I.M.Ilias
Taraz State
Pedagogical Institute, Kazakhstan
WAYS
OF CORRECTING LEARNERS' PRONUNCIATION MISTAKES
As the
significance of the English language grows and its status of a global language
is strengthened every day, a lot of people start realizing that the only
knowledge of English grammar and vocabularies is becoming not to be sufficient.
In today’s increasingly international world, it is not only necessary to
understand what other English speakers say but it is also essential to make
your own speech intelligible for the others. But even though the global
character of English language makes many English learners and teachers realize
the necessity of improving the pronunciation skills, many English students
still cope with mispronouncing sounds, misplacing stress in sentences and
misusing intonation patterns.
We had many students who have obtained an amazing vocabulary and whose
grammar is the envy of other students. It is just too bad that no one can
understand what they are saying. As an English second language teacher, our
first priority is to help our students develop their pronunciation skills.
Without proper pronunciation, other aspects of English such as vocabulary and
grammar become useless if a student cannot be understood when he uses the language.
While pronunciation is the most important component of any English
second language class, it is usually also the least interesting in the eyes of
the students. Here are some ways
to help you make the most out of teaching pronunciation to our English second
language students:
New ways of correcting spoken errors
1. Collect the errors for
later. You can then correct them later in the same class (with a game like a
grammar auction or just eliciting corrections from the class) or in a future
class (for example writing error dictation pair work worksheets or using the
same techniques as can be used in the same class). Make sure you give positive
reinforcement as well, e.g. “Someone said this sentence, and that is really
good.”
2. Facial expression. For example, raise
an eyebrow, tilt your head to one side or give a slight frown. Most people will
do this naturally, but there is a slight chance a teacher's expression will be
too critical or too subtle for your students to pick up on, and you can
practice facial expressions in a teaching workshop by participants
communicating certain typical classroom messages (“move over there to work with
this person”, “work in pairs” etc.) using just their heads and faces, including
feedback on spoken errors in that list.
3. Body language. The problems with using body language to show errors
could also be that it is taken as very serious criticism or that it is too
vague. Possibilities include using your hands (rolling a hand from side to side
to mean “so-so attempt”; making a circle by moving your index finger to mean
“one more time”; or a cross with fingers, open palms or even forearms to show a
very clear “no” or “wrong”- probably only suitable for a team game etc where
the responsibility is shared), head (tilted to one side to mean “I'm not sure
that sounds correct”), or shoulders (hunched to reinforce “I don't understand
what you are saying”). Again, practising this in a teaching workshop can be
useful, as can eliciting other body language teachers could have used after an
observation.
4. Point at the correct
language. If you have something on the correct form easily accessible on the
whiteboard, in the textbook or on a poster, just pointing at it can be a subtle
but clear way of prompting students to use the correct language. What you point
at could be the name of the tense or word form they are supposed to be using, a
verb forms table or the actual correct verb form, a grammatical explanation, or
another grammatical hint such as “future”, “prediction” or “polite”.
5. Repeat what they said. This can mean
repeating the whole sentence, one section of it including the wrong part, the
sentence up to the wrong part, the sentence with the wrong part missed out or
just the wrong part. You can illustrate that you are showing them an error and
give some hint as to which bit is wrong by using a questioning tone. This
method is overused by some teachers and can sound patronizing if used too often
or with the wrong tone of voice, so try to mix up the different versions of it
described here and to alternate with methods described in the other tips.
6. Just say the right version. The students can
then repeat the correct version or tell you what the difference between the two
sentences was and why their version was wrong. Because the students don't do
much of the work in this way of being corrected, it might not be as good a way
of remembering the correction as methods where you give more subtle clues. Its
advantages are that it is quick and suits cultures, classes and students that
think of elicitation as shirking by the teacher. It can also be more
face-saving than asking them for self-correction, as trying to correct
themselves risks making even more mistakes. The “right version” could mean the
whole sentence or just the correction of the part that was wrong. In the latter
case, you can then ask them to put it into the sentence in the right place and
repeat the whole thing.
