Republic of the Philippines

Annunciation College of Bacon Sorsogon Unit, Inc.

Graduate Studies
Sorsogon City

Subject: Teaching English as a Second Language

Teaching Pronunciation

Objective:
In "Teaching Pronunciation," the goal of instruction is threefold:
 to enable our learners to understand and be understood.
 to build their confidence in entering communicative situations.
 to enable them to monitor their speech based on input from the environment.

Pronunciation is the language feature that most readily identifies speakers as non-
native. It is a filter through which others see them and often discriminate against them. When
we witness otherwise proficient learners who are barely intelligible while speaking, we can
understand their frustration and the hope they place in us.
Dalton and Seidlhofer list six communicative abilities related to pronunciation:
 Prominence: how to make salient the important points we make.
 Topic management: how to signal and recognize where one topic ends and
another begins.
 Information status: how to mark what we assume to be shared knowledge as
opposed to something new.
 Turn-taking: when to speak, and when to be silent, how (not) to yield the
floor to somebody else.
 Social meanings and roles: how to position ourselves vis-à-vis our
interlocutor(s) in terms of status, dominance/authority, politeness,
solidarity/separateness.
 Degree of involvement: how to convey our attitudes, emotions, etc.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE SOUND SYSTEM OF ENGLISH

Traditionally, the sound system has been described and taught in a building block
fashion:
sounds → syllables → phrases and
thought groups → extended discourse
 Though this may make sense from an analytical point of view, this is not how our
learners experience language. As speakers, we don't usually think about what we're saying
sound by sound, or even syllable by syllable unless communication breaks down. So the
bottom-up approach of mastering one sound at a time and eventually stringing them all
together is being replaced by a more top-down approach, in which the sound system is
addressed as it naturally occurs-in the stream of speech. In this more balanced approach, both
suprasegmental and segmental features can be addressed through a process akin to that of a
zoom lens. Global aspects are addressed first; yet whenever the "picture" of speech is unclear,
we "zoom in" to examine it at a more micro level. This approach recognizes that all features
of the sound system work in tandem.

Thought Groups
In natural discourse, we use pauses to divide our speech into manageable chunks
called thought groups. Just as punctuation helps the reader process written discourse, pausing
helps the listener to process the stream of speech more easily. Learners understand the
concept of pausing but do not always manage to pause at appropriate junctures. In fact, the
most common error of less fluent speakers is pausing too frequently, thereby overloading the
listener with too many breaks to process the discourse effectively.
Since thought groups usually represent a meaningful grammatical unit, the sentence
below could be divided up like this:
I was speaking to him / on the phone yesterday.
but not like this:
I was speaking to / him on the / phone yesterday.
Sometimes utterances can be divided in more than one way. This is illustrated nicely
by Gilbert (1987), who makes use of ambiguous phrases to show how pausing in different
places can cause a change in meaning. Read these examples aloud to yourself. Can you figure
out who is stupid?
1. Alfred said / the boss is stupid
2. Alfred / said the boss/is stupid
Thought group boundaries are also influenced by the speaker's speed-faster speakers
pause less frequently and have fewer but longer thought groups. Public speakers, such as
politicians and members of the clergy, tend to pause more frequently in order to emphasize
their ideas more strongly and make them easier to process. In a speech, a politician might
utter as a conclusion:
My fellow citizens / this / is / our / moment.
Or a frustrated parent might say to a recalcitrant child:
Come / here / right / now!
 In each case, the speaker has a clear communicative reason for wanting to emphasize
each word.

Prominence
Within each thought group, there is generally one prominent element, a syllable that is
emphasized, usually by lengthening it and moving the pitch up or down:
I was SPEAKing to him / on the PHONE yesterday.
The prominent element depends on context but generally represents information that
is either
a. new:
(I got a postcard from Sue.) She's in MEXico.
b. in contrast to some other previously mentioned information:
(Are you leaving at five thirty?) No, SIX thirty.
c. or simply the most meaningful or important item in the phrase:
He's studying ecoNOMics.
Keep the following phrase in your mind for a moment: "I am reading." Now, answer
these questions:
What are you doing? I am reading.
Who's reading? I am reading.
Why aren't you reading?!! I am reading.
What word did you emphasize most in each reply? It should have been reading, I, and
am respectively. Each question provided a context for the reply. Since the speaker chooses
the prominent element based on the communicative context, this feature should be presented
and taught only in context.

