Teacher Discussion Forums

Whoever is out there teaching people to speak!

It's interesting that noone has yet even tested the water in the pronunciation pool, let alone jumped in for a good splash about. David Crystal, in his Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language comments on how the spoken word gets less attention in language teaching courses than the written word, in spite of being the most basic form. So it would be interesting to hear just what sort of introduction to phonetics and phonology we were all given in our training courses.

A few years ago I did an Education Course at the University of Canberra. We had one semester unit in "language change" which focused almost entirely on the spoken word. The students entering that course had been expected to have completed a basic unit in phonetics and phonology which I escaped, having done something similar in a drama course almost half a century before! (I copped a bit of flak from the lecturer on a couple of occasions when my technical knowledge wasn't quite up to scratch and she realised I'd sort of conned my way into the course).

But these courses were still book-based (relying mostly on the written symbols for the sounds, rather than on identifying the sound variations by listening, observing, and being tested by a skilled, acute listener.

The question is, how much do we need to be confident helpers of those who have difficulty in making their speech understood?

So, what was your experience? And what have you been able to do with it?

Norm

Norm,
I am currently teaching in China and had no formal phonetics training, unless you count what I learned some thirty years ago in first and second grade elementary. Much of what I teach has been picked up on the fly, learning the "international" phonetics the Chinese learn and then teaching them the American version of hard and soft sounds for each vowel. I stress being able to understand what word the students are trying to say, my bar is set at ""if I didn't know what the subject was, would I understand what you are saying?".
And also I am trying to break their reliance on these god-forsaken computer dictionaries that cripple them at learning new words. These things tell them that the word "idea" should be pronounced as though it were spelled "ideer" and "banana" according to the dictionary should be pronounced as if it were spelled "bananer". So I teach them instead the rules of phonetics so they can approach english with greater confidence. And also so they can pronounce the words correctly and not be thought an ignorant hick. I have really just recently begun this endeavor so the long term effect is yet to be realized but thus far it is having the expected positive result.
Brian

Brian
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. My problem is not with computer dictionaries, but with this bulletin board system! I haven't found the way of saving my 'draft' progressively, so when I go back to check something I find I've lost it altogether. On top of that my service provider times me out if I take too long to put my words together, even though I'm supposed to have an untimed package.

Anyway, back at last! How exactly do those computer dictionaries work? Do they give the Chinese speakers a comparison with the sounds of their own language? Or is it simply an attempt to show what the English spelling "should be" ? I guess your students don't have their own personal tape recorders, and that there are too many of them in a class to have tapes copied for them in any case -- either of your own voice or of commercial programs.

Just for your own satisfaction you might like to go into www.celt.stir.ac.uk/staff/HIGDOX/STEPHE ... ONOLOG.HTM, then click on vowels, then on vowel chart. The chart gives you an idea of where some of the problem lies: where many languages have only five pure vowels (Arabic has, theoretically at least, only three) English has twleve, apart from the diphthongs! And the chart brings home to you how closely together they're formed in the mouth. As in pit,peat,pert,pet,pat,putt,part,pot,port,pull,pool,repetition. The problems vary slightly as to whether you are teaching American, British (RP), Australian or some other variety of English; and they end up as much a problem for you as for your class. For me, that visual picture suggests the need for a lot more patience, and reduces my level of frustration. [And we haven't even started to think about the consonants!]

There's a view, too, that we shouldn't be aiming at native speaker performance in any case, but only at a level that will permit good communication between speakers of whatever variety of English our students are likely to be dealing with.

It'll be good if we can stir some comment on that from others who've had practical experience in the same field as you.

Keep up the good work.

Norm

Norm Ryder wrote:My problem is not with computer dictionaries, but with this bulletin board system! I haven't found the way of saving my 'draft' progressively, so when I go back to check something I find I've lost it altogether. On top of that my service provider times me out if I take too long to put my words together, even though I'm supposed to have an untimed package.

One tip I can give you is this: when your network connection times out, you'll be forced to sign-in again and the system will invite you to resubmit you message by presenting you with a blank comment box. Don't be put off by this. If you "go back" a couple of pages - past the sign-in screen - you should hopefully be able to find you unfinished work of art.

Iain

There's a view, too, that we shouldn't be aiming at native speaker performance in any case, but only at a level that will permit good communication between speakers of whatever variety of English our students are likely to be dealing with.

Hi Norm and others,

(I don't like that "quote" up there in front of what Norm wrote. I wanted to make it say "Norm Ryder wrote", but I don't know how to do that. Could somebody slip me a hint, please? Thanks.)

There can hardly be any other view, don't you think? Bernard Shaw's "Rain in Spain" experiment notwithstanding, we can hardly expect our students to learn to speak as we do. After all, we ourselves are rather unique in our own pronunciation patterns. No other person speaks precisely as we do. Why would we demand that of our students? It seems to be that Brian's bar is just about at the right place. But it would be interesting if someone has a different idea.

Larry Latham

Norm,
The dictionaries give them british phonetics, the problem is that they have co-opted the schwa for both the schwa sound and the "er" sound. So they get confused and fustrated, and rightly so I would say. So I have had them start over from scratch for their phonetics of those two sounds. It is working remarkably well.
Brian

Thanks Iain

That will help me when I lose the screen by some personal clumsiness ... in fact I've finally got through to my service provider who has kindly told me how to trick the time-out program by setting the "automatically check my mail" button to a time less than their automatic time-out. I guess all you old hands are probably wondering why I hadn't worked that out anyway! Live and learn, as they say.

Did the address for the Stirling College program work for you , Brian? And what do you think of all those Scots up there at Sti(e)rling learning to speak RP!

Cheers to all.

Norm