There were some English songs in New Horizon!!
We can approach pronunciation through music. There are obvious parallels between music and lauguage: both use rhythm and pitch changes to express meaning.
Music plays with sounds to produce pleasure, helps to overcome self-consciousnss, and can activate other abilities which can in turn consciousness, and can activate other abilities which can in turn help to activate liguistic capacity.
We need to choose music our students will respond to easily for a start, expanding our selection as we go, catering for all our students and opening up their sonic world and their minds.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Graduation Thesis ★ June
How much pronunciation work should we do?
Pronunciation should always be at the back of our mind. Be ready to steer our leanrers when necessary, and weave the activities into the fabric of our lessons. Many of the actvities will only take 5-10 minutes. It is important that we do not allow mistakes to become fossilized with beginners, but correcting too much and too overtly is counter-productive.
pronunciation is not something the teacher can instil in learners; it is something the learners assimilate for themselves. As a teacher we are the initiator, but respect our learners' choices and encourage them to have a personal agenda for development and to express their feelings. Develop their autonomy by suggesting they can and should work on their own, at home and in the wider world. Finally, welcome initiative and listen carefully to any ideas they may have about their progress.
Even if we have too little time to do pronunciation exercises using Sound Box, consider that most of the activities are short and can be integrated with other work in class. Most of them are simple and fun. We will probably find that 10 minutes spent on one of these at the begining of or during a lesson will not only result in a great improvement in our learners' pronunciation, but willalso have a positive effect on their attitude to the language and how they relate to the group.
Pronunciation should always be at the back of our mind. Be ready to steer our leanrers when necessary, and weave the activities into the fabric of our lessons. Many of the actvities will only take 5-10 minutes. It is important that we do not allow mistakes to become fossilized with beginners, but correcting too much and too overtly is counter-productive.
pronunciation is not something the teacher can instil in learners; it is something the learners assimilate for themselves. As a teacher we are the initiator, but respect our learners' choices and encourage them to have a personal agenda for development and to express their feelings. Develop their autonomy by suggesting they can and should work on their own, at home and in the wider world. Finally, welcome initiative and listen carefully to any ideas they may have about their progress.
Even if we have too little time to do pronunciation exercises using Sound Box, consider that most of the activities are short and can be integrated with other work in class. Most of them are simple and fun. We will probably find that 10 minutes spent on one of these at the begining of or during a lesson will not only result in a great improvement in our learners' pronunciation, but willalso have a positive effect on their attitude to the language and how they relate to the group.
Graduation Thesis ★ June 6
What makes learners believe they will not be able to pronunce English well?
People from some language backgrounds think it is unimaginable for people from their culture to pronunce English well, and this is often reinforced by prejudices and streotypes. Atually I had a streotype that Japanese cannot achieve good English pronunciation compared with Scandinavian and Dutch people. The differences that contrastive studies bring to light between the mother tongue and English will only reinforce this conviction , even in teachers. This can adversely affect divelopment of learners from these countries, even if they come acoss people who provide the contrary. Though there may be some apparently objective reasons for the learners' problems, they don't provide sufficient explanation for the lack of success. Near-similarity can be just as much a problem as great differences. In the end, the most important single factor is the leanrers themselves.
Another common belief, which is sometimes presented as an axiom of psychology, is that after certain age good ponunciatioon of a foreigh language can no longer be achieved. Even junior high school students they sometimes seem to give up to have good speaking skill and pronunciation of English since they started learning English from junior high school and only hope to be able to survive in English tests for entrance examinations. Whatever truth there may be in this, it is also true that many people who start learning a foreigh language after elementary school manage to achieve execellent pronunciation . The problems of those who appear to be incapable of doing so may simply be due to the self-consciousness that comes with ages and not to age itself.
Also junior high school students seems to feel rediculous producing `strange` sounds, or they may feel they look awful. This inhibits them; they avoid speaking and cannot develop a frame of mind that allows them to use their full potential. As the years go by they become convinced that for them `English is simply impossible to pronunce`.
So teachers neet to be up against, prejudice, myth, and belief that all efforts will be hopeless. All these - and there are can be as many different and compounded problems as there are learners - need to be tackled in order to help learners with pronunciation.
Reference:
Laroy, C. (1995). Pronunciation. Oxford English
People from some language backgrounds think it is unimaginable for people from their culture to pronunce English well, and this is often reinforced by prejudices and streotypes. Atually I had a streotype that Japanese cannot achieve good English pronunciation compared with Scandinavian and Dutch people. The differences that contrastive studies bring to light between the mother tongue and English will only reinforce this conviction , even in teachers. This can adversely affect divelopment of learners from these countries, even if they come acoss people who provide the contrary. Though there may be some apparently objective reasons for the learners' problems, they don't provide sufficient explanation for the lack of success. Near-similarity can be just as much a problem as great differences. In the end, the most important single factor is the leanrers themselves.
