Think back to a time when you played a musical instrument. Imagine touching the instrument and hearing the resulting sound. What made the notes high or low? Long or short? Legato or staccato? At the beginning of the semester, the instructor asks international teaching assistants (ITAs) to recall these experiences that are then used as an analogy to understand and learn pronunciation patterns. Many ITAs are familiar with an instrument, and for those without experience, online piano keyboards (e.g., Virtual Keyboard) can provide that first encounter. ITAs reflect on what they did to attain their skill level with the instrument, and the conclusion is always “PRACTICE!” This of course begs the questions, “How did you practice? Did you improve by watching music videos or listening to music featuring your instrument?” Most ITAs laughingly reply “no,” agreeing instead that regular and thoughtful practice is necessary because listening alone is insufficient.

Music is processed in multiple parts of the whole brain; there is not a single “musical center” in the brain, as traditionally believed (Taylor, 2010, p. 82). However, there are areas in the brain that are specifically sensitive to different musical elements, such as rhythm, melody, tone, sequence, and timbre. When the brain processes language, areas that process similar elements in music are stimulated, such as intonation (melody), sequence, and rhythm. This is why music is a great medium for language learning. In this article, we share some ways we have incorporated music into the teaching of pronunciation.

Effective Practice, Consonants, and Vowels

The analogy of learning a musical instrument can be used as a guide for effective practice. Much like how ITAs must practice on their own in order to perform well, a symphony cellist also must do the same. When she needs to rehearse a difficult passage, she cannot expect to learn it by playing through the entire piece; rather, she will break it down into smaller parts, identifying where exactly she needs to improve. Perhaps it is a difficult jump between two notes, or perhaps she is struggling to reach the target presto speed in a particular passage. Either way, she needs to understand the technique behind the physical act of fingering the notes in order for the motion to be efficient and the sound to be accurate. She might video-record herself or use a mirror for clues on how to improve her physical technique, or she might listen to the recording of her playing to more clearly hear what she sounds like, maybe comparing it to a model that she would like to emulate. She might also work with a teacher or colleague for more feedback.

These actions are not unlike what ITAs do when learning consonants such as /θ/. It might be easy enough to say “thank you” in isolation, but producing it in fast speech or overcoming fossilization due to years of saying “sanks” rather than “thanks” might prove more difficult. The ITA will first have to understand how to produce this voiceless interdental fricative. Looking in a mirror and comparing how much of the tip of the tongue should be sticking out to what the ITA sees when native speakers produce the sound will help the him visually understand (the University of Iowa has a good model online). Listening back to recordings in which the ITA repeats words containing that sound after a model (e.g., Merriam-Webster online dictionary) will help him hear any differences. Feeling where the tongue and teeth make contact when producing the sound accurately will help the ITA understand kinesthetically. Pronunciation teachers and tutors can provide additional feedback, affirming when the ITA pronounces the target accurately and giving instructive feedback on what to do differently when production is inaccurate.

After production at the small-scale level is achieved, the cellist, like the ITA, must practice it repeatedly, methodically, and mindfully, to build the correct mechanics into her muscle memory. Once she can do so consistently, she can play more of the passage leading into the difficult section; or for the ITA, words containing the target sound can be placed into the context of sentences. After such mindful practice, the cellist will be able to play the passage deftly and without problems within the context of the piece as a whole, just as the ITA will be able to produce the sound accurately in focused free speech. This picture of effective practice can also be applied to suprasegmentals.

Intonation and Prominence

Pitch movement at the end of a sentence can convey not only whether the speaker is asking a question or making a statement, but also, as Gorsuch, Meyers, Pickering, and Griffee (2013) point out, whether the speaker is sharing new information, routine information, or reminding listeners of something they previously shared. Tone choice at the sentence level can convey the speaker’s emotion and whether he seems friendly or distant; key (paragraph-level tone choice) can signal to the listener the start or end of a topic. When prominence (higher pitch, longer length) is placed on key words in a phrase, the speaker communicates the word’s importance to the listener, and can also signal that this is new information, or highlight contrasting information. Consequently, ITAs with a narrow pitch range have difficulty communicating such assumptions, emotions, and subtle textual organization cues.

