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Assignment – FP005 TP

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT: TEACHING PRONUNCIATION GENERAL INFORMATION: This assignment must be done individually and has to fulfil the following conditions: -

Length: between 6 to 8 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-). Font type: Arial or Times New Roman. Font size: 11. Spacing: 1.5. Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be written in this Word document and has to follow the instructions on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide. Also, the assignment has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the document: “Subject Evaluation”. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not allowed. It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the document “Subject Evaluation”.

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Assignment – FP005 TP

Assignment instructions: Choose two problems of transfer which you consider to be obstacles to efficient communication. Those problems need to be specific to Spanish and English (that is, specific to Spanish speakers who are English learners). The problems can either be segmental or suprasegmental. FIRST, describe, as precisely as you can, the causes of the problems in phonetic or phonological terms. SECOND, explain and illustrate how these problems could be addressed within the usual framework of a language course - the level, age and type of student presumably being determined by the type of problem you have chosen. Nonetheless, you should consider the problems in terms of the three ’E’ variables, and with reference to Brinton’s five variables, mentioned in Chapter 9.

Important: you have to write your personal details and the subject name on the next page (the cover). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

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Assignment – FP005 TP

Student’s full name Group: FP_TEFL_2019-02 Date: February/28th/2020

TEACHING PRONUNCIATIO N

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Assignment – FP005 TP

INDEX Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………...…5 Description of the problems -ed endings pronunciation for regular verbs in past ...............................……………...…6 Short and long vowels differentiation……..………………………………………………….7 Context…………………………………………………………………………………………..8 How to address these problems………………………………………………………………8 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..……………10 References…………………………………………………………………………………...11

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Assignment – FP005 TP

INTRODUCTION Today, we are living in a globalized world in which knowing only your mother tongue is not enough; to be competitive it is very important to learn other languages to be able to understand the world in a better way and to play an active role as a citizen of the world because we should be on the cutting edge. This is due to all the changes we are experiencing in the recent years: the technology era with many different devices such as cell-phones, computers, translators; the internet, social networking, business, traveling/tourism, professional development, among others. When you know other language apart from your mother tongue, you can interact easily in today’s world; additionally, the English Language has gained more importance and it is transforming now into Global English due to the use of it by many different people all over the world, that is to say, English Native Speakers are only a little part of the total of people who speak this language for different purposes; and this fact goes along with English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which is the language used in common among people who have different mother tongues, a clear example would be in the business market; they use ELF to be able to interact and communicate. On the other hand, it is relevant to mention that when you are interested in learning a new language, you usually need some help and some formal instruction, so that is when we need to talk about Teaching English, process that implies various steps to reach the ability to communicate. In the past, the main core of Teaching English was Grammar; however, in the last decades, importance has also been attributed to different aspects that make part of the process, one of them is Pronunciation, and it has become more relevant because the aim of learning a language is to convey messages and to be able to interact with others, that is to say Communication is the main purpose and Communication can be more effective if you express your ideas with the correct pronunciation to avoid misunderstanding.

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Assignment – FP005 TP

Teaching Pronunciation implies several considerations regarding the characteristics of each language, furthermore, pronunciation is connected with other important features of language, such as stress, intonation, identification of vowels and consonants to be able to produce them according to every case, among others. Hereinafter, we will mention two problems of transfer which can be obstacles to efficient communication, we will mention the causes of them and we will propose how to address these problems within a language course. PROBLEMS. 

-ed endings pronunciation for regular verbs in past

To start with, we consider that one of the transfer mistakes that can be an obstacle at the moment of communication is the -ed endings pronunciation for regular verbs in past / past participle. Regarding the two languages: English and Spanish, some aspects can be mentioned, In Spanish it is not very common to pronounce clearly some consonants at the end of the words as in the case of “d” and “t” which are the specific final sounds in regular verbs in past; even when the consonant exists at the end of some words, you can be understood no matter if you pronounce it or not, for example the word “usted” can be clearly understood if people only say “usté” and the same happens with “mitad”, you can say “mitá” and there is no problem in communication. Apart from that, it is rather relevant to notice that the sound previous to the final consonant is a vowel (in the Spanish words), fact that does not happen in English when it comes to regular verbs in past, except for the ones in which we add an extra syllable because the last sound in base form is /t/ or /d/, for instance: “end”  “ended” (/ɛndɪd/) or “start”  “started” (/stɑrtɪd/). In figure 1, it can be appreciated the three different ways in which those regular verbs are pronounced in the past form. We believe that this is a problem caused by L1 interference because, we as Spanish native speakers tend to pronounce the same way the words are written and also because we find easier to produce every sound we read, for example, the verb “listen” in past: listened would be wrongly pronounced as “lisened”, the verb “walk” in past: “walked” would be “woked” for a foreigner pronunciation. Therefore, when we want to give the idea orally of these verbs in past, we would not produce the correct sounds, and this can lead to misunderstandings.

