Assignment – FP005 TP

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

GENERAL INFORMATION:

This assignment must be done individually and has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: between 6 to 8 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if

there are any-).
- Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be written in this Word document and has to follow the
instructions on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, the assignment has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the
document: “Subject Evaluation”. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not allowed.

It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the
document “Subject Evaluation”.

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

Assignment instructions:
Choose two problems of transfer which you consider to be obstacles to
efficient communication. Those problems need to be specific to Spanish
and English (that is, specific to Spanish speakers who are English
learners). The problems can either be segmental or suprasegmental.

FIRST, describe, as precisely as you can, the causes of the problems in

phonetic or phonological terms.

SECOND, explain and illustrate how these problems could be addressed

within the usual framework of a language course - the level, age and type
of student presumably being determined by the type of problem you have
chosen. Nonetheless, you should consider the problems in terms of the
three ’E’ variables, and with reference to Brinton’s five variables,
mentioned in Chapter 9.

Important: you have to write your personal details and the subject name on the
next page (the cover). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will
not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

Student’s full name: Jhon Everth Ortiz Cubides

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

Group:

Date: 28/02/2020

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

TABLE OF CONTENT

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………...5
1. INTERDENTAL PHONEMES /TH/ /θ/ and /δ/………………………………………
6
1.1. Activities to elicit the correct pronunciation of the phonemes /θ/ and /δ/……6
2. WORD STRESS……………………………………………………………………….7
2.1. Activities to enhance word stress skills in English……………………………..9
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..10

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

INTRODUCTION

Pronunciation has an important role for an accurate and successful

communication in a foreign language. Some authors like Bang (1999), have affirmed
that this is a common concern among second language students. He exposes that a
great percentage of learners’ confidence during oral discussions is related to the fact of
having a correct and assertive pronunciation during oral discussions (quoted in Bakar,
Ridhuan, & Lim, 2018). Similarly, Jenkins (2000) states that many L2 learners
experience the necessity to manage learnable segmental sounds of the English
language in order to make their speech more understandable and thus, succeed in
different communication settings with native and non-native speakers.
Bearing this in mind, it is important to start analysing the possible limitations that
students have during their speech in the target language and make them feel
frustrated. It is also necessary to include a theoretical explanation to understand how
these limitations related to pronunciation, either segmental or suprasegmental, need to
be addressed and thus contribute to foster this skill that is crucial for positive results
through various speaking contexts.
Considering the previous statements, the following essay seeks to describe two
main transfers that Spanish speakers who learn English as Second Language
experience and impede them achieving a properly pronunciation. Additionally, this
document will show some of the causes of those transfers and will include some
alternatives that teachers can take advantage of in order to overcome these issues.
The fist transfer is related to the pronunciation of the interdental sound /th/ as in
through and though since, from a scientific and personal perspective, students tend to
replace this sound with a /t/ and /d/ respectively. The second problem that L2 learners
have to face with, is the correct stress of words. In many cases students struggle
stressing the right vowels, which causes misunderstanding during communication.
Finally, this document will illustrate how the previous problems need to be
addressed within the framework of a language course and taking into consideration the
three ’E’ variables: exercise, exposure and explanation, and with reference to Brinton’s
five variables.

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

1. INTERDENTAL PHONEMES /TH/ /θ/ and /δ/

According to the International House chart, the phonemes /θ/ and /δ/ are
considered fricative-dental, better known as interdental since the tongue has to be
placed between the teeth or behind them. Hispanic speakers who are in the process of
learning English, find this sound really hard because it is not part of their mother
tongue. Latin American learners often replace the phoneme /th/ by a t or d since the
Spanish alphabet does not include the phoneme /δ/. A study carried out by Avery P. &
Ehrlich S., (1992) shows some of the students’ perception towards /θ/ and /δ/ sounds:
a. Spanish students tend to ‘’substitute the phoneme /ð/ for /d/ because both are
‘’positional variants in Spanish” (quoted in Vargas, 2016). Bearing in mind this
statement, it is pertinent to affirm that many learners replace the sound /ð/ for
/d/ since Spanish language has a very close sound which is /d/ in words like
‘’dado’’ or ‘’lado’’. A clear example of this error, would be the pronunciation of
father /ˈfɑːðə(r)/ as ‘’fader’’, and the /ðə/ often pronounced as /de/.
b. Spanish students also replace the phoneme /θ/ for a /t/. For instance, in words
like ‘’think’’ /θɪŋk/, learners tend to pronounce it as ‘’tink’’ and ‘’through’’
/θruː/ which is pronounced as ‘’tru’. This is a common error transfer who
many Spanish speakers have to deal with. However, some English
learners from Spain, may find easier in a certain way to reproduce the
phoneme /θ/, since is present in the letter z as in ‘’zorro’’ or ‘’cereza’’.
1.1. Activities to elicit the correct pronunciation of the phonemes /θ/ and
/δ/.
Taking into consideration the previous factors about learners’ difficulties when
pronouncing the phonemes /θ/ and /δ/, it is relevant to mention what kind of
methodologies teachers should follow in order to overcome these issues and promote
positive habits of proper pronunciation.
On one hand, a study carried out by Vargas (2016) with a group of English learners
from Colombia, showed that students tended to replace the phonemes mentioned
above, by existing sounds of their mother tongue, in this case d and t. For this reason,
he suggests an interesting activity that may increase the possibilities to achieve a very
close pronunciation to the sound /δ/, and from a personal perspective, it has worked
successfully with my own students of intermediate levels. It consists on transferring the
sound /d/ pronounced in the middle of some words like ‘’dado’’ or ‘’madre’’ to simulate
the sound /δ/ in English. Students basically have to produce these words with a ‘’slight
variation in the position of the tongue, which is placing the tongue in the middle of the

