Didaktika cizích jazyků - přednášky

Teaching Language Systems Pronunciation and spelling

• Why do we teach pronunciation?

• A learner who consistently mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremely difficult for a speaker from different language community to understand. This can be very frustrating for the learner who may have a good command of grammar and lexis but have difficulty in understanding and being understood by a native speaker.

The aims of teaching pronunciation

• INTELLIGIBILITY - being understood by a listener at a given time in a given situation - aiming at something ´close enough´

• Not to achieve a perfect imitation of a native accent, but to get the learners to pronounce accurately enough to be easily and comfortably comprehensible to other speakers.

What pronunciation model to teach

• Received pronunciation RP

• Queen’s English/BBC English

• south-east England UK variety; typical feature elisions (comfortable), weak forms, lack of ´r´ sound (car, hard)

• Teachers should use the model which is close to the language used outside the lesson.

Factors that influence acquisition of reasonable pronunciation in English

• The learner‘s native language - a particular sound may not exist in their MT , Ss have a tendency to substitute by the nearest equivalent known e.g. My friend is sick x My friend is thick.

• Or they merge eg. reach x rich /i:/x /i/

• The learner’s age – the younger the age the better for the learner’s pronunciation

• The learner’s exposure- in terms of length and intensity

• The learner’s innate phonetic ability

• The learner’s aptitude and sense of identity

• Learner’s motivation and concern for good pronunciation.

Problems and approaches in pronunciation teaching

• There are two key problems with pronunciation teaching

  • It is neglected (nezbytný)

  • It is not neglected but tends to be reactive

Reactive teaching → Planned teaching

Teaching phonemes

• Minimal pairs

• Odd one out

• Word mazes

• Battle ships

• Chaining games

Can you can a can as a canner can can a can?

I have got a date at a quarter to eight; I’ll see you at the gate, so don’t be late

You know New York, you need New York, you know you need unique New York

I saw a kitten eating chicken in the kitchen

If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?

The use of stress

• e.g.: written x retain, desert x dessert; change of the word class – import x import (N x V)

• unstressed syllables – less loudly pronounced, vowels - ´weak´; (

• Accent

• Decrease

• Implant

• Progress

• Object

• Insult

The rhythm and stress

• English speech rhythm is characterized by tone units (a word or group of words which carries one stressed syllable, with other syllables lightened);

• Intonation – (rising or falling, a rise-fall, a fallrise) often makes difference to meaning or implication (speaker´s attitude - can sound offensive); also giving different prominence to a word makes a difference.

• Tom didn’t do his HOME work. (But maybe he did something else)

• TOM didn’t do his homework. (But someone else did.)

• Tom DIDN’T do his homework. (You thought he did, but he actually didn’t.)

• Tom didn’t do HIS homework. (But he did someone else’s homework.)