Методическая разработка на тему Working on pronunciation in foreign languages teaching and learning.

Working on pronunciation in foreign languages teaching and learning.Plan.Introduction.1. Theoretical aspects of teaching pronunciation………………………………………….3
The main features of pronunciation. Aim and content of teaching pronunciation……3
1.2 Methods of teaching pronunciation……………………………………………………8
1.3 Strategies for English Pronunciation Instruction……………………………………...12
1.4 Techniques and exercises of teaching pronunciation…………………………………14
1.5 Factors Affecting the Learning of English Pronunciation…………………………….17
2. Practical aspect of teaching pronunciation in foreign language teaching and learning….22
2.1 Lesson plans……………………………………………………………………………23
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….32
References………………………………………………………………………………….34
Appendix
Introduction.Pronunciation is an integral part of foreign language learning since it directly affects learners' communicative competence as well as performance. Limited pronunciation skills can decrease learners’ self-confidence, restrict social interactions, and negatively affect estimations of a speaker’s credibility and abilities.
One of the key requirements for language proficiency is to secure understandable pronunciation for the language learners. Teachers need to be provided with courses and materials to help them improve their effectiveness in teaching pronunciation. Teachers must act as ―pronunciation coaches and learners must be proactive learners taking the initiative to learn. The methodologies of teaching must change from emphasizing segmental elements of pronunciation to supra-segmental elements of pronunciation and from linguistic competence to communicative competence.
Students realize the importance of pronunciation when learning language, most students learn phonetics passively due to several factors. First, they consider the teacher's explanation. Second, students only think of phonetics learning as knowing the primary meaning of new words. Third, students usually only acquire pronunciation through new sounds when given by teachers during classroom lessons.
One of the primary goals of teaching pronunciation in any course is ―intelligible pronunciation – not perfect pronunciation. Intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communicative competence.
The object of the research: teaching pronunciation.
The subject of the research: working on pronunciation in foreign languages teaching and learning.
The aim of the research: to review the features of English pronunciation, elaborate factors affecting the learning of English pronunciation, and discuss the strategies and techniques for teaching pronunciation.
The hypothesis: A clear pronunciation is an integral part of communicative competence.
Methods of research: Methods of analysis of the information sources and references.
The practical value is in using theoretical and practical aspects of the research.

Theoretical aspects of teaching pronunciation
The main features of pronunciation. Aim and content of teaching pronunciation
Phonetics is one of the main aspects of the language and characteristic of speech, and a basis for developing and perfection of all other kinds of speech activity.
Pronunciation refers to the ability to use the correct stress, rhythm and intonation of a word in a spoken language. A word can be spoken in different ways by various individuals or groups, depending on many factors, such as: the area in which they grew up, the area in which they now live, if they have a speech or voice disorder, their ethnic group, their social class, or their education. (Dalton, C., & Seidlhofer, B. (1994)
Hard mastering of pronunciation skills is an indispensable condition of adequate understanding of speech, accuracy in thoughts expression, and performance of communicative function of the language.
Aim of teaching pronunciation is to form and develop clear and comprehensible pronunciation. It is impossible to achieve the aim of communicative ability without forming and developing clear and comprehensible pronunciation habits and skills.
So teaching/learning pronunciation is a matter of great importance. To use a language as a means of communication, on the one hand, the learner should form and develop receptive pronunciation habits and skills, that is to hear and discriminate pronunciation units correctly and automatically to comprehend the information conveyed, on the other hand productive pronunciation habits and skills, to articulate pronunciation units automatically and correctly, to convey the information clearly and comprehensibly.
The following factors affecting pronunciation learning should be taken into consideration.
native language of the learners
the age of the learners
exposure
innate phonetic ability
identity and language ego
motivation and concern for good pronunciation.
The content of teaching/learning pronunciation includes:
sounds (vowels, consonants, and diphthongs),
stress (word and logical stress),
intonation (rise, fall, rise-fall),
rhythm and melody.
