Shira Koren, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Many years ago, when I began my studies for the BA in English literature and linguistics at Bar Ilan University, I took a mandatory pronunciation course in British English in the language laboratory with a teacher, whose job was to explain and monitor. The material was recorded but also printed, so the students could both read and hear words and sentences, and the drills consisted of lots of repetitions. After each lesson, which lasted one hour and was given once a week for a whole year, I came to the lab again at my convenience and practiced the new material. Most of the students felt that they had benefited from the course, as their pronunciation had improved considerably. Nobody achieved perfect native pronunciation, but some got very close to native-like pronunciation. Later on, due to budget cuts, this course, as well as other oral proficiency courses, was not offered any more. Similar courses were canceled not only at Bar Ilan University, but also in other universities. On the other hand, the English departments in teacher training colleges continued offering pronunciation courses to their students, prospective English teachers. This created a very strange situation: university students who are going to be high school English teachers are denied the opportunity to improve their pronunciation, while teacher training college students who are going to be elementary and middle school teachers can benefit from this course. This means that the lower classes are likely to have better models of English speaking teachers than the higher classes.

As life has its surprises, many years later I did my doctoral dissertation on the acquisition of pronunciation, and a long time afterwards I found opportunities to teach pronunciation to different populations and developed a pronunciation course that can be taught by English teachers, even those who are not native speakers, like me.

Why is a pronunciation course necessary?

Almost every aspect of the English language is taught in school: vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, grammar, speaking. However, pronunciation is not taught, either because the Ministry of Education deems it unnecessary, or because they do not know how to teach this aspect of the language.

In my opinion, proper pronunciation is an important part of oral proficiency. A person who speaks fluently and correctly, but with poor pronunciation, can be unintelligible or, even if he or she speaks clearly enough, if they have a strong accent, they can be shunned by native speakers. A pronunciation course is essential for such people. Fortunately, this is a minority. Most Israelis who have studied English can be understood most of the time. Still, embarrassing mistakes can create embarrassing situations. For example, confusing vowels which do not exist in Hebrew, such as the tense and lax /i/ as in the words "beat" and "bit" or "steel"/"steal" and "still", or, God forbid, "sheet" and its counterpart… But even if a person is intelligible enough in English, a pronunciation course can help him or her speak better and more clearly. This is an enormous advantage in communication, which can be achieved relatively easily. There is no reason to deny the opportunity to those who need or want it. Teaching speaking without pronunciation can be theoretically compared to teaching partial grammar. Just imagine skipping "only" some parts of English grammar, such as conditional sentences or word order. The result would be poor speaking and chaotic writing. And just as grammar is a finite topic, compared to vocabulary, which is infinite, so is pronunciation. There is a finite number of vowels and consonants, so giving students some phonetic instruction can be very helpful even if they do not achieve native-like proficiency. In fact, there is a view (Deterding, 2010) that in ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), one should not aim to speak like a native speaker, but rather just to be intelligible. I partially agree with this view: my aim in teaching pronunciation is not to turn students into native speakers (as it will not happen), but just to improve their speech. But contrary to the ELF view, which chooses to teach students only the most essential features of English/American pronunciation, I prefer to teach them all the features, because, in my opinion, the opportunity to improve in as many features as possible should not be denied to those who can.

Finally, a pronunciation course can be regarded as extremely important to many people who closely deal with foreigners or who represent institutions and businesses such as diplomats, ministers, CEOs and the like, and if they take such a course in high school, they are likely to gain much more than if they take it later in life, as young age is a crucial factor in success in this area.

The advantages of a pronunciation course

In addition to the obvious advantage of better speaking skills, a pronunciation course can improve the speaker's self-confidence in speaking, which will lead him or her to seek more opportunities to speak English and this will result in better speaking skills. Another advantage is an improvement in listening comprehension, as the pronunciation course trains the learners to listen to, and distinguish between, sounds. The course can improve the ability to understand both types of dialects: British and American. Another advantage is the improvement of one's spelling, as the course focuses heavily on sound-symbol correspondence.

