andrew tweed
DESCRIPTION
Andrew TweedTRANSCRIPT
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO
VIETNAMESE STUDENTS:
WHICH ASPECTS SHOULD WE FOCUS
ON AND WHAT ARE SOME EFFECTIVE
TECHNIQUES?
Andrew Tweed, Oxford University Press
VUS TESOL conference, 14 July, 2012
Let’s introduce ourselves.
Overview of talk
English in the 21st Century
Assessing the seriousness of mistakes in context
Vietnamese learners and pronunciation
General tips on correction
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
Applying the teaching techniques to mistakes
Q&A
English in the 21st century
English in the 21st Century
How many people are there in the world today?
How many of them speak English?
English in the 21st Century
There are over 7 billion people in the world today (USCB).
More than 25% of them speak English fluently or
competently (Crystal 2003, quoted in Jenkins 2007).
English in the 21st Century
This is Braj Kachru’s famous model for understanding how
English functions in different countries. (in Crystal, 1995)
English in the 21st Century
How many users in each circle?
300-500 million in inner circle (e.g., US) 320-380 million in outer circle (e.g., India)
500 million – 1 billion in
expanding circle (e.g., VN)
(Figures from Crystal, 2003, quoted in Jenkins, 2007)
English in the 21st Century
English in the 21st Century
On the other hand, consider these scenarios:
A Vietnamese man decides to emigrate to Australia and would like to speak Australian English so that he can fit in.
Young Vietnamese students at an International High School want to speak American English because they think the accent is cool.
A Vietnamese woman who recently graduated from university joins a British company in HCMC and wants to sound British.
Summary
English is an international language.
People have different reasons for speaking
English, and these affect their attitudes toward
the language.
There are different models of pronunciation.
All of these factors can inform our
pronunciation teaching.
Assessing the seriousness of
mistakes in context
Assessing the significance
of mistakes in context
Mistake? Slip? Error? Fossilization? Deviation?
Assessing the seriousness
of mistakes in context
A Vietnamese woman is in Cambodia. She is talking to a Cambodian woman about her daughter. During the conversation, the woman drops some of her final consonant sounds.
Yesterday I played with my daughter. She is 5 years old. She likes to play with other children.
These mistakes are:
1) Not serious: The message is clear from the context.
2) Sort of serious: The mistakes are distracting.
3) Serious: The mistakes probably make it hard to understand.
Assessing the seriousness
of mistakes in context
A Vietnamese man is in America. He wants to greet an American in a friendly way, but his intonation is monotone.
Good afternoon. How are you?
This mistake is:
1) Not serious: The listener can understand the greeting.
2) Sort of serious: The listener is not sure if the speaker is sincere.
3) Serious: The listener probably feels that the speaker is unfriendly.
Assessing the seriousness
of mistakes in context
A VN official is giving a presentation at an ASEAN meeting. When he speaks, his grammar and vocab. are perfect, but he doesn’t use sentence stress or intonation effectively. I would like to take this opportunity to make a very important proposal. I strongly believe that the ASEAN Economic Community should benefit all member nations…
This mistake is:
1) Not serious: He speaks clearly so everyone can understand.
2) Sort of serious: His English is clear, but he’s a little boring to listen to.
3) Serious: He doesn’t effectively present his argument because he doesn’t emphasize important words.
Assessing the seriousness
of mistakes in context
A Vietnamese woman is in France. She is talking to a French friend in English. She cannot pronounce the ‘th’ sounds /θ/ or /ð/, so she uses other similar sounds, like /s/ or /z/. The other day I was with my brother. He’s thirteen years old and is the third oldest in the family.
These mistakes are:
1) Not serious: The message is clear from the context.
2) Sort of serious: The mistakes are distracting.
3) Serious: The mistakes probably make it hard to understand.
Assessing the seriousness
of mistakes in context
The seriousness of mistakes depends on who is talking
to whom, where, and for what purpose.
We are now going to look at some common
Vietnamese mistakes and ways to correct them. But
please keep in mind that in certain contexts, these
mistakes may be fine.
Vietnamese learners and
English pronunciation
Vietnamese learners and
English pronunciation
Ask someone near you:
1) Do you think most Vietnamese students find
English pronunciation easy or difficult?
2) Which aspects of pronunciation do you think
they find difficult? Provide some examples.
L1 Transfer
Students’ difficulties in a foreign language are
often due to the transfer of linguistic features
from the mother tongue to the foreign
language. This is called L1 transfer.
It is likely that many of the difficulties that you
have just discussed are a result of L1 transfer.
Common Vietnamese difficulties
Final consonant sounds
a) I waited for you last night.*
b) Trang plays the guitar very well.*
c) Please forward those two emails to me.*
d) My favorite color is black.
*It should be noted that the mistakes in a, b, and c could also be caused by not understanding the grammar rules.