The sounds and sound combinations of the language, or phonology. Each language has its own set of sounds or phonemes. There are 44 English phonemes. Sounds differ depending on how they are formed in the mouth, throat and nose and whether they are 'voiced' (when the vocal chords are used - as when you hum) or 'voiceless' (when the vocal chords are not used - as when you whisper). All vowels are voiced but some consonants are voiced and some are voiceless. The most common sound in English is [ə] - the 'schwa' or 'weak' sound.(23, p 153)
Intonation is a pattern of rise and fall in the level (the pitch) of the voice, which often adds meaning to what is being said: for example, when we want to show interest or surprise in something, the pitch of our voice often rises.(24, p 29)
Rhythm and stress in utterances. English is generally considered to be a stress-timed language: some words - usually the 'content' words or those that carry information (for example, nouns and main verbs) - are stressed and others are not. For example: Throw the ball to Ben. However, sometimes the speaker can choose to stress 'non-content' words as in this utterance: Throw it to him, not at him. (24, p 29)
The content of teaching pronunciation is made of abilities to produce correct sounds, sound combinations, intonation models and speech units: the phrases and different communicative types of the sentence in particular, and the text consist the content of teaching pronunciation (that is, linguistic component of pronunciation teaching), as well as concrete actions with these units (psychological component of pronunciation teaching). These habits made the pronunciation skill.(6, p 124)
The pronunciation skill is an ability to distinguish and find out freely and quickly on hearing phonetic phenomena of in foreign speech and to say foreign sounds correctly and automatically in a speech stream, as well as to intone appropriately . The basic requirements to the pronunciation skill are — phonemic skill, i.e. degree of phonetic correctness of forming speech, sufficient for understanding of the speech partner, and fluency, i.e. automation degree of pronunciation skills, allowing pupils to tell in normal speech speed (130-150 words per minute).
Success of appropriate pronunciation skill depends on development of the speech hearing including phonetic hearing, phonemic hearing and intonation types. 1. The phonetic hearing is defined as ability to perceive correctly and reproduce non-defined phonetic peculiarities of speech that is necessary condition of possession of authentic non-accent pronunciation.
The phonemic hearing is defined as ability to perceive and reproduce meaning-differentiating properties of phonemes.
The competence of intonation hearing includes ability to distinguish intonation structure of a phrase and to correlate it to an intonation invariant.(25, p 24)
Connected with the content the peculiarities of sounds, stress and intonation should be taken into account in both languages, comparing both phonic systems similarities and differences, difficulties for assimilation and strategies to overcome the difficulties should be underlined.
The first impact of any language comes from the spoken word. The basis of all languages is sound. Words are merely combinations of sounds. It is in these sound sequences that the ideas are contained. Listening is the first experience; the attempt to understand accompanies it. The acquisition of good pronunciation depends to a great extent on the learner's ability of listening with care and discrimination. One of the tasks of FLT consists in devising ways to help the learner hear, listen and understand the unfamiliar sounds. The hearing of a given word calls forth the acoustic image of that word from which a meaning is obtained. Therefore teaching pronunciation is of great importance in the developing of pupils’ hearing and speaking habits and skills. ( Tench P., 1991)
Listening is crucial because students can't produce a sound they can't hear. Descriptions of the sound and mouth position can help students increase their awareness of subtle sound differences. (Derwing, T. M., Munro, M. J., 2009)
As English increasingly becomes the language used for international communication, it is vital that speakers of English, whether they are native or non-native speakers, are able to exchange meaning effectively. In fact, in recent discussions of English-language teaching, the unrealistic idea that learners should sound and speak like native speakers is fast disappearing (Burns, 2003).
According to Burns (2003), it is more important that speakers of English can achieve:
• Intelligibility (the speaker produces sound patterns that are recognizable as English)
• Comprehensibility (the listener is able to understand the meaning of what is said)
• Interpretability (the listener is able to understand the purpose of what is said).
Picture 1. Various Features of English Pronunciation

Clear pronunciation is essential in spoken communication. Even where learners produce minor inaccuracies in vocabulary and grammar, they are more likely to communicate effectively when they have good pronunciation and intonation (Burns, 2003).
As the figure above illustrates, pronunciation involves features at:
• The segmental (micro) level
• The supra-segmental (macro) level.
In former ESL approaches, segmental features were the major focus for pronunciation teaching (for example, minimal pairs such as ship/sheep). While these features are important, more recent research has shown that when teaching focuses on supra-segmental features, learners’ intelligibility is greatly enhanced. It is important, therefore, to provide activities at both levels (Burns, 2003).