7. Tell them how many
mistakes. This method is only really suitable for controlled speaking practice,
but can be a very simple way of giving feedback in that situation. Examples
include “Most of the comparatives were right, but you made two mistakes” and
“Three words are in the wrong position in the sentence/ are mixed up”. Make
sure you only use this method when students can remember what you are referring
to without too much prompting.
8. Use grammatical terminology
to identify the mistake. For example, “(You used) the wrong tense”, “Not the
Present Perfect”, “You need an adverb, not an adjective” or “Can change that
into the passive/ indirect speech?” This method is perhaps overused, and you
need to be sure that the grammatical terminology isn't just going to confuse
them more.
9. Give the rule. For example,
“`Since' usually takes the Present Perfect” or “One syllable adjectives make
the comparative with -er, not more + adjective” This works best if they already
know the rule, and you at least need to make sure that they will quickly
understand what you are saying, for example by only using grammatical
terminology you have used with them several times before.
10. Give a number of points. This is probably
best saved for part of a game, especially one where students work together, but
you can give each response a number of points out of 10. The same or other
teams can then make another attempt at saying the same thing to see if they can
get more points. If you don't want students to focus on accuracy too much, tell
them that the points will also give them credit for good pronunciation,
fluency, politeness, persuasiveness and/ or originality of ideas.
Mistakes Made During Discussions and
Activities
With oral mistakes made during class discussions, there are basically
two schools of thought: 1) Correct often and thoroughly 2) Let students make
mistakes. Sometimes, teachers refine the choice by choosing to let beginners
make many mistakes while correcting advanced students often.
However, many teachers are taking a third route these days. This third
route might be called 'selective correction'. In this case, the teacher decides
to correct only certain errors. Which errors will be corrected is usually
decided by the objectives of the lesson, or the specific exercise that is being
done at that moment. In other words, if students are focusing on simple past
irregular forms, then only mistakes in those forms are corrected. Other
mistakes, such as mistakes in a future form, or mistakes of collocations are
ignored.
Correct and clear pronunciation is obviously of considerable importance
in language learning. Without it, students may not be understood and may be
poorly perceived by other English speakers. However, good pronunciation is
something which takes time to build up as there are many factors involved.
Students need to. hear a lot of English before they can develop a 'feel' for
the sounds of English. They need to have confidence in their abilities, not
feel shy and be ready to make a fool of themselves as they try to get their
tongues round the different sounds.
The
purpose of this part is to point out the importance of teaching pronunciation
in language learning and to describe methods, techniques, strategies for
English pronunciation instruction.
In order to make
oneself intelligible and to understand the spoken language, one must have a
good knowledge of the pronunciation of that language. The importance of
pronunciation takes an even greater significance when we understand the
connection between pronunciation and other aspects of language use, such as
listening comprehension, spelling, grammar and reading. Therefore, in English
language teaching, attention should be paid to the teaching of pronunciation
throughout all stages of the entire learning process.
Speaking about
teachers’ views on pronunciation and learners’ difficulties with it, it is
necessary to say that learning the pronunciation of English doesn’t mean
learning how to pronounce the individual vowels and consonant sounds. The scope
of pronunciation is much broader than an inventory and description of sounds.
It embraces the elements of rhythm and intonation, which function in the
communication process. Thus, any learner of English for communicative purposes
needs to learn the rhythm and intonation of English. Besides, sometimes it is
really difficult for students to hear and pronounce some sounds, such as the
difference between the vowel sound in ship and the vowel sound in sheep or the difference between the vowel
sounds in same and sat, father
and call, love and
color etc. Often, a
learner’s difficulties with pronunciation originate from a misinterpretation of
the spelling system rather than difficulty with the pronunciation of the
sounds.
Thus, the aim of this part is to show the reasons why teaching English
pronunciation should take an essential part of every English lesson and to
present some of the possible methods and techniques that can help teachers to
incorporate phonetic activities into English classes.
References
1. Gilbert, J. Clear Speech. Pronunciation and Listening
Comprehension in
American
English. Student’s Book.- Cambridge: CUP, 2011.- 356 p.
2. Roach P. English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course. 2nd
ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2008.-569p.