TEACHING SPEECH WORK Pronunciation Fluency Accuracy A “good ear”

We are comfortable with teaching Reading Writing Listening and General oral skills But we have problems with pronunciation

challenges When to teach it How to teach it Error correction Psychological factor Wrong focus Production Reception

PRONUNCIATION Pronunciation: correct production, close imitation, of the sounds with the vocal apparatus Each language uses the vocal apparatus differently If the sound is not received … then it cannot be produced When the sound is new and not received properly students will use “their” closest sound We can predict pitfalls when we understand sounds of both Spanish and English

PREDICTABLE PITFALLS Arabic speakers confuse the /p/ with /b/ Japanese speakers confuse the /l/ with /r/ Spanish speakers have problems with clusters /sts/

PREDICTABLE PITFALLS The /th/ of those can be perceived as /d/ and become dose The /b/ and the /v/ are indistinguishable The /ch/ may be confused with the /sh/ The /y/ and the /j/ are indistinguishable The initial /s/ is produced as /es/ The /w/ is produced as /gw/ pronunciation-problems/spanish-pronunciation-problems/ pronunciation-problems/spanish-pronunciation-problems/

ACCENT Accent: a distinctive manner of expression, characteristic inflection, tone or chcice of words; a way of speaking typical to a group of people The way a person speaks and is determined /shows social and geographic background We alll have an innate ability to distinguish accents, most of us can place them Theory of accent sensitivity

STEREOTYPES Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lover's Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians

THE PROBLEM WITH STEREOTYPES Stereotypes refer to Characteristics, Traits And roles a group of people are believed to have Can be positive or negative Negative ones More frequent Result in prejudice or negtive attitude towards something

STEREOTYPES AND ACCENT Accent leads to stereotypes and this in turn leads to prejudice Non-native speakers are thought to be… less intelligent less competent less educated coming from a poor socio economic class and unpleasant to listen to

Does accent interfere with communication? YES: because research demonstrates that non-natively accented speech requires more time to process for native speakers. NO: No, because research shows that although in the beginning accented speech may take longer to process, listeners adapt quickly to the accented speech, usually in less than a minute. Moreover, stronger accents are sometimes easier to understand

When to correct accent Accent should be corrected when it interferes with intelligibility Intelligibility is the ability to be clear and understood However, it is more a matter of correcting attitudes towards accents and foster appreciation of accents

ACCURACY AND FLUENCY Accuracy is the ability to produce correct sentences using correct grammar‏‎, pronunciation, and vocabulary‏‎. Fluency is the ability to produce‏‎ language easily and smoothly. The communicative approach is the one that favors fluency the most, while the audio-lingual and grammar-translation‏‎ approaches favor accuracy.

Accuracy and fluency are not contradictory, because they affect each other. Accuracy brings fluency and fluency brings further accuracy Typically, at beginner level when the students don't have enough language to worry about fluency, teachers tend to focus on accuracy. This carries on through to pre-intermediate when fluency activities like discussions and debates are introduced. Later, when the students are reasonably independent language users, a mix of accuracy and fluency is used, with the focus shifting to fluency as students advance.

A “GOOD EAR” Sensitizing the ear to recognize… sounds, stress, intonation, syllabication, accent. TIPS Speed Consistency Variety Listening Frequency Clarity

EXAMPLE 1 PORT PIT PAT PERT PET POT PUTT PUT PART PEAT

EXAMPLE 2 Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

EXAMPLE 3 I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop. She sits where she shines, and she shines where she sits.

ACTIVITIES WITH MINIMAL PAIRS Pictures: tell students to draw the words… mouse and house, 13 and 30 Odd man out: give groups of four and ask them to identify which one sounds different: hit sit pit eat How many times: give students a small text and then ask them to count how many times they heard a specific sound

ACTIVITIES WITH REPETITION Play with volume: give students a word or phrase to repeat, then indicate at what volume they should say it Experiment with tone: give students a word or phrase to repeat, then indicate if they need to say it in anger, in surprise, in shock… Experiment with speed: get students to repeat a phrase as fast as they can Play with rhymes: the first student says a word, then each consecutive one has to say a different word that rhymes with the first one sat, bat, hat, fat, pat

ACTIVITIES WITH STRESS SYSTEM Count syllables Divide sentences into groups Practice identifying stress with two-syllable words Identify stress in a sentence or paragraph Identify and practice linkage of sounds…. Aw you shouldn’t’ve