Suprasegmental features relate to sounds at the macro level. Advances in research have developed descriptions of the suprasegmental features of speech extending across whole stretches of language (prosody). Unlike languages such as Vietnamese or Mandarin which are tonal, English is stress-timed and syllable-timed (for example, WHAT’s his addRESS?). emphasizes that effective communicative pronunciation competence can be achieved more through improving supra-segmental production in preference to segmentals. Linking, intonation and stress are important features for effective pronunciation at the suprasegmental level (Burns, 2003).
Linking refers to the way the last sound of one word is joined to the first sound of the next word. To produce connected speech, we run words together to link consonant to vowel, consonant to consonant, and vowel to vowel. We also shorten some sounds and leave others out altogether. • consonant to vowel an _Australian _animal • consonant to consonant next _week; seven _months • vowel to vowel. Some sounds such as r, w and j (y) are inserted to link adjacent words ending and beginning with a vowel: where (r_ ) are you?; you (w_ ) ought to; Saturday (y_ ) evening • sounds that are shortened. When words begin with an unstressed sound they are often pronounced as a short schwa ( ) sound: when do they arrive?; five o’clock • sounds that are left out. Some sounds are so short that they virtually disappear (become elided): does (_h)e like soccer? we might as well (h_a)ve stayed at home
Intonation can be thought of as the melody of the language – the way the voice goes up and down according to the context and meanings of the communication. For example, note the differences in:
• Can you take the scissors? (rising pitch) – request
• Can you take the scissors (falling pitch) – command
Word stress relates to the prominence given to certain words in an utterance. These focus words are stressed (made long and loud) to convey: • the overall rhythm of the utterance • the most meaningful part of the utterance. At the meaning level, some words are given more prominence than others to foreground which meaning is important. For example, compare: • Can YOU take the scissors? (not someone else) • Can you take the SCISSORS! (not the knife) Recent approaches to teaching pronunciation in computer-based contexts follow the communicative approach in teaching pronunciation. Harmer (1993) stresses the need for making sure that students can always be understood and say what they want to say. They need to master ―good pronunciation‖, not perfect accents. That is, emphasis should be on suprasegmental features of pronunciation—not segmental aspects—to help learners acquire communicative competence (Seferoglu, 2005). In recent years, increasing attention has been placed on providing pronunciation instruction that meets the communicative needs of non-native speakers of English.
Here are some ideas for focusing on specific pronunciation features.
VoicingVoiced sounds will make the throat vibrate. For example, /g/ is a voiced sound while /k/ is not, even though the mouth is in the same position for both sounds. Have your students touch their throats while pronouncing voiced and voiceless sounds. They should feel vibration with the voiced sounds only.
AspirationAspiration refers to a puff of air when a sound is produced. Many languages have far fewer aspirated sounds than English, and students may have trouble hearing the aspiration. The English /p/, /t/, /k/, and /ch/ are some of the more commonly aspirated sounds. Although these are not always aspirated, at the beginning of a word they usually are. To illustrate aspiration, have your students hold up a piece of facial tissue a few inches away from their mouths and push it with a puff of air while pronouncing a word containing the target sound.
Mouth Position
Draw simple diagrams of tongue and lip positions. Make sure all students can clearly see your mouth while you model sounds. Have students use a mirror to see their mouth, lips, and tongue while they imitate you.
IntonationWord or sentence intonation can be mimicked with a kazoo, or alternatively by humming. This will take the students' attention off of the meaning of a word or sentence and help them focus on the intonation.
LinkingWe pronounce phrases and even whole sentences as one smooth sound instead of a series of separate words. 'Will Amy go away,' is rendered 'Willaymeegowaway.' To help learners link words, try starting at the end of a sentence and have them repeat a phrase, adding more of the sentence as they can master it. For example, 'gowaway,' then 'aymeegowaway,' and finally 'Willaymeegowaway' without any pauses between words.
Vowel LengthYou can demonstrate varying vowel lengths within a word by stretching rubber bands on the longer vowels and letting them contract on shorter ones. Then let the students try it. For example, the word 'fifteen' would have the rubber band stretched for the 'ee' vowel, but the word 'fifty' would not have the band stretched because both of its vowels are spoken quickly.