Intonation
Thus far, we have looked at how speech is divided up into thought groups marked by
pauses, and how within each thought group one prominent element is usually stressed. Each
thought group also has another distinctive feature, namely its intonation-the melodic line or
pitch pattern. The interplay of these pronunciation features becomes evident as we note that
the pitch movement within an intonation contour occurs on the prominent element:
Going Out
 Intonation patterns do vary but certain general patterns prevail. General rules about
intonation patterns are not meant to deny the regional and individual variation of authentic
speech. Still, by offering our learners at least some generalized patterns for specific contexts,
we give them an appropriate option, if not the sole appropriate one. Certainly, it is crucial to
provide continued exposure to real speech for listening analysis so that students can be aware
of the contextual meaning of intonation choices.
Although intonation certainly carries meaning, it is dangerous to make one-to-one
associations between a given emotion and an intonation contour. Often, intonation is one
factor among many that communicate an attitude. Word choice, grammatical structure, the
situational context, facial expressions, and body movement all contribute to infusing an
utterance with emotion.

Rhythm
Just as longer and shorter notes make up a musical measure, longer and shorter
syllables occur in speech. This alternating of longer (stressed) and shorter (unstressed)
syllables can be appreciated in poems read aloud. Even if not as noticeable as in poetry,
regular spoken English has rhythm as well. English speech rhythm is usually referred to as
stress-timed, i.e., with stresses or beats occurring at regular intervals:

She would've liked to have gone to the movie. (11 syllables but only 3 beats)
This contrasts with so-called syllable-timed languages, such as French and Japanese,
in which each syllable receives roughly the same timing and length.
In reality, natural English speech is not perfectly stress-timed and the "one syllable,
one beat" explanation for syllable-timed languages is also an oversimplification. Nonetheless,
the highlighting of certain syllables over others in English through syllable length, vowel
quality, and pitch is a crucial road map for the listener.
How can a learner of English predict which words should be stressed and which
unstressed? In general, content words (words that carry more meaning, such as nouns, main
verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs) are stressed whereas function words (structure words,
such as articles, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, and prepositions) are not.
A point of clarification should be made here. Rhythm, or sentence stress, refers to
ALL the syllables that receive stress in a thought group, typically the content words.
Prominence refers to ONE of those stressed elements, the one which receives the most
emphasis within the thought group:

She attends the University of MARyland.

(of the three stressed syllables, the third is prominent)
Traditionally, pronunciation materials have included analytical exercises in which
learners look at written utterances and carefully analyze the part of speech of each word in
order to determine which syllables will be stressed and which unstressed. Although such an
exercise can help an analytical learner understand the concept of rhythm, the speaker does not
have time to do this during a conversation.
Chela Flores (1998) recommends that teachers help learners develop an awareness of
rhythm by highlighting rhythmic patterns apart from words and meaning. To represent
rhythm graphically, she uses written dots and dashes to emphasize the short and long
syllables. To introduce a new pattern orally, she uses spoken non sense syllables, such as ti
for unstressed syllables, TA for stressed syllables, and TAA for the prominent element in a
thought group. Here are two possible four-syllable patterns a teacher might present:
Pattern A Pattern B
Teacher writes on board: . ___ . . ___ . . ___
While clapping or stretching a
rubber band, the teacher says: "ti TAA ti ti" "TA ti ti TAA"
First, the teacher pronounces one of the two patterns that students distinguish by
pointing to it on the board. Once students are able to hear and also reproduce the selected
patterns themselves using the nonsense syllables, they can try to distinguish actual phrases
(adapted from Chela Flores 1998):
Listen and circle the pattern you hear.
Student hears: Student circles:
1. (A little one) a. . ___ . . b. ___ . . ___
2. (Lots to be done) a. . ___ . . b. ___ . . ___
3. (It's marvelous) a. . ___ . . b. ___ . . ___
By first divorcing rhythm from its context and content, we can draw the learners'
attention to it, help them internalize it, and then, finally, practice meaningful phrases with it.

Reduced Speech
When we speak in thought groups in a rhythmic way, we find ways to highlight
important syllables and to de-emphasize others. Learners will have less difficulty stressing
syllables than they will unstressing them. One way to weaken unstressed syllables is to
shorten them. Another is to relax the mouth when articulating the vowels and to use less
energy or muscular tension. Because we are not spreading our lips so widely or letting the
jaw drop so far, these reduced vowels can be spoken more quickly, helping us to maintain a
more or less regular interval between stressed syllables.
The most common reduced vowel is called schwa /ə/. This is the vowel you make
when your mouth is completely relaxed with no particular effort to raise or lower your jaw or
to spread or round your lips. Examples include the unstressed vowels in the words banana
and police.
Since many function words are unstressed, they have both a citation form (also known
as full, strong, or stressed) and a reduced form (unstressed or weak). Here are two examples:
Citation Form Reduced Form
HAS He has? /hæz/ What has he done now? /əz/
TO Do you want to? /tuw/ a ticket to Tucson /tə/
The reduced form of has exhibits two types of reduction: (1) loss of full vowel quality
(the vowel /æ/ has been reduced to a schwa /ə/) and (2) loss of a sound, the initial h. In the
second example, to, only the vowel /uw/ has been reduced.

