Pronunciation for L2 learners

By Eirin Jensen

In this blog entry I will share my thoughts on learning and teaching pronunciation, and share my thoughts on which model of pronunciation I will use in teaching.

I never attended kindergarten, therefore I had a lot of time at home watching television and we had endless channels to choose from. At that time, there were no Norwegian channels for children, and I often ended up watching foreign cartoons. This is where my fascination for other languages began. I tried to imitate the words, the accents and intonation, although I did not understand much. I remember I was flabbergasted when I experienced that the English words were not written exactly like they were pronounced, because it made no sense to me. This I believe is one of the main reasons for why pronunciation is difficult to learn, especially for young Norwegians.

In Norwegian the words are pronounced almost exactly like they are written, something we call phonemic orthography (lydrett). Counting phonemes (sounds) in words is something the pupils learn in the first two years in school, and they also learn where the sounds are articulated. In English there are sounds that we do not use in Norwegian, which is a factor for why learning English pronunciation is difficult. I remember that I struggled with pronouncing some vowels, -th, and to separate s/z and v/w, which is typical difficulty for Norwegians learning English.

What might make teaching pronunciation difficult is the fact that it is the children themselves that have to produce the sound, and they need specific guidance of how to do so. As a teacher it is important to convey the importance of correct pronunciation, and to teach individual sounds and to work with sounds in a larger context. By increasing the awareness of the differences and similarities between L1 and L2 can attribute the learning process because the pupils can learn the sound patterns better. 

I have still not made a choice of which model of pronunciation I will use in teaching, but I have used British (RP) in my practice periods. I am a bit biased, as I myself prefer RP, but I know from experience that pupils speak an American English (AE) variant. Maybe not because it is a conscious choice, but because the Norwegian pronunciation affects the pronunciation of English which sounds more American than British.

The key element in teaching pronunciation is consistency in use of either RP or AE, but I would also give examples of what may differ between RP and AE. Although most of the English textbooks are in RP, I believe the biggest influence of language is from the media, which is dominated by AE. I need to use a model I am comfortable with, as this will affect my teaching confidence, which is why I probably will use RP.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography

Pictures: 
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