Music can help ITAs both hear and understand pitch movement and key as well as broaden their range of intonation. For this, instructors can use three consecutive keys on the virtual keyboard to illustrate rising, level, and falling pitch at the end of sentences, having the students match the notes with their voices as they say “ri-sing, le-vel, fall-ing,” as you can see in the following measures.

To demonstrate key and tone choice further, the instructor can play the three (white) keys on the right side of the keyboard to illustrate the high key, the four middle keys as the middle key, and the four keys on the left as the low key.

The ITAs can again emulate a corresponding high note on the keyboard when starting a topic (↑“ToDAY, we’ll discuss . . .”) and a low note when ending a topic (“No questions? ↓Let’s move on.”). For an added cue, ITAs can raise their arms above their heads when using or listening to the high key, hold their arms out at chest level for the middle key, and lower them to their sides for the low key. For broadening one’s intonation range, these visual cues are helpful for ITAs to identify their narrowed range of intonation. In fact, ITAs can learn to distinguish intonation ranges by doing vocal exercises (similar to choral warm-up exercises) with these hand and arm movements, then apply this awareness of range to their own speech patterns when the instructor visually reflects the ITAs’ intonation range. Thus, ITAs can change their intonation range spontaneously according to the instructor’s gestures.

Rhythm and Rate

Both musicians and ITAs can practice with a metronome to work on rhythm and rate. Activities in which there are the same number of stressed syllables but differing numbers of total syllables (Lane, 2005) work well when a metronome provides this constant beat. For example, set the metronome at 88, and stress the words on the beat as in the following example:

|                            |                          |

Stress your WORDS / on the BEAT.

Once ITAs can do this, it is easy to work on linking and reduction in the thought groups and equally easy to adjust the tempo in order to help ITAs speak more quickly or slow down as needed. Using the metronome can also help with thought group division or pausing between thought groups as marked in the example above.

Thought group division can also be illustrated by playing a few bars of a familiar tune such as “Hey, Jude” by the Beatles. When singing “Hey, Jude,” the phrasing of the song naturally prompts ITAs to pause and breathe between sentences. The physical exercise of breathing and pausing with the music can then be successfully transformed back to speaking sentences. Well-known songs like this can also help to illustrate problems with thought group division, such as “endless sentences” (failure to pause at the appropriate place) and “split thought groups” (pausing in an inappropriate place; Gorsuch et al., 2013, p. 14). To clarify this idea further, ITAs can mark pauses on song lyrics then sing them back. It is easy to then move from music to speech by marking transcripts (/) from TED Talks speakers, then reading them back. Used both as the basis of an analogy and in actuality by singing or tapping beats, music can be a bridge to understanding and putting into practice new pronunciation patterns in English.

References

Gorsuch, G., Meyers, C., Pickering, L., & Griffee, D. (2013). English communication for International Teaching Assistants (2nd ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Lane, L. (2005). Focus on pronunciation 3. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Taylor, D. B. (2010). Biomedical foundations of music as therapy (2nd ed.).Eau Claire, WI: Barton.

Lara R. Wallace, a lecturer and the ELIP Pronunciation Lab coordinator in Ohio University’s Department of Linguistics, earned a BA in Spanish with minors in music and anthropology, an MA in linguistics, and is a PhD candidate in cultural studies of education at Ohio University. Her research interests include ITAs, pronunciation, oral communication, and CALL.

Yu-Ching Chen, MT-BC, is a board-certified music therapist, certified neurologic music therapist, music therapy graduate student at Ohio University, and has a BFA in voice performance. Her research interests include medical music therapy, multicultural music therapy, and incorporating music to facilitate language learning for international students.