SyllablesHave students count syllables in a word and hold up the correct number of fingers, or place objects on table to represent each syllable.
Illustrate syllable stress by clapping softly and loudly corresponding to the syllables of a word. For example, the word 'beautiful' would be loud-soft-soft. Practice with short lists of words with the same syllabic stress pattern ('beautiful,' 'telephone,' 'Florida') and then see if your learners can list other words with that pattern.
Specific SoundsMinimal pairs, or words such as 'bit/bat' that differ by only one sound, are useful for helping students distinguish similar sounds. They can be used to illustrate voicing ('curl/girl') or commonly confused sounds ('play/pray'). Remember that it's the sound and not the spelling you are focusing on.
Tongue twisters are useful for practicing specific target sounds, plus they're fun. Make sure the vocabulary is not too difficult.
Methods of teaching pronunciation
Given that the language teaching profession changed its positions many times with respect to pronunciation teaching, it can be assumed that there have also been changes in methods and techniques used to teach the skill.
Teaching pronunciation involves a variety of challenges. To begin with, teachers often find that they do not have enough time in class to give proper attention to this aspect of English instruction. When they do find the time to address pronunciation, the instruction often amounts to the presentation and practice of a series of tedious and seemingly unrelated topics. Drilling sounds over and over again (e.g., minimal pair work) often leads to discouraging results, and discouraged students and teachers end up wanting to avoid pronunciation altogether. (Celce- Mauricia, M. 1996.)Teaching English pronunciation is an area of language teaching that many English teachers avoid. While there are many textbooks and instruction manuals available, as well as books on the theories and methodologies of language teaching there is comparatively little on learning pronunciation. (Celce- Mauricia, M. 1996.)Most textbooks will have drill pronunciation with repetition of the vocabulary. Some of the better ones will have work on it with spelling, which is an important skill, especially in English with its many irregularities and exceptions. Very few will start you and your students where you need to start, however, and that is at the level of the phoneme. (Walker, R., 2010).
The dictionary defines "phoneme" as "any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat." This definition highlights one of the key reasons that we must, as language teachers, start our pronunciation instruction at the level of the phoneme. If a phoneme is a "perceptually distinct unit of sound" then we have to realize that before students can consistently produce a given phoneme, they must be able to hear it. Thus the first lessons in pronunciation should involve your students listening and identifying, rather than speaking.
Learners associate sounds with words.
Picture 2. Vowel/Consonant Symbols and Keywords
Vowel Keyword Consonant Keyword Consonant Keyword
/iy/ green /p/ Poland /Z/ Malaysia
/I/ pink /b/ Bolivia /tS/ China
/ey/ grey /m/ Mexico /dZ/ Germany
/E/ red /f/ Finland /k/ Canada
/Q/ black /v/ Venezuela /g/ Guyana
/uw/ blue /T/ South Africa /N/ Hong Kong
/U/ wood /D/ The Philippines /w/ Wales
/ow/ yellow /t/ Thailand /y/ Yemen
/a/ olive /d/ Denmark /h/ Hungary
/Ã/ mustard /s/ Singapore
/ay/ sky blue /z/ Zambia
/aw/ brown /n/ Norway
/oy/ turquoise /l/ Libya
/«r/ purple /r/ Romania
/«/ tomato /S/ Russia
One way of helping learners produce speech correctly is to use a cross-sectional diagram of a head showing the position of the tongue, teeth, and lips for different sounds. These illustrations are called Sammy diagrams and can be found in many pronunciation reference books (e.g., Teaching American English Pronunciation). (Kathryn Brillinger, 2001).
Picture 3. Sammy diagram showing tongue, teeth, and roof of mouth

From Recognition of Phonemes to Practice . Once they can hear and identify a phoneme, it's time to practice accurate production of the sound. For this, pronunciation diagrams are useful. Your students need to be able to see where to put their lips and tongues in relation to their teeth. Most sounds are articulated inside your mouth and students have no idea what you are doing in order to produce that particular noise.
While this may sound time consuming and unnatural, you have to realize that you are in the process of reprogramming you students' brains, and it is going to take a while. New neural pathways have to be created to learn new facial movements and link them with meaning.