Linking
Words that non-native listeners can comprehend easily in isolation can sometimes be
unrecognizable to them in connected speech. The boundaries between words seem to
disappear. Linking is a general term for the adjustments speakers make between words in
connected speech. Say to yourself: Why don't you find out? When you say find out, it
probably sounds a lot like fine doubt. In other words, you have linked the syllables together
(and made them easier to pronounce) by shifting the final consonant of find to the next
syllable, which begins with a vowel. Some speakers, particularly in North American English,
also pronounce don't you so that it sounds like don-chew.
In this form of linking, sounds blend together to form a third sound.
Morphological information (plurals, verb form and tense, possessive, etc.) can be
conveyed by endings, which are often easier to pronounce and become more salient to the
listener when linked:
She change-dit is easier to pronounce than She changed-it.
If learners simply leave off an ending, important information can be lost. Instead, we
need to focus learners' attention on the linked sound, which, in the examples below, provides
the listener with the distinction between present and past:
Present They live in Miami.
(The v should be linked clearly between live and in)
Past They live-din Miami.
(The d should be linked to the next syllable in)
 We need to make learners aware that all of these pronunciation features (thought
groups, prominence, intonation, rhythm, reduced speech, linking) work together to package
our utterances in a way that can be processed easily by our listeners. So, rather than being
more com prehensible by speaking each word separately, our learners actually become less
fluent and less intelligible.

Consonants
Consonant sounds are characterized by place of articulation (where the sound is
made), manner of articulation (how the sound is made), and voicing (whether the vocal cords
are vibrating or not). These three dimensions are commonly illustrated in a consonant chart
(see Appendix 1). The place of articulation is usually illustrated in a diagram called a sagittal
section diagram, often referred to as "The Organs of Speech" (see Appendix 2).
 To teach consonants, we first need to decide whether phonetic symbols are necessary.
In most cases, the orthographic letter is the same as the phonetic representation. However, for
certain sounds (this, thumb, shop, decision, butcher, pageant, long), a single letter that
represents the most common spellings is not available. The International Phonetic Alphabet
uses the following symbols for these sounds:
this /ð/, thumb /θ /, shop /∫/, decision/ ʒ /, butcher /t∫/, pageant/d ʒ /, long /ƞ/
A complete phonetic alphabet for English can be found in Appendix 3.
 A second consideration is that the articulation of a consonant varies, depending on its
environment. For example, the sound /p/ occurs twice in the word paper, but the first /p/ is
accompanied by a small puff of air called aspiration while the second /p/ is not. This and
other examples of positional variation reflect sound system rules that native speakers have
command of but rarely any conscious knowledge of until it is pointed out to them.
Clustering is a third feature of English consonants that presents a challenge to our
students. Since many other languages never allow two, much less three or four, consonants in
sequence, learners from such a language background struggle with words like strengths or
texts. Our learners need to know how consonant clusters function in English and also that
there are acceptable cluster reductions for some forms. For example, in the phrase: The facts
of the case are..., many speakers would pronounce facts as fax, omitting the /t/ without any
loss of intelligibility.
Learners will usually have difficulty with sounds that don't exist in their L1, such as
the two th sounds or the l and the r sounds. Despite these isolated difficulties, instruction
should always focus on sounds in context. How a particular sound is articulated in real
speech, or how crucial it is to intelligibility, will become evident only when embedded in
spoken discourse.

