Content (General): Sound System

Students tend to apply the sounds, stress and intonation of their native languages to English. This can cause communication problems if they hear different words (chip / cheap) as being the same and are unable to produce utterances to which native English speakers can respond accurately. The elimination of a "foreign" accent is not so much an object in teaching phonology as the elimination of the communication barriers that are caused by inability to hear and produce distinctions in sounds.

There are three components of the sound system:

  1. Phonology--consonant and vowel sounds and discrimination.
  2. Stress--accent in words and sentences.
  3. Intonation--pitch, rising and falling of voice.

Phonology

Diagnosis of Problems. The Pronunciation Diagnostic Test may be used. To administer the test, teach the words same and different using circles, squares, triangles, etc. Say a pair of words. The student indicates whether the two words are the same or different. Circle items missed. This tests whether the student can hear differences between sounds. Then say the sentence and have student repeat. Circle items missed. This portion of the test can come later and measures whether the student can produce the distinct sounds.

Teaching a Pronunciation Contrast.

  1. Say words in pairs, using pictures when possible to illustrate the different meanings of the words (ship v. sheep). Emphasize the different placement of lips and tongue.
  2. Say words in pairs, lip / leap, peak / peek, cheap / chip, ship / sheep. Students indicate whether the pronunciations are the same or different.
  3. Show students how each sound is produced. Click here for a drawing that may be helpful in showing how the sounds are formed. Have the student look at your mouth as you model.
  4. Students repeat a list of words with the target sound: tan, ran, fan, etc.
  5. Teacher says rang, student responds with contrasting word ran.

One game for reinforcement is outlined below. You will need cards with pictures or written words illustrating contrasting sounds, with two cards for each sound. The objective of the game is to obtain matches for the cards.

Student A

Do you have a sheep? (Contrasts with ship.)

Student B

Yes, I do. or No, I don't.

Student A

Give it to me, please.

Student B

Here it is.

Student A

Thank you. or No, that's not it. That's a ship.

Stress

Stressed syllables are usually longer and louder. The rhythm of English speech is produced by approximately equal timing between stressed syllables, with unstressed ones being said as quickly or slowly as necessary to fit into the pattern. For example, Where's the boy going? and Who's it by? are the same stress pattern, with the syllables in the first sentence said more quickly.

Stress Patterns

Guidelines for where to place the stress in sentences:

  1. Primary stress usually goes to the last content word.
    John wrote a letter. Look at it.
    Note: Content words are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
  2. Sentences that have no content words and end with a preposition assign primary stress to the preposition.
    What's it for? Where are you from?
  3. Sentences that have no content words, and have forms of "to be" which are not part of a contraction, assign primary stress to the form of "to be" used.
    Who is it? Where are they?
  4. Nouns tend to be stressed on other than the last syllable, verbs tend to be stressed on the last syllable (this is not a rule).
    For example, object (verb) v. object (noun)

To illustrate uses of deviant stress, use a game.

Student says: Give me the pen, please. (Simple request, light stress)
Teacher begins to give the pen to someone else.
Student says: No, give me the pen, please.
Teacher begins to hand him a pencil.
Student says: No, give me the pen, please.

Sing songs and learn poems to learn the rhythm of English. Some examples are:

Intonation

Intonation Patterns

  1. Rising falling intonation.
    Simple statements: He came to see me.
    Commands: Sit on the chair.
    Question word questions: When did he leave?
    Tag questions (when you think you know the answer): He left, didn't he?
  2. Rising intonation.
    Questions without question words: Is he there? Can you get it?
    Direct address: How are you, Mrs. Smith?
    Introductions: Mr. Brown, this is Miss Jones.
    Series (until last item): I need books, pencils and crayons.

Use marks above the words in sentences or your hand to indicate rising and falling intonation.

Note: To decide if a pronunciation or sound system error is important enough to spend valuable time in remediation, use the following tests:

  1. Does the error interfere with communication?
  2. Does it involve a grammatical feature of English? For example, ommission of /t/ on walked.

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