If you regularly take ten minutes of your lesson to do this kind of focused phonemic practice, your students articulation and perception of phonemes will see improvement after several weeks, and you will get them all to the point where you can practice pronunciation on a word or even a sentential level.
Moving on to Pronunciation of Words The progress will be more pronounced with younger students, but even adults will begin to give up fossilized pronunciation errors when reciting vocabulary words in isolation. It's time to make the next leap – correct pronunciation in the context of natural conversation. Make no mistake; this is a leap, not because it is more physically challenging, but because you are about to address a completely different set of barriers.
A teacher can help overcome this psychological barrier and other challenges by thinking of the goal of pronunciation instruction not as helping students to sound like native speakers but as helping them to learn the core elements of spoken English so that they can be easily understood by others. In other words, teachers and students can overcome the frustrations, difficulties, and boredom often associated with pronunciation by focusing their attention on the development of pronunciation that is “listener friendly.” After all, English pronunciation does not amount to mastery of a list of sounds or isolated words. Instead, it amounts to learning and practicing the specifically English way of making a speaker’s thoughts easy to follow. (Celce- Mauricia, M. 1996.)Three Big Barriers to Good English Pronunciation
Anxiety, learned helplessness and cultural identity are the three biggest barriers to students' successful adoption of a second language. Not every student will have all of these problems, but it is a sure thing that all of them will have at least one of these problems to a greater or lesser extent. As English teachers we have to find ways to bring these problems to our students' attention in non-threatening ways, as well as suggest tools and strategies for dealing with them.
Anxiety is a fairly straightforward problem to discover. Students who feel a lot of anxiety in speaking are generally well aware of the situation and they know that it is impeding their progress. The impact on pronunciation specifically can be seen in their unwillingness to experiment with sounds, a general lack of fluency that makes it hard to blend sounds correctly, and poor control of the sentential elements of pronunciation, such as intonation and syllable stress. The best remedy for anxiety is highly structured, low- pressure practice. In other words – games.
Jazz chants, handclap rhymes, reader's theatre, and dialog practise from textbooks can all be helpful. Structure and repetition reduce the pressure on the students and allow them to focus on pronunciation and intonation. Classroom rituals, like starting the lesson with a set greeting and reading aloud a letter from the teacher are also excellent ways to integrate pronunciation practice into the rest of the lesson while reducing stress for the student. Rote phrases, drilled for correct pronunciation, will eventually be internalized and the correct pronunciation will improve overall pronunciation.
Learned helplessness is much harder to bring to a students attention, and may be difficult for the teacher to recognize. The term "learned helplessness" comes from psychology and refers to the reaction people and animals have to a hopeless situation. Basically, after trying something several times and consistently being unable to get a positive result, we shut down. We stop trying. If students are getting negative feedback on their English skills, especially pronunciation, and if they try to improve but feel they haven't, then they stop trying. You might think they are being lazy, but in fact they simply don't believe they can improve. They have already given up.
Luckily, once it is recognized, the fix is pretty easy: stay positive, praise frequently and specifically, and periodically tape students speaking so that they can hear the difference after a few months. If you can coax even a little progress out of a student, then tell the student exactly what they just did right (For example: The difference between your short /a/ and short /e/ were really clear that time! Let's do it again!). Tape the students reading or reciting a passage at the beginning of the year, then tape the same passage every couple of months. Play the tapes for you student and let them hear how much they have improved over the course of a few months. They will probably impress themselves, and you!
Finally, the question of cultural identity has to be dealt with. Students that don't want to be assimilated into an English speaking society aren't going to give up the things that mark them as different. An accent is a clear message about one's roots and history, and many people may be unwilling to completely give it up. As teachers, we need to ensure that students' can be easily understood by others, but we don't have to strive for some hypothetical Standard English pronunciation. In fact, we should highlight for our class that after a certain point, accents don't matter much at all.
