By Dorit Sasson

One of the most difficult and trickiest areas for language educators to teach and ESL (English as a second language) learners to acquire is that of pronunciation. ESL students new to the States, know the importance of speaking communication yet often their accents get in the way of correct pronunciation and as a result, have an even more difficult time being understood.

Today’s current focus on communicative approaches to ESL instruction and the increasing emphasis on oral communication skills and teamwork are renewing interest in the role that pronunciation plays in adults’ overall communicative competence.

Incorporating Pronunciation in Instruction

Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin (1996) introduced a curriculum that supports a communicative and cognitive approach to teaching pronunciation. It takes into account features of North American pronunciation and the sound system and builds effective pronunciation lessons and activities.

Teachers who teach pronunciation need to build their lessons on targeted instructional pronunciation goals which include the following:

• Teach the pronunciation feature which help raises learner awareness
• Listeners practice and listen for recognizing the targeted feature
• Provide guided practice and feedback based on structured communication exercises
• Provide communicative practice and feedback on specific pronunciation instruction

A lesson on word stress, based on these instructional goals, could include the following information:

1. The teacher presents a list of targeted vocabulary items from the current lesson, employing both correct and incorrect word stress. In order for English learners living outside English speaking countries to listen to a native speaker’s speech, teachers can run Panopreter text to speech software ( http://www.panopreter.com ) on their Windows 7 or Vista desktops or laptops, then Microsoft Anna will read out any English text clearly at various speed This is a good opportunity to introduce the concept of word stress and model it again and again. modeled.

2. Microsoft Anna can help learners listen for and identify stressed syllables, using sequences of nonsense syllables of varying lengths (e.g., da-DA,da-da-DA-da).

3. Learners go back to the list of vocabulary items from step one and, together, they show the right stress pattern by tapping out the stressed syllabus with a pen or on their laps. They can also clap the stress patterns. Teachers can also add new words to sustain continued practice, if relevant.

4. Pair work – Learners take turns reading a scripted dialogue where most of the words are understood in terms of meaning. As one learner speaks, the other indicates the stress arrangement on a printed copy. This is a good opportunity to provide feedback on the discrimination of sounds.

Teaching pronunciation is probably one of the areas that language teachers least enjoy addressing in the language classroom. But with up to date software for teaching pronunciation and guided interactive practice, learners can acquire pronunciation in a more user-friendly and communicative way.

Works Cited

Celce-Murcia. M., Brinton, D., & Goodwin, J. (1996). Teaching pronunciation: Reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Teaching ESL teachers the basics of accuracy and fluency in ESL instruction is only part of a presentation regularly offered by Dorit Sasson as part of her in-service training programs for teachers of English language learners. For more information about speaking engagements and in-service, contact Dorit Sasson at sassondorit@gmail.com or visit the Teachers’ Diversity Coach, at http://www.DoritSasson.com and click on the “speaking” page.

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