Teaching English Pronunciation to ESL Students
Finding Methods to Improve the English Accent of Foreign Learners
Aug 29, 2009
When it comes to pronunciation in ESL classes, every language group has specific problems not experienced by others. Teaching pronunciation to classes of students from different countries means that a particular sound focus may be more helpful to one language group than another. Final "m" and "n" sounds for Spanish speakers, "l" and "r" sounds for Asian students, for example, can cause some of the different problems we hear in the classroom. Teachers, need to help all the students correct their accents.
Teaching Pronunciation
Pronunciation problems vary greatly from student to student, and from each of the language groups. There are many individuals who manage to produce correct sounds in spite of known problems when speaking English, while others experience typical problems that occur when speaking English through their mother tongue (or L1).
To help students with a particular speech problem it is necessary to sit with each of them at first, to ascertain how they can find a method of producing the correct pronunciation. Each needs to find a way to change the position of his or her lips and tongue in such a way as to reproduce a sound as close as possible to the desired ones.
Achieving an English Accent
Students from Asian countries typically have problems with the pronunciation of "r" and "l" words. Many students will say, for example, the word "right" by pronoucing it "light". However, they are able to pronounce words that start with "wr" perfectly well. They have no problems saying "write" and "wrong" with a clear "r" sound. If the learners are told to substitute the "wr" sound (in their mind) they are then able to perfectly produce the correct sound.
English speakers say, “write” and “right” and know that both words are pronounced the same. “Wrong” and “right” start with the same sound. But why assume that non-English speakers know this? The spelling is different and so the word is considered a completely different one by the ESL learner. This knowledge, if explained to the students, helps many of them grasp the sound. They are always surprised at how simple it is to get it right.
Another example of learning to substitute a known sound for what a seems a difficult one is shown in this anecdote. A young ESL student asked the teacher to write the letter “R” on the board. It took the teacher a short while to understand that he meant “R”. When the teacher finally understood him, she pointed out that the letter “R” is pronounced like the word “are”. The student was surprised that the sound was so simple, for he had always had problems just saying the letter "r" although he could say "are" with ease. This replacement of known sounds for an unknown, difficult-to-produce sound is an effective way to help each individual learner.
Korean students have a problem with the “z” sound, usually pronouncing it “j” (zoo = joo or dsu) Here, teaching the voiced and voiceless sounds gives them immediate understanding that “s” and “z” are produced in exactly the same way, the only difference being the vocalization in the case of “z”. Because they are able to clearly pronouce "s" means that they can easily say "z", and that “j” and “ch” are partners, the voiced and voiceless twins. So sometimes simple linguistic knowledge can be used to teach a student, but many times it is finding a sound that the students do say clearly, and using that to help them produce another sound more clearly through their own personal sound system.
Helping Students Learn Pronunciation of Words
Explaining the new sounds and their similarities to other words already being used correctly by the students really seems to help them a lot. Drilling won’t help unless the student knows exactly how to produce the new utterance correctly. Repeating a word incorrectly many times won’t suddenly produce the right sound.
Analyzing sounds is quite fascinating, whether the teacher is a linguist or not, and it will not only help the students, but also develop the teacher’s own understanding of word production. The aim is to help each student get to the sound that he or she can produce; one that is closest to the English pronunciation the student is aiming for. The exact replication of an English accent may never be achieved, but each individual can strive to get the clearest and best that he or she can. Understanding this process may even help the teachers themselves, if they are in the process of that difficult endeavor of learning a new language.
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