Prosody in Teaching Pronunciation

Communication in spoken English is organized by “musical signals.” There are two aspects to these signals – rhythm and melody – and the combination of these two aspects may be called prosody. Prosody is used to mean rhythm alone, while the term intonation is used to refer specifically to melody (or pitch patterns) the teacher needs to understand that both these aspects of spoken English work together and are vitally linked.

Rhythm and Melody as Road Signs

In English, rhythmic and melodic signals serve as “road signs” to help the listener follow the intentions of the speaker. These signals communicate emphasis and make clear the relationship between ideas so that listeners can readily identify these relationships and understand the speaker’s meaning.

Melody

In English, changes in pitch help listeners follow the speaker’s meaning because these melodic signals provide cohesion and contrast. Not only do they tell listeners what is new information, but they also tell listeners how ideas relate to each other. They help listeners to understand how the speaker intends to make connections with what came before (orientation) and what will follow in the conversation (prediction). Efficient listening comprehension, therefore, depends on the ability to “read” melodic cues in order to sort out these aspects of the incoming language. The orientation aspect helps listeners to clue into what must have been assumed, and the prediction aspect helps listeners to find out quickly if they have misunderstood the point of the conversation.

Example

a. Jane said, “Is that Mister Fogg?”

b. Jane said, “Is that mist or fog?”

Question: What was Jane talking about?

(Gilbert 2005, 136)

In sentence (a), Jane is asking about a person. In sentence (b), she is asking about something altogether different, the weather.

Rhythm

The basic unit of English rhythm is the syllable. A syllable is most simply explained as something with a vowel sound at its center students should be taught to count syllables and thereby notice the rhythmic difference between words in pairs, such as ease and easy, or wait and waited.

Listening comprehension is increased when students learn to notice the rhythmic effect of the number of syllables, including small words such as articles, auxiliaries, and affixes (e.g., the; do; -er; etc.). In easily confused words like this is/this and late/later the number of syllables is different, so the rhythm is different.

Example

1. Yest’day I rent’ ‘car. (Yesterday I rented a car.)

2. Where’ ‘book? (Where is the book?)

3. We’ been here’ long time. (We’ve been here a long time.)

But an understanding of English rhythm involves more than the ability to identify and count syllables. It also involves an ability to hear and produce the word stress patterns of English.

The failure to hear and produce stress patterns accurately could cause confusion between words such as those in the following pairs:

dessert/desert foreign/for rain his story/history

The combination of stress errors with other types of errors can seriously disrupt communication.

Example

Student: Mrs. Stiebel, can you help me with comedy?

Teacher: Comedy?

Student: Yes, comedy is big problem.

Teacher: I don’t quite follow.

Student: (Patiently) Problem – this is worry.

Teacher: Yes, a worry. Um . . . you mean you have a

problem with comedy on TV?

Student: TV? (Trying again) The boss put me on

department comedy. Everybody on comedy, all the

time argue.

Teacher: Oh, you mean committee!

Student: Yes, what I told you, comedy.

Although good will and patient attempts to clarify may often help speakers and listeners overcome this sort of disruption, wrong stress is an added burden for listeners and can, in many cases, lead to conversational breakdown.

Conclusion

Without a sufficient, threshold-level mastery of the English prosodic system, learners’ intelligibility and listening comprehension will not advance, no matter how much effort is made drilling individual sounds. That is why the highest priority must be given to rhythm and melody in whatever time is available for teaching pronunciation.

“Practicing pronunciation without prosody is like teaching ballroom dancing, only the students must stand still, practice without a partner, and without music.”

Reference

Gilbert,  Judy B. 2008. Teaching Pronunciation Using the Prosody Pyramid. Cambridge University Press

To Stay and Teach By Alec Francis A. Santos

Article Reflection:

This article gives me a message to be stay still with teaching profession and how to be the good teachers. First of all, Teachers serve the society by instructing and guiding countless students through the different stages of their growth. They prepare them to take on the world which they are a part of. The teacher must play different roles in a student’s life. He must be his friend stirring him clear from murky waters, he must be his guide helping him find his true calling in life, and he must be a philosopher enlightening his young audience about the ways of the world.

In addition to this, teachers look after the best interests of the students. It is their goal to raise the kids to be good citizens and good human beings. In the early years when the student is first exposed to people outside his family, he is scared and frightened. He hopes to find in his teacher a friend who will function as his surrogate mother away from home. He is also looking for someone with authority to lead the way.

