Aural/Oral, Phonetics and

Teaching Pronunciation

Approach 3

Tongue Twisters

A sailor went to sea, sea, seaTo see what he could see, see, see.And all that he could see, see, seeWas the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, A bear was Fuzzy WuzzyWhen Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his hair, He wasn’t fuzzy, was he?

Answer these questions…

1. The word cat starts with the consonant sound ?a. /k/ b. /c/

2. Choose the phonemic script for ‘j’ in the word judge?a. /j/ b. /y/ c. / ʤ /

3. When do we use phonemic / ð/?a. bath b. bathe

4. In which word is the letter ‘s’ silent?a. Iceland b. island

What sounds are these?

0Put your lips together. Use your voice, and let the air escape through your nose.

0Open your mouth and breathe out. Don’t use your voice, but try to make a noise.

0Put your lips together. Try to hold air in your mouth and release air suddenly. Try again, and add your voice.

What sounds are these?0Put your lips together. Use your voice, and let the air

escape through your nose./m/

0Open your mouth and breathe our. Don’t use your voice, but try to make a noise.

/h/

0Put your lips together. Try to hold air in your mouth and release air suddenly. Try again, and add your voice.

/p/ or /b/

Teaching Pronunciation

I. Producing correct sound in isolation is comparatively easy. Producing them in connected speech is harder.

II. It is difficult to produce distinctions between sounds if they cannot hear the distinction.

III. Precise quality of the sound is not as important as consistency in producing it.

IV. Most students neither require nor desire perfect English pronunciation. It is a loss of personal identity. Therefore, pronunciation should be close, consistent and intelligible.

V. Unintelligibility normally occurs not due to wrong sound quality but misplaced stress. ( adjective v objective)

How to teach PronunciationBy considering that ss may need more help with suprasegmental

features (e.g. connected speech, stress, rhythm, and intonation) rather than segmental (e.g. sounds of vowels and consonants)

By understanding that pronunciation practice should be regular but of short duration. (uncontextualized) – 5 minutes for beginners and 3 minutes for inter/ advanced.

By integrating it into work on language (language lesson). Choral or group.

By fitting in specific pronunciation lessons.By considering the natural occurrence of certain sounds with certain

structures/ functions/ vocabulary.By dealing with it in error correction/ feedback stages.For poorer ss, can try drilling, using mirror.

Features of pronunciation – sounds

0Phonemic symbols

Categorising Activities Sh / /ᶴ sugar, machine Z / /ᶾ television, asia Ch / /ᵗᶴ cheap, kitchen J / /ᵈᶾ joke, George Th / /ᶿ thirsty, bath Th / /ᶞ that, those Y / /ᶨ you, Europe Ng / /ᵑ long, drink S /s/ silent, bus N /n/ nap, sun

Consonant Sounds1. Phonetic symbols for most consonants use the same letters as in conventional

English

spelling: /b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z/. 

2. Spelling consonants that are not used phonetically in English: c, q, x. 3. A few additional symbols are needed for other consonant sounds.

/ Ө / (Greek theta) _ voiceless th as in thin, thank

/ ð/(Greek delta) _ voiced th as in then, those

/ ŋ / _ ng as in sing, think

/ ʃ/ _ sh as in shirt, mission, nation

/ ᴣ / _ s or z in a few words like pleasure, casual

/ ʧ / _ ch or tch as in watch, church

/ ʤ / _ j or dge as in jump, ledge

Try these sounds!1) /p/ and /b/

2) /w/ and /v/

3) /s/ and / /ʃ

4) /z/ and / / ᴣ

5) /t/, /Ө/ and /ð/

6) / / and / /ʧ ʤ

7) /n/ and /ŋ/

Vowel SoundsFront 0 /i/ or /iy/ as in beat 0 /I/ as in bit0 /e/ or /ey/ as in bait

Back (lips rounded)0 /u/, /u:/, or /uw/ as in boot0 / / as in υ book0 /o/ or /ow/ as in boat0 / / as in ɔ bought0 / / as in ε bet0 /æ/ as in batCentral

0 / / as in ə but0 /a/ as in bother

Glides: /ai/ or /ay/ as in bite0 / i/ or / y/ as in bɔ ɔ oy0 /au/ or /aw/ as in about

Word Stress

Bottle

Apple

Hairbrush

Computer

Hotel

Equal

Caribbean

Suspect

 Unhappy

 Hospital

 Saturday

 Desert

Word Stress

O oBottle O oApple O oHairbrush o O oComputer 

o OHotel O oEqual o o O oCaribbean o O / O oSuspect 

O O oUnhappy O o oHospital O o oSaturday o O / O oDesert

Activities Games – bingo; tic tac toe; snap Listening to native speaker like tapes/ videos and analysing for e.g.

intonation: Does she sound happy? How do you know? Categorising activities – e.g. put the words into the same stress

groups; find a partner with the same sound. Minimal pairs discrimination tasks ( for sound) – e.g. pen / pan;

cot / coat; soup / soap Drilling Tongue twisters Teach ‘regularities’ – e.g. noun v verb form of the word stress

patterns e.g. ‘record / re’cord; ‘produce / pro’duce Use gestures which mirror the voice to help with intonation.

Decipher these using the phonemic chart

ŋgl z f ni læŋgw d . ð r ɪ ɪʃ ɪ ə ə ə ʒ ɛz no g n gplænt r hæm n ɪ ɛ ɪ ɛ ɔ ɪ

hæmb rg r; nið r æp l n r ə ə ə ə ɔpajn n pajnæp l. wi tek ŋgl ɪ ə ɪ ɪʃf r grænt d. ɔ ə

The answer

English is a funny language. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. We take English for granted.

THE END