Teaching PRONUNCIATION
Presentation, Practice, Production
There are three groups of sounds in comparison with the native language:
– those which are pronounced the same
– those which are similar
– those which do not exist
There are several ways of presenting:
The former can be used for the first group of sounds, the latter is best for the second and the third. Of course, you may always combine them. Also note that it is reasonable not to use articulatory method for the first group of sounds.
Practice = Guided Practice:
1. Recognition
– check whether learners recognise // distinguish a new sound (accent, the phonetical process, etc)- e.g. minimal pairs (bad-bed)
2. Pronunciation
– check whether learners are able to pronounce phonetical items on their own
Free Practice
– provide your learners with activities so that they could pronounce phonetical items in the context freely
All phonetical errors are fell into two categories:
– global (sink/think) – that lead to misunderstanding
– local (e.g. wrong stress)
In the communicative approach only global errors are corrected, local are mostly neglected to focus on fluency rather than on accuracy. Moreover, in the communicative approach teaching pronunciation is not often an object of an individual class. It is mostly integrated into teaching lexis or grammar (intonation).