Another common belief, which is sometimes presented as an axiom of psychology, is that after certain age good ponunciatioon of a foreigh language can no longer be achieved. Even junior high school students they sometimes seem to give up to have good speaking skill and pronunciation of English since they started learning English from junior high school and only hope to be able to survive in English tests for entrance examinations. Whatever truth there may be in this, it is also true that many people who start learning a foreigh language after elementary school manage to achieve execellent pronunciation . The problems of those who appear to be incapable of doing so may simply be due to the self-consciousness that comes with ages and not to age itself.
Also junior high school students seems to feel rediculous producing `strange` sounds, or they may feel they look awful. This inhibits them; they avoid speaking and cannot develop a frame of mind that allows them to use their full potential. As the years go by they become convinced that for them `English is simply impossible to pronunce`.
So teachers neet to be up against, prejudice, myth, and belief that all efforts will be hopeless. All these - and there are can be as many different and compounded problems as there are learners - need to be tackled in order to help learners with pronunciation.
Reference:
Laroy, C. (1995). Pronunciation. Oxford English
Graduation Thesis ★ June 6
Why do we need to teach pronunciaiton?
Almost all English laguage teachers get students to study grammar and vocabulary, practise functional dialogues, take part in productive skills, and become competent in listening and reading. Yet some of the same teachers make little attempt teach pronunciation in any overt way and only give attention to it in passing. It is possible that they are nervous of dealing with sounds and intonation; perhaps they feel they have too much to do already and pronunciation teaching will only make things worse. They may claim that even without a formal pronunciation syllabbus, and without specific pronunciation teaching, many students seem to acquire serviceable ponunciatin in the course of their studies.
However, the fact that some students aｒe able to acquire resonable pronunciation without overt pronunciation teaching should not blind us to the benefit of a focus on pronunciation in our lessons. Pronunciation teaching not only makes students awere of different sounds and sound features, but can also improve their speaking immeasurably. Concentrating on sounds, showing where where they are made in the mouth, making students aware of where wods should be stresses - all these things give them extra information about spoken English and help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility.
In some particular cases pronunciation help allows students get over serious intelligibility problems. I had taken English courses called English as a second language in the United States and the professor was able to help Cantonese, Korean, Japanese speakers of English achieve considerably greater intelligibility by working on our point of articulation. With other language groups it maybe a problem of the degree to whichspeakers do or do not open their mouths. Other language groups may have trouble with intonation o stress patterns in phrases and sentenses, and there are many individual sounds wchich cause diffeiculty for different first language speakers.
For all peaple, being made aware of pronunciation issues will be of immense benefit not only to their own production, but also to their own understanding of spoken English. Of course for Japanese junior high school English learners teaching pronunciation is very beneficial.
Referece：
Harmer, J. (2004). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.
Almost all English laguage teachers get students to study grammar and vocabulary, practise functional dialogues, take part in productive skills, and become competent in listening and reading. Yet some of the same teachers make little attempt teach pronunciation in any overt way and only give attention to it in passing. It is possible that they are nervous of dealing with sounds and intonation; perhaps they feel they have too much to do already and pronunciation teaching will only make things worse. They may claim that even without a formal pronunciation syllabbus, and without specific pronunciation teaching, many students seem to acquire serviceable ponunciatin in the course of their studies.
However, the fact that some students aｒe able to acquire resonable pronunciation without overt pronunciation teaching should not blind us to the benefit of a focus on pronunciation in our lessons. Pronunciation teaching not only makes students awere of different sounds and sound features, but can also improve their speaking immeasurably. Concentrating on sounds, showing where where they are made in the mouth, making students aware of where wods should be stresses - all these things give them extra information about spoken English and help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility.
In some particular cases pronunciation help allows students get over serious intelligibility problems. I had taken English courses called English as a second language in the United States and the professor was able to help Cantonese, Korean, Japanese speakers of English achieve considerably greater intelligibility by working on our point of articulation. With other language groups it maybe a problem of the degree to whichspeakers do or do not open their mouths. Other language groups may have trouble with intonation o stress patterns in phrases and sentenses, and there are many individual sounds wchich cause diffeiculty for different first language speakers.
For all peaple, being made aware of pronunciation issues will be of immense benefit not only to their own production, but also to their own understanding of spoken English. Of course for Japanese junior high school English learners teaching pronunciation is very beneficial.
Referece：
Harmer, J. (2004). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.
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