Developing students’ pronunciation is vitally important to help them achieve a good communicative speaking level. The best time to work on pronunciation is when we first introduce new language items such as grammatical structures, vocabulary or expressions. This should ensure that they learn them from good clear models and are able to include references to pronunciation features in their notes.
The webcam can be a vital tool in helping to support our students’ pronunciation habits and helping them to ‘see’ how words and expressions are pronounced and what particular pronunciation features they need to be aware of. So here are a few tips and examples to help you use your webcam to help with your students’ pronunciation.
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Syllables on fingers
When learning new words and especially longer words, students often have problems identifying how many syllables the word contains and which syllables are stressed or emphasised. We can use the fingers of our hands to show the breakdown of the syllables and which one is stressed. Be sure to work from your right to left with the back of your hand towards the camera when you identify the syllables. This will help you to avoid offending some students (in some cultures showing the palm of your hand is an offensive gesture). If you use your left hand for the syllables of the word and work from right to left the syllables will appear from left to right for the students.
Tap on the fingers as you say the syllables and lift your right hand finger to indicate the syllable which is stressed.
Showing contractions and catenation
You can also use your fingers to show the words of a sentence and to show students where the contractions are and which words are linked together. Start by breaking the sentence down onto your fingers with one word on each finger. Then work through the sentence again showing which words are contracted and which sound as though they are linked together. Be sure to work from your right to left and start the sentence on your left hand.
You can also use your fingers to check that students know the word order and to drill parts of the sentence and the linked words.
Pointing intonation
When students learn new sentences or questions they also need to learn the correct intonation. Intonation can be a complex area to deal with, but the simplest way to address it is to give clear models. You can also emphasise the rises and falls in intonation by using your fingers to point up or down while you model the sentences and questions.
Word stress cards
It’s easy to create a small set of word stress flashcards to get students to practice listening for word stress. Just get some note cards or post-its and draw the various syllable and stress patterns on them. Then when you introduce new words to students say the word three times clearly and hold up two of the stress cards and see if they can identify the one with the correct stress pattern to match your model.
You can use this activity as an effective vocabulary revision technique and also get students to mark these syllable and stress patterns on new words as they learn them.
Word stress lifts
Another nice way to deal with word stress is to lift out of your seat slightly as you say the word to emphasise the stressed syllable. You can also ask your students to do the same thing as they say the words.
Adding the physical movement to the process of learning can help to embed the words in students’ memories more effectively.
Phonemic symbols
Students often have problems hearing the difference between similar sounds particularly if those sounds don’t exist in their first language or if there is a very similar sound.
Brazilian speakers particularly have a problem with /r/ at the beginning of a word and use /h/ instead. Hearing the difference between the short /i/ sound in live and the longer /i:/ sound in leave is also a common problem with many nationalities. Many students also have problems hearing and making the unstressed schwa sound /ə/. You can raise students awareness of these differences by using phonemic symbol flashcards. Just hold up the flashcards of the two similar sounds, say the word and ask students which of the sounds they heard.
Showing mouth positions of sounds
Sometimes students need help with understanding how to make some of the sounds in English, especially if these sounds aren’t used in their first language, so you can show them the mouth positions and how the position of the lips can change when you move from sound to sound. You can do this by leaning in close to the camera and demonstrating the sounds or showing them various techniques to help produce the sounds.
Related resources:
- You can find a phonemic script transcriber here: http://www.photransedit.com/online/text2phonetics.aspx
- You can download and print phonemic symbol flashcards from: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/phonemic-symbols
- You can find and interactive phonemic chart at: http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-and-app/interactive-phonemic-chart/
- Many of the techniques in this article I originally learned from Sound Foundations by Adrian Underhill – Macmillan. It is one of the best reference books on teaching pronunciation and well worth reading: http://www.macmillanenglish.com/methodology/books/Sound-Foundations.htm
- Find out about the British Council’s Aptis test for Teachers: https://www.onlineenglishteachingtests.com/
- Find out about teaching for us: http://englishup.com.br/teach-for-us/
I hope you find these tips and resources useful.
Best
Nik Peachey – Head of Learning – EnglishUp
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