Vowels
Whereas consonant sounds in English occur at the beginning or end of a syllable,
vowel sounds are the syllable core, the sound within the syllable that resonates and can be
lengthened or shortened.
In fact, a vowel can even constitute a syllable or a word, as in eye. Unlike consonants,
vowels are articulated with a relatively unobstructed airflow, i.e., there is usually no contact
between articulators. As a result, vowels are often defined in relation to one another rather
than to some fixed point. They are distinguished by tongue position (front/central/back),
tongue and jaw height (high/mid/low), degree of lip rounding and the relative tension of the
muscles involved (tense versus lax vowels). Some of this informa tion is conveyed in a vowel
chart, representing the space within the oral cavity (see Appendix 4).
 What are the challenges in teaching vowels? First, English has more vowels than
many other languages. Japanese has 5 vowels; English has 14 (or 15, if you include the r-
colored vowel sound in bird). Also, there is a great deal of variation in vowels between
dialects (Oh, you pronounce the vowel in "doll" and "ball" differently? I pronounce it the
same!). Unlike the "pure" vowels of many other languages, several English vowels are
accompanied by a glide movement. Try saying eye slowly. Do you notice how your jaw
glides upward? This glide feature is especially important for English diphthongs.
Another challenge for learners is the fact that most vowels can be spelled in many
different ways. Learners who are used to a strict sound/spelling correspondence in their L1
will often be misled by English spelling. For EFL learners, who often depend more on the
written text than on what they hear, this can cause many pronunciation errors (see Olshtain's
chapter in this volume).
Finally, vowel sounds are usually reduced in unstressed syllables; notice the
difference in the pronunciation of the two a's in madam or the two o's in motor. In both cases,
the first syllable is stressed and the second is not. As a result, the first vowel has its full vowel
quality, so the first syllables sound like mad and moat, respectively. The second vowel in
each word is reduced so the second syllables do NOT sound like dam and tore (as they would
if they were stressed) but instead like dumb and ter. As mentioned earlier, the process of
reducing or weakening a vowel involves a relaxing of the articulators, i.e., using less effort to
raise or lower one's jaw or to round or spread one's lips.
The following phrases from Morley (1979, p. 116) help learners initially associate
each vowel with a key word rather than a phonetic symbol:
 SEE IT SAY YES a FAT BIRD
/iy/ /I/ /ey/ /ɛ/ /æ/ /3r/
1 2 3 4 5 6

a BUS STOP TWO BOOKS

/∧/ /a/ /uw/ /Ʊ/
7 8 9 10

NO LAW MY COWBOY
/ow/ /ͻ/ /ay/ /aw/ /ͻy/
11 12 13 14 15
Together, students should rhythmically repeat these phrases until they can remember
them.The teacher can also attach a number to each key word (as shown above) without
introducing any phonetic symbols at all. It is easier to refer to the "it" vowel or the #2 vowel
rather than the /I/ vowel, since many listeners will not be able to distinguish /iy/ and /I/ when
hearing either sound in isolation.

Word Stress
The discussion of vowels provides a good foundation for understanding word stress.
Just as thought groups can have more than one stressed syllable but only one prominent
element, multisyllabic words can also have more than one stressed syllable, but only one of
those syllables receives primary stress ( ). The other(s) receive secondary stress ( ) or almost
no stress ( ):

com mun i ca tion

This can be compared to the cognate word in French where the stress is more equal,
not alternating, with slightly more stress on the final syllable:

com mun i ca tion

English word stress patterns are somewhat complex and can depend on several
factors: the historical origin of a word, the part of speech, and affixation. In very general
terms:
1. Stress falls more often on the root or base of a word and less often on a
prefix:
 beLIEVE, preDICT, comPLAINT
2. Compound nouns tend to take primary stress on the first element and
secondary stress on the second:
AIRPLANE, BUS STOP, ComPUter DISK
3. Suffixes can either
a. Have no effect on stress
BEAUty → BEAUtiful
deLIVer → deLIVerance
perFORM → perFORMer
b. Take the primary stress themselves (many of these are from French):
picturESQUE, trusTEE, enginEER, balLOON
c. Cause the stress pattern in the stem to shift to a different syllable:
PERiod → periODic
SEquence → seQUENtial
ORganize → organiZAtion
While our students may still need to look up the stress of an unfamiliar word in the
dictionary, these basic rules will aid them in understanding how the system of word stress can
function in English.

A COMMUNICATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING

PRONUNCIATION

Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996) present a framework for the sequencing
of activities within pronunciation instruction. Their five teaching stages include description
and analysis, listening discrimination, controlled practice, guided practice, and
communicative practice.
These stages are similar to a presentation, practice, and production sequence. Keeping
such a framework in mind helps us to plan lessons that move the students forward in a
principled way, building the foundation for more intelligible spontaneous production.

1. Description and Analysis

Initially, the teacher presents a feature showing when and how it occurs. The teacher
might use charts (consonant, vowel, or organs of speech) or he or she might present the rules
for occurrence either inductively or deductively. For example, the teacher can either present
the rules for -ed endings or provide multiple examples and ask the learners to figure out the
rules themselves.