How can English teachers teach pronunciation?

English teachers need training in pronunciation teaching. The first step is to decide which dialect they want to teach, British or American, and focus on learning the features of their choice. Then they need to find the material for their course.

The material for both types of dialects consists of words and sentences organized in exercises according to the phoneme (vowel or consonant) which is being taught. The students hear and repeat each word or pairs of words (especially in the exercises of minimal pairs). The more repetition, the better the results. Then the teacher can make use of a TED lecture with a good, clear model (British or American), and play a small part of the lecture not for content, but for identifying the new sound taught in class. Once the students identify the sound correctly again and again, the teacher knows that they have internalized the sound.

I make use of material available on the internet (including bits and pieces of commercial pronunciation courses that are available for free) as well as exercises from books that teach pronunciation which I have scanned and use on the screen. In addition, I have made some handouts teaching special features of pronunciation, such as silent consonants in English, the American flap, glottal stop, the feature of voicing and its connection to grammar, and more. Once all the vowels and consonants have been studied, I focus on stress and intonation. There is material on this subject in pronunciation books, but intonation can also be taught through sites that offer recorded questions and answers. If I have enough time, I use a play that I have written especially for a pronunciation course. The students read the dialogues in the play, and I correct them along the way. A short conversation in each lesson can also be useful. Thus, I move from highly controlled exercises (repetition of one-syllable and longer words and then sentences followed by short texts with many occurrences of the new phoneme) to the less controlled activity (reading the play) to the least controlled free speech. Reading a play is an activity that is recommended by pronunciation experts, as can be seen in Elina Tergujeff's doctoral dissertation (2013). She recommends moving away from mechanical repetition to activities which are closer to speech, such as: "…tasks in which simple reading aloud was developed into drama as an additional task, or as an alternative modification of the original reading exercise." This approach coincides with that of other researchers, such as Saeed Ketabi and Fateme Saeb (2015), who support "the importance of integration of communicative features in pronunciation teaching." This means that teaching pronunciation should not only consist of segments (phonemes, repetition of sounds, words and sentences) but should also include more communicative activities such as reading drama and controlled conversations, exactly what I do in my course.

I encourage the students to record each lesson and review the material at home, particularly the listening activity to the TED lectures, which improves their ability to identify the new sounds. They can listen to longer segments of the TED lecture that was practiced in class in order to find more occurrences of the new phonemes learned in class.

Before the course

Before I begin a pronunciation course, I send the prospective students a link to a short interview, which they have to record and send me back. This enables me to assess their level and send them feedback, so they know what features they need to improve. This motivates them to work seriously in the course. At the end of the course, they can record themselves again, reading the same interview, and compare the recordings. This will enable them to see their own improvement and can give them a sense of achievement.

Course Materials

In the course I teach all the vowels and consonants used in British/American pronunciation. I use lists of phonemes available on the internet, but I skip teaching those that are identical to Hebrew. Although I teach one type of dialect to a group, either British or American, I show the students the differences between the two dialects so that they will be familiar with both sound systems. This will improve their listening ability of both dialects, although they practice only one system.

This course is ideal with small groups of up to ten students, since this limited number enables maximum participation. In schools, it can be an enrichment or optional course for those pupils who have a problem with their pronunciation, since not everyone needs this course, and the group can be mixed, with students from several grade levels. One hour a week for a whole semester seems to be a reasonable minimum.

References

Deterding, D. (2010). ELF-based Pronunciation Teaching in China [Review of ELF-based Pronunciation Teaching in China]. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 33(6).

Ketabi, S.; Saeb,F. (2015) Pronunciation Teaching: Past and Present. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 4(5).

Tergujeff, E. (2013) English Pronunciation Teaching in Finland, Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities 207, University of Jyväskylä.