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Pronunciation, to me pronunciation is a big reason students have problems learning words. Getting the right pronunciation with the right meaning of the word. Most of it is because how other languages pronounce their letters differently. Often the problem areas are when making, A, T, C, F, Th, Sh, Ch, sound’s.
Example: in the language of Bahasa Indonesia. The T or TH sound will come out as “Du” if not corrected.
They are used to making a lot of letter D sounds because of tongue placement on the upper roof of their mouth in the language. Instead of moving the tongue to the front of mouth between their teeth. Like in the letters T and Th sounds. And need teach them how to move the placement of their tongue. Also show how to push air to properly make the sounds.
Once grasping the sounds. Explaining how the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) table of sounds works. That can be found in a dictionary. Can be very helpful on basics of how letters or words can be sounded out. To help give an idea or improve pronunciation on their own.
Phonology is speaking by Intonation, stress, rhythm, emphasizing or tone on certain words to get a certain outcome or response from others. One sentence could be taken many different ways depending which words are emphasized on. I find one way of teaching this is reading to students. Example is short stories so they can hear the flow of speaking as well as read along. So they can listen and see the emphasis on certain words. This also helps to avoid “mono tone” speaking. Everything at one level of sound.
Showing them with simple conversation. With things like “Hello good morning” or nonsense words to show them different levels of excitement.
Examples: Hello “good” morning – Stressing on good can mean it’s a very good morning.
“Hello” good morning- Stressing on Hello can make saying hello a bit more personal greeting.
Hello good “morning”- Stressing on morning can make morning an important point in time.
Linked speech can be a bit difficult to teach. In my opinion it starts to make the language turn to a bit of slang. And really only used in speaking with friends or people you know well. When speaking vary fast or excited.
This was a very in depth unit on the science of speech and pronunciation. Even though I am a Native American speaker I found it very informative and a bit challenging.
Footnote:
Unit 12 test on the lesson plan section. I would have started with the discussion of fairy tales as engage. Then eliciting on vocabulary of a story, then practiced the vocab, used the photos, eliciting instructions, then the activity stage. In unit 12 “study”. Had a straight arrow lesson showing the pictures as engage stage that misled me. I understand the mistakes. Should have gone with my instincts.