2. Listening Discrimination
Listening activities include contextualized minimal pair discrimination exercises such
as the following from Gilbert (1993, p. 20). The speaker (who may be the teacher or another
student) pronounces either sentence a or b. The listener responds with the appropriate
rejoinder.
a. He wants to buy my boat. Will you sell it?
b. He wants to buy my vote. That's against the law!
In another discrimination activity, the student listens for either rising or falling
intonation in utterances where either is possible.
Instructions: Circle the arrow which corresponds to the intonation you hear at the end of the
utterance, either rising or falling:
Rising Falling
The plane's leaving  
Sam finished it  
You can't  
Using a transcript with a short listening passage, learners can mark the pauses and/or
circle the prominent elements they hear. In general, the listener's task should be clearly
defined and focused on only one or two features at a time. At this stage, we want to focus
learners' attention directly on a feature that they might not be recognizing yet.
The three final stages, which involve practice and production, actually progress on a
continuum. It is less important to define an exercise as strictly controlled, guided, or
communicative. Rather, it is important to sequence our oral production activities so that they
move forward systematically.

3. Controlled Practice
At the beginning, in more controlled activities, the learner's attention should be
focused almost completely on form. Any kind of choral reading can work if the learner's
attention is clearly focused on the target feature. Poems, rhymes, dialogues, dramatic
monologues-all of these can be used if the content and level engage a learner's interest. When
performed with student partners, contextualized minimal pair activities (as mentioned above)
are a combination of controlled practice for the speaker and listening discrimination for his or
her partner.

4. Guided Practice
 In guided activities, the learner's attention is no longer entirely on form. The learner
now begins to focus on meaning, grammar, and communicative intent as well as
pronunciation. Teachers need to develop a continuum of bridging activities, which shift
attention gradually to a new cognitive task while the learner attempts to maintain control of
the pronunciation target. As an example, Hewings and Goldstein (1998, p. 127) make use of a
memory activity while practicing -s endings. Students are instructed to study a picture contain
ing a number of common objects for one minute (two bridges, three suitcases, four glasses,
etc.). With the picture hidden, they then try to recite the correct number of each item, while
concen trating on pronouncing the plural -s correctly.

5. Communicative Practice
In this stage, activities strike a balance between form and meaning. Examples include
role plays, debates, interviews, simulations, and drama scenes. As the activities become
gradually more communicative, the learner's attention should still be focused on one or two
features at a time. It is overwhelming to suddenly monitor all pronunciation features at once.
Set an objective, which can be different for different learners, and let students know it in
advance. For example, "When performing this role play, Marco, pay special attention to
linking between words." Feedback should then be focused on the stated objective.

SOME TEACHING TECHNIQUES

A wealth of good material has been published for teaching pronunciation. This is not
an exhaustive list of techniques; instead, just a brief overview of possibilities with sources for
the teacher to investigate.

Contextualized Minimal Pair Practice

Bowen (1975) was one of the first to stress the importance of teaching pronunciation
in meaningful contexts. Rather than just distinguishing pen and pan as isolated words, Bowen
embedded these minimal pair contrasts into contextualized sentences and rejoinders:
This pen leaks. Then, don't write with it.
This pan leaks. Then, don't cook with it.
Contextualized minimal pair drills include more than individual sound contrasts as
shown, for example, in Clear Speech (Gilbert 1993):
Word stress
Is it elementary? No, it's advanced.
Is it a lemon tree? No, an orange tree.
Prominence
 I didn't know she was out there. I thought she was inside.
I didn't know she was out there. I thought it was just him.

Cartoons and Drawings

Cartoons and drawings can be used to cue production of particular sentences or an
entire story as well as for showing language in context. Rhythm and Role Play (Graham and
Aragones 1991) uses humorous cartoon stories to illustrate short plays to practice rhythm in
English. In the description and analysis stage of teaching a particular feature, cartoons can be
shown on an overhead for the students to read and analyze: What's going on here? What's
funny?

Gadgets and Props

To help learners understand the rhythmic patterning of stressed and unstressed
syllables, Gilbert (1994) suggests using a thick rubber band. The teacher holds the rubber
band between two thumbs. While pronouncing words or phrases, the teacher stretches the
rubber band widely apart for the stressed syllables and lets it relax for the unstressed ones. As
kinesthetic reinforcement, students each use a similar rubber band to stretch while speaking,
first at the word level and then with phrases.
Gilbert (1994) also recommends using kazoos to highlight intonation patterns. Since
learners can have difficulty attending to intonation, the teacher can speak into a kazoo, which
focuses the learners' attention on the melody of speech rather than the meaning.
Cuisenaire rods, often used in the Silent Way, can illustrate various pronunciation
features. These rods (each color is a different length) can illustrate rhythm by using longer
rods for stressed syllables and shorter rods for unstressed syllables. Linking between syllables
can be shown by moving the rods next to each other. For tactile learners, manipulating
objects provides a powerful learning tool.

