice "I like to EAT IT."

EEEEETTT

iT!

I try hard to emphasize the difference in patterns the mouth makes.

[le-paul]

I had an Irish co-teacher a while back (great lad and good teacher), and he used to pronounce 'his' as 'he's'.

It was really difficult for me teaching his classes because the kids thought the reason they couldnt understand me, was my terrible pronunciation, though I tried very hard to say 'hizz' etc. so they could make distinctions...

I think its a good example of where some consideration (with regard to consistency for students and teachers), would have gone a long way and saved a lot of time from being wasted.

[Squire]

[jamesy]

[Hokie21]

I was born in Australia, mostly educated in the US and lived and worked in the UK for years. I have no bias/prejudice for or against any specific pronunciation of the English language, but from what I've heard from the vast majority of my students is that they prefer a flat American/Canadian accent.

I've heard countless complaints from students and students parents on the difficulty of understanding a British accent...on one particular occasion a teacher was told to start sounding, "More American, or else."

Now, I will not go so far as to say any version is superior than another but in my opinion, at least in Korea, it seems that children can more easily understand a North American accent, hence the preference.

[schwa]

Can/can't is a bit of an outlier in terms of Korean pronunciation problems. The distinction is often unclear even between native speakers, requiring clarification. We partly avoid this by using my namesake, the schwa, when making positive "can" statements: "I c'n do it." Nothing wrong with "cannot" to make the negative perfectly clear.

Re: the schwa. Commonest sound in english, yet never explicitly taught. I'm thinking of developing a full lesson on its use for my middle school kids so I can keep reminding them about syllable stress, a feature korean largely lacks.

Otherwise, I'm constantly on my kids about pronunciation. I tease them about their koreanized pronunciations of english words. They often know better but fall into lazy speaking habits that tend to be propagated by their Korean english teachers.

My ear is attuned to what they're trying to say but I recognize when what they're saying would be incomprehensible to an average joe english speaker.

Exposing kids to different accents has been a big plus of the epik program. I often point out to them that native speakers can differ in their pronunciations. I dont teach any one accent as correct but undoubtedly push my bland Canadian accent as a widely understood form of english.

[happiness]

For me, I never worrying about that. I want a reaction to what I say, that creates intention to speak. That is the biggest problem no? Kids dont want to speak.

Theyll have enough nitpicking for pronunciation, a lot of parents speak quite well now too. I want to create motivation for learning. Kids follow my pronunciation well enough.

[PigeonFart]

Made me think of British comedian Eddie Izzard talking about the difference in US and UK pronunciation....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs5H7cgcpkg