This is a segmental problem because it

focuses on little parts of speech and not in a whole sentence or structure, as exposed by FUNIBER (2016, 82), the segments of a language are the particular and minute details of its vowels, consonants and individual sounds. 6

Assignment – FP005 TP

Figure 1, taken from https://www.slideshare.net/Isabel_MyEnglishKey/ed-pronunciationfor-regular-verbs

Short and long vowels differentiation On the other hand, the second aspect we believe is a problem due to transfer mistakes is the production of short and long vowels, distinction that is not necessary in Spanish because we only have 5 basic vowels (a, e. i, o, u), so we do not need to worry about any transformation or change when it comes to pronounce them in our mother tongue, what is more, as it was said before, in Spanish we read the way the words are written, that is why this is a transfer mistake due to L1. Once again, Spanish Native speakers sometimes do not pay attention to the “long” or “short” vowel differentiation; however, in the English Language, this distinction makes a difference in the meaning of words and it is of utmost importance to practice them correctly, some examples could be: liveleave; eat-it; ship- sheep; among others. Undeniably, when we talk about this problem, one possible solution to understand could be the context to know what is the person’s correct idea, nonetheless, he/she might sound embarrassing when saying something different for not producing the vowels correctly. That possible solution can help listeners to comprehend the message, nevertheless, the learner needs to recognize how to produce each of those sounds appropriately following the specific steps of pronunciation regarding the movements inside the mouth. Furthermore, when we talk about isolated words, it is necessary to know how to produce the specific sounds to transmit the correct idea. Again, this problem is segmental because we are referring to specific sounds and not to complete sentences, structures, intonation or stress patterns. 7

Assignment – FP005 TP

Context Considering the previous two problems, it could be said that they can be present in learners at any age depending when they start their language learning process, however, talking about the Colombian public schools context, it would be valid to assume that learners presenting the problem of -ed endings pronunciation for regular verbs in past would be around 12 years old corresponding to seventh grade, at this stage in school it is usually when pupils start learning about the past. Regarding the problem of short-long vowels differentiation, this can happen from a very early age because if the teacher is only worried about learning words or basic expressions, probably he/she will not devote importance to this aspect related to the vowels in the English Language. Additionally, if we focus in the public schools context at the primary level, usually the teacher in charge of one group is the same person who teaches all the subjects, and most of the times he/she is not fully-skilled to teach English; therefore, that teacher probably will not teach anything about this aspect of correct pronunciation and vowel differentiation, fact that can affect the student’s correct pronunciation in the future and can be more difficult to learn it appropriately if it has not been practiced since the early stage of the process. However, this does not mean that will not be possible. On the other hand, this situation related to vowels can also happen in beginner or intermediate levels such as the first grades in secondary school (6 th, 7th, 8th) and can continue happening if it is not corrected. How to address these problems Regarding the three

‘E’ variables (Dalton & Seidlhofer, 1994, cited by FUNIBER,

2016), in the Exposure procedure, not explicit attention is paid to specific features of pronunciation, that is to say, the importance here would be to provide students with a lot of input and have them listen to the corresponding sounds so that hopefully they will notice them and imitate them with time taking part in interaction where they can practice orally, avoiding pressure on learners so that they can feel confident to produce, this last part would be the exercise process. Last but not least, the explanation, in other words: some help which is necessary for students to be aware of phonetic and phonological facts to improve their performance, in this specific case regarding the production of -ed endings for regular verbs in past and the correct pronunciation of short and long vowels in English. 8

Assignment – FP005 TP

Now, taking into account Brinton’s Variables (1995, cited by FUNIBER) related to these considerations, let us mention each of them. The learner variables: as it was stated before, regarding the Colombian context in public school, and focusing our attention in 7th graders, at the age of 12, we would say that the level of proficiency is low or intermediate due to the very basic English to which they were exposed during the primary school; the attitude towards the Language Learning depends on each student and his/her preferences and likes, however, one might say that hopefully learners will be eager to learn if they are aware of the importance of learning languages in today’s world. The setting variables, in our specific case, talking about the Colombian context, we learn English as a foreign language (EFL), fact that provides opportunities for us to practice only in the classroom, where we do not have real situations of every day life, therefore, when we are outside of the classroom, the chances to use the language are very limited or in some cases inexistent. That is why, we expect that the teacher can take advantage of every class to give students the necessary input to improve their performance in all aspects of the language, and of course it is expected from students to deepen the practice on his/her own. The institutional variables, here we can mention the situation previously exposed regarding the primary school disadvantage when it was said that one teacher is in charge of teaching all subjects, being this a negative point if the teacher does not have the necessary skills to teach the English Language. Concerning secondary schools, teacher should be skillful to get this kind of job: nonetheless, sometimes, experience is not demanded, therefore he/she will learn with the time. Linguistic variables, as it was previously said, the L1 can cause transfer mistakes due to our background, the two problems mentioned were: -ed endings pronunciation of regular verbs in past, and differentiation of long and short vowels. Apart from those problems, there are others such as specific sounds that do not exist in our mother tongue and therefore they should be practiced and pupils need to learn them to experience effective communication, one example of this would be: the “th” sound in “three” that many times is wrongly pronounce by native Spanish speakers as “tree”. Methodological Variables, in this case it depends on the institution or the teacher; sadly, in our public schools’ context, we would say that the approach adopted is more focused on grammar-translation and this gives little attention to pronunciation. 9

Assignment – FP005 TP

However, if the teacher is interested in improving students’ general performance when using the language, he/she will devote some time of the lessons to teach aspects of pronunciation and the corresponding practice. CONCLUSION. To wind up, it is of utmost relevance to recognize the importance of learning English (or other language apart from our L1) in today’s world, also it is quite significant to practice all the language skills, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and all the aspects that are connected and involved in this process because it should be a holistic experience in which we can interact and communicate for specific purposes according to our interests and likes. Undeniably, learning other language will open your eyes to the world and this can give you better opportunities in life. Nonetheless, it is a reality that can be some constraints that we should face during the process, but the most important fact is to be able to overcome them and get some progress every time, taking advantage of practice and all the formal instruction to which we are exposed to, not leaving aside the technological tools that we have nowadays and that we can use with no restriction.

REFERENCES.

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Assignment – FP005 TP



FUNIBER, (2016). Teaching Pronunciation. Barcelona: Funiber.



-ed

endings

pronunciation

chart,

(2011).

Taken

from

https://www.slideshare.net/Isabel_MyEnglishKey/ed-pronunciation-forregular-verbs. Retrieved on February-26th -2020

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