As the students grow the teachers play a very important role in shaping the students future. The seeds are sown when the mind is young. It is the teacher who must now not only help the student decipher the facts and the figures, he must be his confidant and his counsel. It is important that a teacher befriend his students because students respond better to friendship than to authority. If the student perceives his teacher as his friend he will not be hesitant in airing his doubts. A friend is someone who understands you and someone you can depend on. If the teacher assumes the role of a friend, learning will no longer be a task but a pleasure.

The last, students are deeply impressed by their teachers, and are prone to emulate their characteristics. A popular teacher becomes the ultimate role model for his pupils. He is their ideal. It is at this point in a student’s life that a teacher takes on the role of a guide. The teacher has the power to stir a wayward youth away from danger and the power to guide a youth to achieve his goals. He has the power to inculcate the ideals of patriotism in the minds of the young students.

In brief, teachers genuinely play an important role in society. They can make or break a future generation; such is the power that rests in the hands of the teachers. The students are like the clay and the teachers are like the potters that shape their destiny.

Leche Flan

Bahan:
1. Kuning telor 8
2. Susu kental manis 1 kaleng
3. Susu cair tawar atau susu sapi murni tawar 2 gelas
4. Vanili
5. Gula pasir
Cara membuat:
1. Saring kuning telor, susu tawar dan susu kental manis
2. Campurkan jadi satu: kuning telor, susu tawar, susu tawar dan vanili
3. Aduk hingga benar benar tercampur rata.
4. Lelehkan gula pasir hingga menjadi karamel, masukkan karamel kedalam cetakan alumunium hingga rata   menutup seluruh permukaan cetakan.
5. Masukkan adonan no 2 kedalam cetakan yang telah dilumuri karamel.
6. Kukus selama 30 menit
7. Setelah matang, angkat dan masukkan kedalam lemari es
8. Setelah dingin, tumpahkan leche flan dari dalam cetakan ke piring dengan membalikkan posisi cetakan.
9. Leche flan siap untuk dinikmati.

"Husband and Wife for Life" Quotes

• Never reject an opportunity to forgive. There is so much peace and love on the other side.
• He is your King. She is your Queen. If you desire the best from your spouse, treat them with the highest honor.
• Go to sleep tonight confidently knowing that God has a plan for your marriage.
• Giving your spouse the very best you can give will require you to go above and beyond your "normal".
• Every marriage goes through trials. If you happen to know about another couples problem, don't talk about it......pray about it.
• Before you react, remember that love is your best reaction.
• Constantly complaining about what you dont have will devalue the things you do have. Be grateful for the things, moments and people you have right now in your life.

Reference

https://www.facebook.com/husbandandwifeforlife?fref=ts

Teaching Pronunciation to Non-Native Speakers of English

The best way to teach pronunciation to non-native speakers of English and a lesson design on how you can teach pronunciation to elementary or secondary school students using the approaches.

INTRODUCTION

Pronunciation has not received enough attention to non native speakers of English. As a result, there is no systematic clear guideline of pronunciation teaching. Many non native speakers of English especially Indonesian teachers of English do not know what aspects of English pronunciation to teach and how to teach them. They are fundamentally not sure which English variety they should introduce to students in their classrooms because several English varieties (e.g., American English, British English, and Australian English) exist throughout Indonesia.

Jenkins (2000) pays more attention to interaction between nonnative speakers of English by formulating Lingua Franca Core (LFC)— which is crucial to intelligible pronunciation in EIL context—on the basis of her empirical research. Jenkins argues that the core features of pronunciation should be (1) consonant inventory with the provisos such as some substitutions of /θ/ and /ð/ and rhotic ‘r’; (2) additional phonetic requirements such as aspiration of word-initial voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/, and shortening of vowel sounds before fortis consonants and maintaining the length before lenis consonants; (3) consonants clusters with consideration of omission and addition; (4) vowel sounds; and (5) production and placement of nuclear stress. Jenkins is also concerned with certain holistic factors involved in the production of sounds because “problems in all these articulatory areas have the potential to lead to pronunciation errors at both segmental and suprasegmental levels, and thus to affect intelligibility” (p. 157).