Rhymes, Poetry, and Jokes

Nursery rhymes, limericks, and many poems all have strong patterns of stressed and
unstressed syllables that help our learners hear (and to a certain extent feel) the rhythm of
English. One well-known use of rhythmic chants is Graham's Jazz Chant series. These short,
easy to learn chants have a strong beat and can be used with adults as well as children.
Vaughan-Rees (1991) has devised poems to illustrate and reinforce some of the basic
spelling rules in English. Since English spelling is usually presented as complex, he
deliberately presents examples where pronunciation and spelling are predictable so that
learners can begin to internalize these associations:
"What's the matter!" said the Hatter to his mate by the gate.
"The cat ate my hat and now it's made me very late."
 Jokes can also be used in the pronunciation classroom. Noll (1997) suggests using
knock-knock jokes to illustrate and practice linking and reduced speech:
A: Knock Knock.
B: Who's there?
A: Jamaica.
B: Jamaica who?
A: Jamaica mistake? (=Did you make a mistake?)

Drama
Drama is a particularly effective tool for pronunciation teaching because various
components of communicative competence (discourse intonation, pragmatic awareness,
nonverbal communication) can be practiced in an integrated way.
Stern (1980) proposes a method for using eight- to ten-minute scenes, usually
involving two characters. Each pair of students receives the script to a different scene. Rather
than memorizing the lines, they are simply to provide a dra matic reading-looking up
frequently at their partner and reading with feeling. The teacher helps them prepare by
modeling each line and having students repeat, drawing attention to aspects of pronunciation
as they appear. After rehearsing, the pairs are videotaped performing the scene. Following
this, the pair of students, remaining in character, are first interviewed by the audience and
then perform a short improvisation based on the scene.

Kinesthetic Activities
"We speak with our vocal organs, but we converse with our whole bodies."
(Abercrombie 1968, p.
55)
One important way to effect change in pronunciation is through kinesthetic
techniques. In addition to relaxation and breathing exercises, Chan (1987) makes use of basic
hand gestures to teach pronunciation. Syllables are shown by the number of fingers one holds
up or by tapping out the number with one's hand. An open hand indicates stress while a
closed hand shows a lack of stress. Linking thumb and forefingers between both hands
illustrates linking. A sweeping hand motion for rising and falling pitch illustrates intonation.
Once students are familiar with the gestures, the teacher can use them as silent correction
techniques.
In the film, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow walk arm in
arm down the yellow brick road worriedly repeating the phrase, "LIons, TIgers, and BEARS.
Oh My!" Grant (2000) suggests a technique in which learners stand up and take a step in
synchrony with each stressed syllable while repeating the above phrase at least three times. In
the next stage, learners create new phrases in the same four-beat pattern. For example:
 1 2 3 4
HyENas and CROCodiles and PYthons oh MY
Learners should take steps at regular, natural intervals regardless of the number of
syllables between beats. In this way, they begin to internalize the rhythm of English.
Acton (1984) makes the point that to "pro nounce like a native one must move like a
native as well" (p. 77). The technique of mirroring involves trying to imitate the body
movements, gestures, and facial expressions of another speaker, whether face-to-face or on
video. Acton recommends this approach for helping fossilized learners develop more
acceptable rhythm patterns.

AN INTEGRATED WHOLE-BODY APPROACH TO TEACHING

PRONUNCIATION

Developed out of Isaac's (1995) spoken fluency approach and Stern's (1980) use of
drama, the basis of this integrated approach is spoken interaction. Whether one is
contributing to a class discussion, giving instructions to an employee, obtaining directions to
the bank, or simply chatting, the intelligibility of one's pronunciation is measured by the
success of the interaction.
This approach involves using short (60 to 90 second) videotaped interactions as the
springboard for instruction. One possibility would be actual videotaped interactions of
communicative situations your learners face. Otherwise, clips from film or television can be
used (with copyright. permission).
The class analyzes the video, first shown silently for general nonverbal cues and then
with sound to confirm predictions about the content. Once a context has been established,
each line is carefully analyzed (through repeated listening) for prosodic features,
accompanying gestures, and pragmatic meaning. Students mark pauses, prominence, and
intonation on a copy of the transcript and note gestures. This intensive listening focus is
followed by intensive speaking practice in which learners try to imitate the pronunciation as
well as the movements of each line. Choral and individual repetition of lines allows the
instructor to provide feedback on errors. Individual practice is particularly effective in a
computer lab using software that allows the learner to both hear each line and see a visual
pitch trace of its intonation pattern. Learners compare both the sound of their utterance and
the visual contour of it with the model. In the next stage, learners work in pairs to rehearse
the interaction while the teacher monitors performance and provides more feedback. Then,
the teacher videotapes each pair performing the interaction. Students review their
performance outside of class (if a video lab is available) and fill in a guided self-analysis
sheet. The performance is evaluated by the instructor, who makes decisions about what
pronunciation features to cover in more depth. Finally, pairs are given role cards for a
situation similar to the original interaction and asked to perform it without a script. This
allows the instructor to see if learners can transfer what they have learned to a new but
similar interaction.
 MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY