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

teeth because /d/ in Spanish is produced just putting the tip of the tong under the upper
teeth in the alveolar ridge’’ (Vargas, 2016 p.135).
The previous activity is mainly focused on form because learners have to practice
those sounds, and it also makes reference to the paradigm proposed by Dalton &
Seidlhofer (1994), where and explanation is required in order to make students aware
of this phonetic and phonological differences. Although, I have applied this activity with
young-adult learners, this type of exercise can be also suitable for kids.
At this point of the essay, it can be noticed how learners’ pronunciation process has
a starting point, and that is related to the substitution of sounds that do not exist in their
first language. For this reason, it is crucial to design activities that keep making
students’ pronunciation process easier and less tedious.
Another fun activity that teachers can carry out in their language classroom, has to
do with the imitation of the European Spanish accent to enhance the pronunciation of
the sound /θ/ that students often substitute for a t. That is because the pronunciation of
Zs in the Spanish accent is quite similar to the English phoneme /θ/. For instance,
Teachers can motivate students to pronounce the word ‘’thin’’ /θɪn/ as ‘’zin’’ since it
results easier for them to achieve a more distinctive sound in their first language
than in the target language.
To conclude, it can be deduced that these particular phonemes /θ/ and /δ/
cause problems to ESL students due to the inexistence of those sounds in their
alphabet. According to Avery P. & Ehrlich S., (1992), the substitution of these sounds
depends in a considerable way on the leaners’ native language. To put it in other
words, students replace these English phonemes for similar sounds that already exist
in their native phonological system, in this situation would be the sounds t and d in
Spanish.
2. WORD STRESS.
Stress in words is seen as one of the most challenging factors that learners may
face with when they try to pronounce words in the L2. One on hand, Spanish words
stress is regular and it is considered clear in a certain way. It has fixed rules that makes
it easy to remember and therefore apply (quoted in Funiber, 2016, p.65). On the other
hand, English stress is known for being ‘’unpredictable’’ at the moment of pronouncing
on the right syllable. In a polysyllabic word like interesting, the stress may fall on the
first syllable, or it could be on the second as fantastic or even on the latter syllable as
fifteen. This particular placement of stress causes confusion among ESL learners and
sometimes leads them to misunderstandings during oral communication. It also
increases the possibilities of changing the real meaning of a particular word.

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

The main cause of this issue are related to the fact that English stress in invariable
for most words and that it cannot be easily predict with accuracy the correct placement
of stress in a word (Funiber, 2016, p.65). A research study developed by Giraldo
(2010), stipulates distinct factors that explain why learners find word stress in English
so difficult.
a. Learners do not distinct stress from unstressed syllables in English. The
process of focusing on the correct stressed syllables is a challenge for many
students. Some main features of stress such as pitch, vowel length and
loudness are hard for students to comprehend. Additionally, in many cases
learners pronounce vowels in unstressed syllables and do not use length to
differentiate a stressed syllable.
b. Students transfer Spanish word stress frequently to English stress. An example
of this issue, is the word interesting /ˈɪntrəstɪŋ/. Students do not put the
stress on the first syllable but they often pronounce it putting the stress
on the second syllable instead, ignoring the schwa /ə/ vowel that is on the
same syllable.
c. Studentts’ lack of awareness towards stress rules in English.