Common Vietnamese difficulties
Intonation
a) Are you from Thailand? (rising)
b) Where are you from? (falling)
c) Wow! What a wonderful surprise! (to express an excited
emotion)
d) I’d like a cup of coffee, please. (to express politeness
and/or friendliness)
Common Vietnamese difficulties
Consonant clusters
a) weeks: /wi:ks/ CVCC
b) months: /mʌnθs/ CVCCC
c) twelfth: /twelfθ/ CCVCCC
Note that all of these words are one syllable.
Common Vietnamese difficulties
Word stress
a) toMORrow
b) repeTItion
c) REcord (n), or reCORD (v)
Common Vietnamese difficulties
English spelling and pronunciation
a) Christmas should be pronounced with /k/ instead of /ʧ/.
b) The /s/, in island, should be silent: it shouldn’t be
pronounced like Iceland.
Common Vietnamese difficulties
Individual vowel and consonant sounds
a) Making a distinction between vowels /i:/ and /I/, as in
beat and bit
b) The following consonant sounds may also be difficult: /θ/, /ð/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/.
General tips on
correction
General tips on correction
Activity A
Read the 6 tips on correction.
Which one do you think is the most important?
Are there any that you disagree with?
Are there any that you would add?
Talk with the people around you.
General tips on correction
1) In general, try to avoid correcting students during free speaking activities. This disrupts the flow of their fluency practice. You can correct them afterwards.
2) As with all correction, consider the student who made the mistake. If it is a shy student, you should be careful about how you correct him/her.
General tips on correction
3) Remember that you do not have to correct
every mistake. Focus especially on those
mistakes which you think would cause
misunderstanding.
4) And also, focus on mistakes which you can
confidently correct. There is no point in saying that
something is wrong if you yourself are unable to
demonstrate or explain the correct version.
General tips on correction
5) Although it’s not always possible, try to
consider your individual students’ goals when
correcting.
6) Ideally, the mistake should be treated as an
opportunity for students to learn something
more in depth.
Feedback
Techniques for teaching
pronunciation
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
Activity B Look at the different techniques for teaching pronunciation on the handout. Discuss the following questions with your partner? 1) Have you used any of these techniques
before? 2) Which techniques do you like/dislike? 3) Do you have any questions about these
techniques?
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
Individual sounds: point to the phonemic chart exaggerate your mouth position show/draw a picture of a mouth diagram explain if a consonant is voiced or unvoiced explain how it differs from a VN sound follow up with a tongue twister write an ‘S’ on the WB, and point to it when
students don’t say it drill the word
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
Consonant clusters:
write the word in phonemic script
drill the word backwards, sound by sound, and
build up the word
drill the whole word
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
Word stress:
write the word with the stress over it
divide the word into syllables
write the word in phonemic script
ask the class for other words with the same
stress pattern
clap the stress pattern with the class
drill the word
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
Sentence stress:
mark the stressed words
elicit different meanings for contrastive stress
explain that content words are usually
stressed more than function words
drill the sentence
Techniques for teaching pronunciation
Intonation: write the intonation pattern on the WB explain the rising and falling tendencies of
intonation in WH- and Yes/No questions, statements, and tag questions
‘draw’ the pattern in the air with your hands demonstrate the difference with and without
intonation, e.g., if sounding friendly or polite drill the sentences
Feedback
Applying the teaching techniques
to some common mistakes
Applying the teaching techniques to
some common mistakes
Activity c
Look at the mistakes below. Talk with the people
near you. Choose suitable techniques to correct
these mistakes. Afterwards, practice these
techniques by playing the roles of student and
teacher.
Applying the teaching techniques to
some common mistakes
1. Consonant clusters not pronounced: I’ve been in Danang for six months. 2. Dropped consonant sounds: She plays basketball. 3. Mispronounced ‘th’ sound, /ð/: We saw them yesterday. 4. Wrong word stress: REcognition (should be recogNItion) 5. No intonation: The intonation peaks on meet.
It’s nice to meet you!
Summary
VN people speak with both NNESs and NESs.
English functions as an International language,
and a regional language within ASEAN nations.
There are different models of English.
We need to consider our students’ goals and
attitudes, and how they figure into the larger
picture of English in SE Asia and the world.
Teaching pronunciation is as important as ever.
Teaching pronunciation is more complex than
listen and repeat, or correct and incorrect.
Questions?
References
Crystal, D. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. 2003. English as a Global Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holliday, A. 2005. The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language. Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, J. 2007. English as Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford University Press.
Kachru, B. 1992. The Other Tongue: English across Cultures (2nd ed.). University of Illinois Press.
Image 1: www.portwallpaper.com
Image 2: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/commentisfree+education/linguistics
Image 3: http://doanbangoc.researchland.net/2011/07/world-englishes/
Image 4: http://socialstudiesmontfort.blogspot.com/2007/11/asean-charter-slowdance.html
Image 5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elodiep/3243450001/
Image 6: http://talkvietnam.com/2012/05/vietnamese-youths-opt-for-overseas-studies/
Image 7: http://www.sse-franchise.com/soapbox/201102/04/english-pronunciation-%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E%E3%81%AE%E7%99%BA%E9%9F%B3-for-japanese-people/
Image 8: http://adrianpronchart.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/the-phonemes-have-got-me/
