METHODOLOGY: Pronunciation

Pronunciation on the Fly ( “FFF”, Fly! Look! Put your teeth on your lips, and PUFF air)

Recently since we’ve been testing and preparing to recombine classes for the upcoming winter schedule, I’ve spent about 50% of my classes reviewing for tests and testing. This is, theoretically, done to make sure students get extra practice for their tests; however, in practice (and especially with a few of my classes who’ve been failing to complete workbook practice or pay attention well), it often means I am able to better see GAPS in students’ understanding of TLC, pronunciation, etc.

In one class, the aforementioned “PN Class”, remedial pronunciation has become a big thing for us. Beginners in most proficiency areas, they struggle with basic pronunciation as much as with grammar. Unfortunately, they had in the past fallen prey to a phenomenon in Korean schools’ English phonics education in which students learn the SOUNDS of the letters but are left without the knowledge of the letter name. I actually haven’t polled any of my fellow teachers: Does this problem exist only in our school? At any rate, my students often enter my classes unable to follow a spelling given them unless the person dictating makes the letter SOUND instead of stating the letter name. While we’ve practiced enough for PB class to follow, they still have trouble pronouncing  - or even recognizing the name of - the letter V. I have found Harmer’s comments regarding speakers’ difficulty HEARING the sounds of their L2 helpful as I consider how to approach teaching pronunciation. (PB Class can hear the sound but not the name; I’ve decided to exaggerate the letter name and to often use ‘v’ spelling words for identification practice). With that being said… I had them practice the letter name by putting their pointer finger on their upper lip parallel to it, and “biting” their lower lip before smiling and vocalizing the “veeeee” sound to “try and touch your smile to your finger”. Following my instruction, they were careful not to purse or round their lips into the ‘o’ of their usual incorrect “vo-ee” sound. They looked hilarious and enjoyed it.

With PK2 class, a younger group of intermediate speakers, we’ve begun a newspaper class that requires a lot of vocabulary work with difficult words. This week’s article was an animal fact article about kangaroos. Words like Papua New Guinea, species, and marsupial featured among the list. These students are incredibly astute and imitate and practice well if given words with the same sounds. I let the students read the words and guess how they were pronounced. Next, we spent several minutes talking about how the spellings didn’t correspond to the sound: “It LOOKS like…..” After this, we broke the words down into separate sounds and wrote them phonetically under the actual spelling of the word. Then we practiced sounding out the syllables separately, then fluently as words, paying attention to how our mouths moved when we said the words. Finally, we clarified stress by marking accent patterns for the words. This class likes to work together to “negotiate meaning” in the sense of deciding what methods they will use to remember the words. I love teaching young children; how often will adults spend 45 seconds grinning at each other while chanting “POP! POP! POP-oo-ah!” and popping their lips to solidify the pronunciation memory…? Using multiple intelligences while learning pronunciation comes naturally to young ones.