Taking into consideration the statements mentioned previously, it is necessary to

remark the importance of analyzing from a teaching perspective, what type of
methodologies allow address word stress issues effectively in our language classroom.
Firstly, it is important to know the three kinds of information in which stress rules
are based on. They are explained in the following chart.

WORD STRESS RULES

Syntactic It explains that the stress on a word
depends on its nature. Nouns, adjectives
or verbs behave in a different way.
However, they can share similarities. An
example would be the stress on most two-
syllable nouns, where it is stressed on the
first syllables. For instance: knowledge
and spacious.
Morphological Depending on the suffixes that a word
has, stress can take place. Suffixes like
tion and ity, points out that the stressed
must be emphasized on the preceding

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

syllable. For instance: Intonation,

similarity, education.
The morphological aspect comprehends
two more factors such as compound and
complex words. In compound words like
makeup or earthquake, the accent will be
stressed on the first syllables.
Phonological It depends mainly on the final two
syllables of a word. It is considered as one
of the most complex ones.

2.1. Activities to enhance word stress skills in English.

Having in mind the theoretical explanation presented above, it is time to think about
possible activities that could contribute to the correct stress in different words. For this
reason, I decided to focus on two articles that portrays a series of suggestions and
activities that can be helpful in teaching word stress to our students. The first one is a
study carried out by Giraldo (2010) that proposes a series of activities to enhance
make comprehensible to students in English, and the second one is a research
developed by Lewis Christine and Deterding (2018) where they present some word
stress strategies and suggestions that teachers should follow in the classroom.
Firstly, Giraldo mentions a series of interesting activities to practice the right stress
of a particular word. The activity consists of illustrating the syllable stress by clapping
our hands loud and softly. For instance, if the word is ‘’interesting’’ the sound would be:
loud-soft-soft. The idea is to implement the same pattern with other words to practice
different stress in different situations. I found this activity really attractive since it
requires an active participation by students, and it is an exercise that it can be enjoyed
by children or adults.
Secondly, Lewis & Deterding (2018), suggest that teachers should include in their
classes a variety of material spoken by people from different backgrounds, so they
become accustomed to listening to various accents around the world. This will give
students the possibility to communicate successfully in different ELF contexts. They
also remark the importance of not forcing students to imitate a specific accent of
English, but focusing on important aspects that cause the majority of
misunderstandings in different communication settings, such as the production of
sound in consonants like /θ/ and /δ/ and /l/, /r/.

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 Assignment – FP005 TP

CONCLUSION

English has become the lingua franca for today’s world. For this reason, it is
crucial for English speakers to have strong communication skills that can guarantee a
successful development through different EFL contexts. Pronunciation is an important
factor that has to be addressed with attention since it determines in a considerable way
learners’ confidence at the moment of interact orally with others in English. In this
fashion, this document aimed to determine some of the most common issues that
many ESL students have to face with pronunciation, and presents some teaching
methodologies as alternatives to overcome these problems.
On one hand, it has been demonstrated that the pronunciation of the phonemes
/θ/ and /δ/ will always be problematic for ESL learners since these are unfamiliar
sounds in the Spanish alphabet. However, teachers have the possibility to help their
students approximate to these sounds through some imitation activities and the over
pronunciation of similar sounds found in the Spanish phonetic system. These type of
exercises make students distinguish the new phonemes they study and feel more
comfortable at the moment of pronouncing a particular statement.
On the other hand, it was discussed the main problems that affect students in
terms of words stress, and a theoretical perspective that can serve as a guide for them
to understand the different stress that words have in English. In this section was
concluded that some of the origins of this issue come from a direct transfer from
Spanish to English, in which learners pronounce the words in English as they do it in
their native tongue, ignoring some voiceless vowels that characterized the English
language.
Finally, it was discussed some suggestions that teachers should apply in the
classroom to give students a wider perception of English pronunciation around the
world, and how this can impact their ability to sophisticate their listening skills and
defend themselves effectively in various EFL settings.

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REFERENCES

Bakar, Z. A., Ridhuan, M., & Lim, T. (2018). Importance of correct pronunciation in
spoken english : Dimension of second language learners ’ perspective SOCIAL
SCIENCES & HUMANITIES Importance of Correct Pronunciation in Spoken
English : Dimension of Second Language Learners ’ Perspective. 23(August
2015), 143–158.
Funiber. (2016). Phonetics. Teaching Pronunciation.
Jenkins, Jennifer. (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language.
Lewis, C., & Deterding, D. (2018). Word Stress and Pronunciation Teaching in English
as a Lingua Franca Contexts. The CATESOL Journal, 30(April), 161.
Vargas, S. C. (2016). Teaching Pronunciation Through Experiential Learning.

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