Audio
Audio recording is the most basic way to capture sound-either a model or the student's
own. speech-for the learner to review. Tapes from a variety of textbook series can be made
available in a language laboratory, either for use in class with teacher supervision or as self-
access.
Beyond commercial audio programs, learners should periodically record their
homework on tape for the instructor to respond to. As a personal resource, learners can create
a pronunciation tape log by bringing in a blank tape and a short written list of words and
phrases they find hard to pronounce. The teacher or a tutor/aide then records each student's
phrases (the teacher should embed any individual words the student requests into a phrase)
onto the cassette. This motivates learners to make choices about what they want to learn and
gives the instructor insight into learners' needs and interests.
If you hold office hours or if learners have access to pronunciation tutoring,
encourage them to record the session. Tutoring can be very effective, but without a recording
of the advice and corrections it will be nearly impossible for the learner to continue working
with the feedback on his or her own.
Similar to written dialogue journals, students can record oral entries on an
audiocassette in an exchange with the teacher. The entries can be structured by the teacher or
left completely to the student's choice. Such oral journals can be an effective way of helping
stu dents to locate error patterns, review the instruc tor's feedback, direct their own learning,
and note progress over time.

Video
A growing number of commercial videotape programs focus on pronunciation20 and
usually involve the author teaching pronunciation lessons or actors performing a scene with
exercises. Such videotape programs serve as additional models that the instructor can bring
into class; most lessons are no more than 15-30 minutes long.
As suggested earlier in this chapter, you can videotape local communicative situations
that your learners might face. If you teach international teaching assistants (ITAs), tape
skilled teaching assistants in the same disciplines at your university. If you are teaching
recent immigrants, find out what their employment goals are and try to set up a mock job
interview and record it. If you are teaching young adults in an intensive program, try to find a
group of their "age-mates" from your area and record a conversation. Recordings can provide
motivating peer target models for your learners.
Commercial films and off-air television recordings can be used to teach pronunciation
but are subject to copyright law. The showing of short clips from a film to illustrate a point in
a lesson is permissible if the instructor uses a purchased video and not an illegal copy. Off-air
recordings for educational purposes are subject to a time limit from the date of recording. For
more information on U.S. copyright code, check the following websites:
http://www.nolo.com/encyclopedia/ articles/pct/nn72.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/ copyright.html
A video camera is a wonderful tool for recording student performances. It allows the
learner to see the entire communicative performance, not just the sound. The teacher can also
evaluate the performance in more depth than would be possible from notes taken during the
performance. In a class where students are videotaped regularly, class members can be
trained to operate the camera.

Computer Software
A number of CD-ROM programs now exist that target pronunciation. These vary in
scope, price, type of hardware needed, platform (Mac or Windows), and ease of use. Some
programs focus primarily on sounds, whereas others visually display the length, pitch, and
loudness of an utterance. Some programs have authoring systems in which the instructor can
upload his or her own content to the program; others come with a stock set of utterances for
the learner to practice.
In some cases, the visual feedback that is provided is hard for students to interpret or
is inconclusive, i.e., even native speakers cannot match their pitch trace to the model. Most
teachers who use computerized visual feedback stress that it is not necessarily useful in and
of itself-the learner must be trained to make effective use of these visual representations of
speech.
Other programs function much like a traditional language lab-students record their
voice and then press a button to play it back-but they still use their own perception to hear the
difference between their production and the model utterance.
An overview of many of the software programs available for teaching pronunciation
has been compiled by Deborah Healey and can be found at this website:
http://osu.orst.edu/dept/eli/ june 1998.html
This overview contains a brief description of each program with approximate cost and
contact information.

Internet
The Internet offers a wide array of resources for both teachers and learners of
pronunciation. While not replacing CD-ROM programs, the Internet provides a continually
expanding number of websites which can be mined for pronunciation instruction. These
include articles about teaching, lesson plans, charts, diagrams, audio and video listening
tasks, dictionaries with pronunciation features, and so on. Brinton and LaBelle (1997) created
an annotated list of pronunciation websites. It is available at:
 http://www.sunburstmedia.com/PronWeb.html
Using voice-encoding technology, the instructor can e-mail sound files back and forth
with students. This type of software compresses the speech signal into a compact digital
format. For activities such as oral dialogue journals, the pronunciation log, and oral
homework exercises, this option eliminates the need for exchanging audiocassettes.
One of the main stumbling blocks for our learners is access. Although we may have
sophisticated computers and Internet connections where we teach, many of the new websites
require extensive plug-ins. In general, the more interactive the site, the more powerful the
hardware and plug-ins need to be. In addition to a fairly sophisticated computer with Internet
capability, many sites will require a sound card, headphones, speakers, and a microphone.