Like the priorities of pronunciation, how to teach pronunciation is also one of the debatable areas in pronunciation teaching f to non-native speakers of English. It is accepted as axiomatic by language teachers that good pronunciation is necessary for the mastery of a new language. However, exactly how they translate this idea into the methodologies and techniques for teaching pronunciation is a question which admits much less clarity and consensus. This situation makes teachers and researchers investigate better techniques for teaching pronunciation. Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M., & Goodwin, J. M. (1996), for example, recommend numerous techniques for teaching English pronunciation such as (1) listen and imitate, (2) phonetic training,(3) minimal pair drills, (4) ontextualised minimal pairs, (5) visual aids, (6)tongue twister, (7) practice of vowels shifts and stress shifts related to affixation, (8) developmental approximation drills, (9) reading aloud/recitation, and (10) recordings of learners’ production. These techniques, of course, have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Using songs, games, and tongue twisters can increase students’ motivation in a pronunciation class: motivation is a highly significant factor in pronunciation. The more motivated the student is to im­prove his speech, the more rewarding the teaching will be. The teaching procedures include: 1) read the words containing /ei/ sounds: 2) mark out the stress: 3) sing the song to the students: 4) repeat the words chorally, tapping on the desk to establish the rhythm: 5) put the words into the tune. Eventually, the song helps the students pronounce the phoneme /eö/ and allows the weaker ones to feel a real sense of achievement when they are able to sing it.

Using games in a pronunciation class can also increase students’ motivation. Pro­nunciation and sound-discrimination games can make practice in this area lively and entertaining. MINI-BINGO is a good game for discriminating sounds and WILD GUESS is suitable for practicing the uses of intonation. The teacher can also design the games himself, as far as the games are appropriate to the level and interests of the students. Since they are designed in order to meet the students needs and conditions, they might be very stimulating.

Tongue twisters are particularly useful for the students who have unique pronun­ciation problems. Before teaching the stu­dents the English /s/ and /x/, for instance, the teacher can first ask the students to make a clear distinction between the both phonemes. Then he can let them pronouncing the tongue twister like “She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore” repeatedly.

A certain technique may be worthwhile in a specific situation but cannot be implemented in other situations. It is nquestionably the teacher is the one who decides which techniques are more appropriate to learners because he/she is the only person who knows what is happening in his/her language classroom.

BODY

Among some aprroaches presented in the handout, I would like to design a pronounciation lesson for secondary students using minimal pairs technique. The design is as follow:

1.      Time 

Around 40 - 50 minutes depending on how long youwant to spend on each activity.

2.      Materials

• Minimal pairs flashcards

• Whiteboard/blackboard

• Board erasers or other pointing devices

3.      Objective

Practice minimal pairs pronunciation. Students listen and communicate using the minimal pairs sounds – this activity also teaches them the importance of looking and listening in order to speak. If you teach just one nationality, the minimal pairs you use can be adapted to their specific ‘problem sounds’. However, even if you teach mixed nationalities, there are some minimal pairs that are common problems for many different nationalities.

4.      Procedure

·         Introduce the minimal pairs flashcards and explain that listening to the correct pronunciation is an important part of being able to pronounce difficult sounds.

·         As you go through the flashcards, ask the students to concentrate on looking at the shape of your mouth and listening to the sounds you make before trying to mimic the sounds you make. You could explain how amusing situations might arise from the confusion of words such as rice/lice or coffee/copy.

·         Play minimal pairs bingo to give the students further listening practice.

·         Write the minimal pairs on the board and ask the students to draw a 3x3 grid and randomly fill in the squares with the 9 of the minimal pairs. If you want to speed this exercise up, then allow them to call ‘bingo’ when they have a line of three in a row rather than a full grid. Remember to check the winner’s boards to make sure that they have markedoff the correct words. If not, continue the game.

5.      Main lesson

·         Write the numbers 0 to 9 on the board and write a single minimal pair word next to each question.

·         Read out a telephone number to the students using the minimal pair words. The students must then tell you what number they think they heard.

·         Review the minimal pair cards again and ask a student to read out his/her telephone number to the class. The class then tell the student what number they heard until somebody says the right number.

·         Repeat this a couple of times. Then ask the students to do the activity in pairs or groups of 4.

·         Write the minimal-pairs words on the board in random order. Divide the class into 2 or 3 teams and call a volunteer from each team out to face the board. Give each volunteer a board eraser or ‘pointing device’.

·         Show the flashcards to the rest of the class, who then call out the word or sound. The volunteers must compete to be the first person to touch the correct sound or word displayed on the board and in doing so win a point for their team. Each set of volunteers has 3 turns.

6.      Extension Activity

Practice some tongue twisters using the minimal pair sounds. For example, ‘She sells seashells on the seashore. The shells that she sells are seashells

I’m sure’, or they repeat ‘red lorry, yellow lorry’ as many times as they can.

CONLUSION

It is undoubtfully say that there is no best methods in teaching pronunciation, and to teach pnonunciation teachers should consider some aspects and basic component of it to give a good result in designing a good model for pronunciation teaching.

REFERENCES

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

Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McKay, S. L. (2002). Teaching English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.