Another interesting resource is a document that lists core items of English pronunciation to teach as suggested by Tran Thi Lan, PhD, at Hanoi University of Foreign Studies. The information is specific to native Vietnamese speakers, but I would consider many of these aspects to be relevant and adaptable to teaching speakers of other languages, as well. The document can be found in full here.
The core items listed by Lan are as follows, with particular emphasis given to the first seven items:
1. The English alphabet. A focus should be put on the following letters which [Vietnamese] students confuse the sounds of: R, I, E, G , J, H, K, Q, W, X, Y
2. Familiarization with the English phonemic chart. Essential as it helps students to be able to know the pronunciation of words from dictionaries. Teachers should encourage students to use monolingual dictionaries made by reputable publishers.
3. Voiced and unvoiced sounds. Students should be taught this to help with the pronunciation of ‘s’ and ‘ed’ endings.
4. Long and short vowels. Students need to be able to confidently differentiate and produce these as they are both challenging and have an effect on meaning.
5. Word final consonants. Vietnamese students often neglect these and constant exercises on final endings should be done attentively during any course.
6. Consonant clusters. These are not a feature of Vietnamese and therefore are challenging. ‘sts’, ‘ts’, ‘str’, and ‘tr’ appear to be the most challenging for many students.
7. Suprasegmental level: Word stress, sentence stress, and intonation are essential items to address. Tonic intonation should be given special care as changes alters meaning. Sound linking is important, but not essential. When learners say the words correctly, they will link sounds naturally themselves.
8. English sounds not found in Vietnamese. For example, the interdentals /d/, /q/, can be mixed up with /f/ or Vietnamese /th/, though this may not influence comprehensibility.
9. /l/ and /n/ can be mixed up in the northern dialect (Hai Phong, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Quang Ninh etc.).
10. Initial /j/ like in yes, young, yellow may be heard as in zes, zoung, zeallow. This sound can be a bigger problem for learners from the south or
11. /r/ The
12. The difference between aspirated and non-aspirated ‘t’. Initial ‘t’ in English is aspirated as in ten and tea. After ‘s’ as in stop and steel, ‘t’ is not aspirated and is more similar to its Vietnamese counterpart. This is advisable to teach, but not in a short course.
Table 1: Pronunciation Checklist
Pronunciation | Always | Sometimes | Never |
Mark “x” where applicable, according to frequency of error |
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Consonants | |||
th (e.g., thin—not[t]) |
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th (e.g., then—not[d]) |
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s & z (e.g., sue vs. zoo) |
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r (e.g., rice vs. lice) |
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l (e.g., parrot vs. palate) |
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Final consonants | |||
Voiceless, voiced (e.g.,nip . nib; seat vs. seed; lock vs. log; larch vs. large) |
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final l (e.g., final, little, sell) |
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final s (e.g., pupils, writes, schools) |
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-ed suffix to mark past tense |
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Vowel variation | |||
hill vs. heel |
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cut vs. cart |
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cot vs. caught |
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pull vs. pool |
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pen vs. pan |
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Intonation | |||
Use of rising intonation: yes/no questions (e.g., Are you coming?) |
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Use of falling intonation: statements (e.g., Yes, I am coming); wh questions (e.g., What are you doing?) |
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Voice | |||
Mark “x” where applicable, according to frequency of error |
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Audibility level | |||
Too loud |
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Too soft |
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Fading out at end of statements |
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Pitch and range | |||
Monotonous |
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Other comments | |||
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Note: This checklist was designed by Nora Samosir & Low Ee Ling (2000) as a means to assess teachers’ oral English proficiency.
Just a note, cot and caught is not necessarily problematic, as many cot/caught merger dialects of English exist. Additionally, students may have correctly learned another dialect's bowl/ball vowels (as a Canadian native speaker, I misunderstand Australians constantly because of this!)
ReplyDeleteGood point!
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