ASSESSMENT

In this section we will examine three types of pronunciation assessment: diagnostic

evaluation, ongoing feedback, and classroom achievement testing. (See Cohen's chapter in
this volume.)

Diagnostic Evaluation
The most common forms of diagnosing a learner's production are the use of a
diagnostic passage and a free speech sample. In the first, learners read a passage designed to
contain a variety of features and sounds. In the second, learners are prompted by a topic, a
series of questions, or an illustration. In order to obtain the truest sample of speech
proficiency, learners should have time to formulate a thoughtful response-however, they
should not write it out and read it aloud. Another possibility includes an oral interview
recorded for later evaluation.

Ongoing Feedback
Feedback during instruction gives learners a sense of their progress and indicates
where they need to focus their attention for improvement. With a growing awareness of
progress, learners also gain confidence in their pronunciation. There are three main ways of
providing ongoing feedback.

Self-Monitoring
One way to guide learners to self-correct is to point out their errors silently (rather
than simply pronouncing it correctly for them). We can use various means to cue correction:

1. Gestures
 As mentioned earlier, hand gestures can represent different aspects of
pronunciation (e.g., number of syllables, linking, rising or falling intonation, etc.).
2. Pronunciation correction signs
Signs can be placed around the room, displaying the features that you have
taught. Once learners understand what is meant by each sign, it becomes shorthand
for error correction. One sign might say -ed, which cues a learner to think about past
tense endings in his speech (which he might have either omitted or pro nounced
incorrectly). Other signs might say:
-s Intonation linking or stress
3. Charts
If you have introduced a vowel chart (see Appendix 4) and have a large
version of it hanging in the classroom, you can point to the vowel you hear the
learners making and guide them toward the correct one. An understanding of the
vowel chart can guide learners toward raising or lowering their jaw, gliding, or
spreading or rounding their lips to better approximate a particular vowel.

A second
audio or video format. Learners can monitor their own performance with the guidance of a
self-analysis sheet. This is particularly effective if the learners' first task is to transcribe their
speech (not phonetically, just regular orthography). Working with their transcript while
listening to their tape, learners can monitor for a specific feature. For example:

Peer Feedback
During a traditional minimal pair activity, rather than having students only work in
pairs (one speaker and one listener who responds with the appropriate rejoinder), students can
be placed in groups of four. In this scenario, the first speaker reads one of the two minimal
pair options and the three other group members each mark what they hear. If only one listener
is giving the feedback, it is less reliable and convincing to the speaker since that listener
might have difficulty hearing that particular distinction.
If a role play between two students is recorded on tape, then the two can transcribe it
together and also fill in the analysis form together. In this case, it would be good to pair
students together who don't necessarily share the same pronunciation difficulties. Learning
from someone who is only a little further along than you can be an effective alternative to
instructor feedback alone.

Teacher Feedback
During class, the teacher can use gestures or pronunciation correction signs to provide
feedback silently. Out-of-class feedback can be provided through audiocassettes or computer
sound files in an e-mail exchange.
Which errors should we correct? Rather than overwhelming the student with feedback
on every possible error, follow the guidelines below:
1. Errors which cause a breakdown in communication
2. Errors which occur as a pattern, not as isolated mistakes
3. Errors which relate to the pronunciation points we are teaching
This last point is not to be viewed as the least important; it is related to the first two in
an integral way. It is the errors that learners make that guides us toward what to teach. Thus,
what we attend to in our learners' speech is the feedback we must have in order to navigate
our teaching in a targeted way.

Classroom Achievement Tests

Classroom achievement tests evaluate learners' progress according to what has been
taught and are consequently more focused than diagnostic assessment. The testing tasks
should resemble the classroom teaching tasks in order to reduce the effect of an unfamiliar
format on learner performance.
Any oral performance to be evaluated for a grade should be recorded on tape. This is
not only to make the teacher's evaluation of it easier (although this is the case); it also allows
the learner to review and revise the tape before turning it in. In fact, since one of our goals is
to help learners monitor their own speech, this step is crucial. Although our ultimate goal is
intelligibility during spontaneous speech, for assessment purposes it is also critical to know
whether learners can control their pronunciation during a communicative task when they are
monitoring for specific features. This ability to determine what might have gone wrong in
their pronunciation allows learners to recover from a communication breakdown in real life.
In other words, when they notice the puzzled look or blank stare, they can mentally run
through what they just said and in all likelihood, reformulate the same utterance intelligibly.