A teacher can help overcome this psychological barrier and other challenges by thinking of the goal of pronunciation instruction not as helping students to sound like native speakers but as helping them to learn the core elements of spoken English so that they can be easily understood by others. In other words, teachers and students can overcome the frustrations, difficulties, and boredom often associated with pronunciation by focusing their attention on the development of pronunciation that is “listener friendly.” After all, English pronunciation does not amount to mastery of a list of sounds or isolated words. Instead, it amounts to learning and practicing the specifically English way of making a speaker’s thoughts easy to follow. (Celce- Mauricia, M. 1996.)Strategies for English Pronunciation Instruction
There are a significant number of strategies for English pronunciation instruction that can help learners meet their personal and professional needs. They are as follows:
• Identify specific pronunciation features that cause problems for learners
• Make learners aware of the prosodic features of language (stress, intonation, rhythm)
• Focus on developing learners’ communicative competence
Identify Specific Pronunciation Features That Cause Problems for Learners
Contrastive analysis is used by linguists to identify potential pronunciation difficulties of nonnative speakers of a language. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis suggests that by contrasting the features of two languages, the difficulties that a language learner might encounter can be anticipated (Crystal, 2003).
Features of many languages were catalogued by linguists, but it was not possible to systematically predict which areas of English would be difficult for speakers of particular native languages. A less predictive version of the hypothesis was eventually put forth that focused on cross-linguistic influence, which claims that prior language experiences have an impact on the way a language is learned, but these experiences do not consistently have predictive value (Brown, 2000). From this work, linguists have been able to develop lists of sounds that native speakers of particular languages may find problematic in learning English. For example, speakers of Asian languages may have difficulty producing /l/ and /r/ sounds; speakers of Spanish may have difficulty distinguishing between and producing /sh/ and /ch/ sounds. These lists for specific language backgrounds are now featured in pronunciation texts, such as Sounds Right (Braithwaite, 2008), and pronunciation software programs, such as American Speech Sounds (Hiser & Kopecky, 2009).
Teachers can also learn a great deal by observing the English learners in their classes as they communicate with each other. By noting the places where communication breaks down and determining the pronunciation features that caused miscommunication to occur, teachers can identify pronunciation features that they should focus on in class. When students are giving presentations or working together in pairs or groups, the teacher might use a checklist similar (Grant, 2010) to note when a student is not understood or when several students make the same pronunciation mistake. This information can become important for subsequent pronunciation lessons. The checklist can also be used to make learners aware of particular features of speech that have the potential to cause problems for intelligibility and to help them develop their own pronunciation goals. Teachers and learners can work together to complete a learner pronunciation profile that includes (a) an inventory of the sounds and stress intonation patterns that the learner does well and those the learner wants to change and (b) a questionnaire about when and how the learner uses English (Grant, 2010).
This profile can help learners develop pronunciation goals and check their progress toward achieving those goals.
Make Learners Aware of Prosodic Features of Language
Word stress, intonation, and rhythm are the prosodic features of language. They are extremely important to comprehensibility. Teachers should include prosodic training in instruction (O’Brien, 2004). They might begin with listening activities. For example, they can ask students to listen for rising intonation in yes/ no questions, compare question intonation in English with that of their native languages, and then imitate dialogues, perform plays (O’Brien, 2004), and watch videos in which yes/no questions are used (Hardison, 2005).
Focus on Word Stress
There are a number of activities teachers can do to help learners use word stress correctly. Lead perception exercises on duration of stress, loudness of stress, and pitch. These exercises will help learners recognize the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables (Field, 2005). For example, learners can be taught to recognize where stress falls in words with two or more syllables by learning the rules of parts of speech and word stress (e.g., the primary stress is on the first syllable in compound nouns such as airplane, lapscape). Learners can also use a pronunciation computer program, such as American Speech sounds (Hiser & Kopecky, 2009), to learn the duration and loudness of stress. Do exercises on recognizing and producing weak, unstressed syllables (Field, 2005). For example, one exercise helps learners identify computer voice recognition mistakes that have occurred because of mispronunciation of weak vowel forms (e.g., ―Alaska if she wants to come with us‖ instead of ―I’ll ask if she wants to come with us.
Present pronunciation rules for stress. For example, teach learners that in reflexive pronouns, the stress is always on the syllable -self (e.g., herself, themselves [Grant, 2010, p. 57]). Teach word stress when teaching vocabulary (Field, 2005). For example, any time that new words are introduced, point out to learners where the major stress falls. Use analogy exercises (Field, 2005). Words sharing similar stress patterns are easier for listeners to remember. For example, give learners a list of words with similar stress and ask them to state the rule (e.g., in compound adverbs of location, such as outside, downtown, and indoors, the stress is on the final syllable [Hancock, 1998, p. 69]).
