ESL TEACHERS' GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION TEACHING
This pronunciation teaching guide is an annotated index to selected pronunciation-instruction videos and other resources that are available online. Using this index, ESL teachers with little or no preparation in pronunciation instruction can quickly find training resources to increase their competence and confidence when they help students overcome English pronunciation challenges.
- ESL students view the teaching of pronunciation as an important part of their English language education, yet research has shown it is granted relatively little attention in the ESL classroom (Grim & Sturm, 2016).
- Teachers often do not feel qualified to teach pronunciation due to insufficient training in this area. Unfortunately, time constraints and other obstacles often keep practicing ESL teachers from obtaining the pronunciation-instruction preparation they need to fulfill students’ needs.
- These factors have led to the development of an online guide (at www.englishpronunciationguide.weebly.com) to ESL pronunciation-teaching resources. This website is designed to help teachers with inadequate pronunciation training quickly access existing pronunciation-teaching videos online. Teachers can then use these resources to educate themselves and teach specific aspects of English pronunciation to their students with greater competence and increased confidence.
- After viewing and evaluating close to 300 online pronunciation-teaching videos, we chose 67 that we found to be the most helpful, according to criteria explained here. First, we looked for videos designed to show teachers how to teach pronunciation to students, rather than those intended for language-learners to use on their own to improve their pronunciation.
- In addition, we chose videos presenting lessons on English segmentals and suprasegmentals that carry the highest functional load (Catford, 1987). We also limited our focus to those categories of English pronunciation where improvements produce the greatest gains in intelligibility (Avery & Ehlrich, 1992).
- Another guiding consideration was to favor videos that addressed the pronunciation difficulties experienced by the largest L1 English-learner groups—namely speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
- Fit with widely recognized categories of ESL learners’ pronunciation difficulties, as described in Teaching American English Pronunciation (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992)
- Address pronunciation features with high functional load (Catford, 1987)
- Focus on areas of difficulty associated with many ESL learners’ L1s (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish)
- Are quick and easy for non-linguistic teachers to understand (not overly technical)
- Are interesting, even entertaining
- Feature a variety of presenters
- Provide visual support showing articulatory positions and movements (mouth, tongue, etc.)
- Use a speech rate targeted towards teachers, not L2 learners
- Provide viewer involvement—things to learn and DO, not just watch
- Run from one to ten minutes in length (although some longer exceptions were allowed because of strengths in other criterion areas)
- Give the “biggest bang for the buck” (i.e., present highly useful pedagogical skills for the targeted pronunciation feature in a short amount of time)
- Utilize a variety of approaches to teaching the desired pronunciation goals so as to fit different teachers’ teaching styles and reach ESL learners with varied learning styles.
- The purpose of the videos that our ESL Teacher’s Guide to Pronunciation Teaching website (at www.englishpronunciationguide.weebly.com) links users to is to give “non-pronunciation teachers” (with little or no training, experience, skill, or confidence in ESL pronunciation instruction) the instructional models, guidance, and encouragement they need in order to gain the competence and confidence that so many ESL teachers state they lack (Yates, 2001).
- Our intent is that after teachers have recognized their students’ pronunciation needs, they will search our website to find online videos related to those needs. Put more systematically and in greater detail, we envision teachers following these steps:
- Notice and identify their ESL student’s pronunciation needs.
- Go to the website: www.englishpronunciationguide.weebly.com.
- Choose the “Segmentals” or “Suprasegmentals” section, whichever corresponds with the needs of their students.
- Choose from three to eight videos in their pronunciation target area to view and learn from.
- Practice and prepare their own lessons based on the models and content they have learned about in the videos they selected and viewed.
- Implement their lessons in the classroom with creativity and confidence.
- Try variations of the methods presented in the videos to reach students with different learning styles.
Our hope is that teachers who use this online guide to English pronunciation teaching will feel empowered by the quality, directness, and ease of teaching high-functional-load sounds and prosody that the video models provide. We feel that giving users a reduced number of pre-selected, high-quality pronunciation-teaching videos to choose from will eliminate the overwhelming task of sorting through the countless videos online by themselves. The fact that our pre-selected videos are organized into clear, problem-oriented categories makes finding the right instructional model and correct linguistic content even easier, boosting teachers’ motivation to view the pre-selected videos. Implementing what they learn from the video models will, in turn, allow “non-pronunciation teachers” to teach the needed pronunciation lessons in their classrooms with better instructional procedures, greater confidence, and increased effectiveness.
Avery, P., & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English pronunciation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Catford, J. C. (1987). Phonetics and the teaching of pronunciation: A systemic description of English phonology. In J. Morley (Ed.), Current perspectives on pronunciation (pp.83- 100). Washington, DC: TESOL.
Grim, F., & Sturm, J. (2016). Where does pronunciation stand in the 21st century foreign language classroom? Educators’ and learners’ views. In J. Levis, H. Le, I. Lucic, E. Simpson, & S. Vo (Eds). Proceedings of the 7th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, Dallas, TX, October, 2015, (pp. 51-59). Ames, IA: Iowa State University.
Yates, L. (2001). Teaching pronunciation in the AMEP: Current practice and professional development. AMEP Research Centre. Sydney, Australia: Macquarie University Press.
Catford, J. C. (1987). Phonetics and the teaching of pronunciation: A systemic description of English phonology. In J. Morley (Ed.), Current perspectives on pronunciation (pp.83- 100). Washington, DC: TESOL.
Grim, F., & Sturm, J. (2016). Where does pronunciation stand in the 21st century foreign language classroom? Educators’ and learners’ views. In J. Levis, H. Le, I. Lucic, E. Simpson, & S. Vo (Eds). Proceedings of the 7th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, Dallas, TX, October, 2015, (pp. 51-59). Ames, IA: Iowa State University.
Yates, L. (2001). Teaching pronunciation in the AMEP: Current practice and professional development. AMEP Research Centre. Sydney, Australia: Macquarie University Press.
Jenelle Cox, a graduate student in the TESOL MA program at Brigham Young University, holds a bachelor’s degree in family science from BYU and a Multiple Teaching Certificate from California State University, Fullerton. Her graduate thesis addresses the need for explicit pronunciation training in TESOL preparation programs as well as pronunciation supports for practicing teachers. Jenelle has taught English in Colonia, Uruguay and in Salt Lake City, Utah. She volunteers at the Missionary Training Center, Provo, Utah helping senior couples learn Spanish. She is currently teaching Listening/ Speaking to advanced ESL students at the English Language Center in Provo, Utah. Contact information: Jenelle Cox, 6619 W. Normandy Way, Highland, Utah 84003, 714.837.6318, [email protected]
Lynn E. Henrichsen (Ed.D., University of Hawai’i at Manoa) is a professor of TESOL in the Linguistics and English Language Department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He teaches courses in instructional methods (including the teaching of listening, speaking and pronunciation), research methods, phonetics/phonology, and ESL pronunciation. He is the author of Pronunciation Matters (University of Michigan Press, 1999, now available at www.pronunciationmatters.com). In his 45 years as a language teacher, he has taught Spanish and English language learners and teachers and conducted TESOL-related research in 10 different countries around the world and authored over a dozen books, 30 chapters in books, and 65 articles in professional journals. Contact information: 4040 JFSB, BYU, Provo, UT 84602, 801.422.2938, [email protected]
Lynn E. Henrichsen (Ed.D., University of Hawai’i at Manoa) is a professor of TESOL in the Linguistics and English Language Department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He teaches courses in instructional methods (including the teaching of listening, speaking and pronunciation), research methods, phonetics/phonology, and ESL pronunciation. He is the author of Pronunciation Matters (University of Michigan Press, 1999, now available at www.pronunciationmatters.com). In his 45 years as a language teacher, he has taught Spanish and English language learners and teachers and conducted TESOL-related research in 10 different countries around the world and authored over a dozen books, 30 chapters in books, and 65 articles in professional journals. Contact information: 4040 JFSB, BYU, Provo, UT 84602, 801.422.2938, [email protected]