Focus on Unstressed Syllables
There are many exercises that a teacher can use to focus on unstressed syllables, or weak vowel forms, in connected speech.
Use function words. Introduce weak forms through the grammatical category of function words, such as articles, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, and prepositions. Present sentence drills where both strong and weak forms appear. For example, the teacher can read a passage while learners underline the weak forms in the passage. Allow learners to practice using weak forms in conversations in order to simulate real-life speech encounters. For example, the teacher might focus the lesson on the ability to do things. Student A can play the role of an interviewer, and student B can be the interviewee. Student A asks a list of questions regarding student B’s ability to do things. For example, student A asks, ―Can you swim?‖ Student B uses both the strong and weak form of the vowel in can and can’t in an answer such as this, ―I can’t swim very well, but I can try.‖
Focus on Developing Learners’ Communicative Competence
Communicative competence is the aim of pronunciation teaching and learning. Savignon (1997) stressed the need for meaningful communicative tasks in the language classroom, including those that focus on pronunciation. Pronunciation exercises that relate to daily use of English include, for example, role-plays of requests that learners have to make (e.g., to ask a boss for a day off or to ask a bank teller to cash a check) (Grant, 2010). Learners can become careful listeners in their own conversations. Pitt (2009) shows that learners need exposure to conversations so they can hear variation in pronunciation. By using audiotapes and videotapes, teachers can give learners meaningful exposure to variation in pronunciation and increase their communicative competence.
Techniques and exercises of teaching pronunciation.
Given that the language teaching profession changed its positions many times with respect to pronunciation teaching, it can be assumed that there have also been changes in methods and techniques used to teach the skill. In this article I would like to present an overview of the traditional and time-tested techniques as well as the new directions in pronunciation teaching.
Phonetic transcription
One of the long-used and known to all teachers technique is phonetic transcription, which is a code consisting of phonetic symbols. Each symbol describes a single sound, which is in fact different from a letter of the alphabet. True as it is, in order to use phonetic transcription one must learn the code and it takes time and effort. Although it is possible to learn the pronunciation without the code, many linguists believe it to be a valuable tool in learning the foreign sound system. One obvious advantage of learning the code is the ability to find the pronunciation of unfamiliar words in a dictionary. All good modern learners’ dictionaries use phonetic symbols to indicate pronunciation, and learners must therefore be familiar with them’.
Auditory reinforcement
As A. Brown (1992 ) notes, there is a common assumption among teachers that perceptual and productive language skills such as listening and speaking are taught through the same medium, namely speaking and listening. As the result many of them use the traditional listen-and-repeat approach in spite of the present tendency for communicative language teaching. Techniques based on this method are often production oriented and aim at improving students’ spoken English. Many of such techniques employ minimal pairs, which are words that have different meaning and their pronunciation differs only in one sound. Minimal pair drills were introduced during the Audiolingual era and have still been used both in isolation - at a word-level and in context - at a sentence-level. The technique is useful for making learners aware of troublesome sounds through listening and discrimination practice.
Visual reinforcement
Visual reinforcement has been connected with pronunciation teaching since the time of Silent Way were the skill was taught through the use of word charts and colour rods. Since that time many other ways of visualizing pronunciation have been introduced. They may be especially useful for adult learners who undergo the process of fossilization. While children benefit from oral repetition, drills and taping themselves, adult learners find it difficult to learn the patterns of intonation, stress and rhythm. The reason may be that they simply do not know whether the patterns they produce are acceptable. Real time visual displays are to show learners the relationship between the patterns they produce and those they are required to repeat. One of the
possible conventions for making the word stress visible is writing the stressed syllable in capital letters:
FAshion, SEssion, beHAVEAnother common way of visualizing word stress is the use of dots. The large dots mark a stressed syllable in a word:
catwalk - • •Tactile reinforcement
The use of the sense of touch is another frequently employed technique, though it is not discussed very often. In fact, some teachers might be taking advantage of it without even realizing this. Celce-Mauricia (1996) calls this mode a visual reinforcement. One of the forms of this reinforcement includes placing fingers on the throat in order to feel the vibration of the vocal cords, and it may be useful when teaching the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants. A different form of tactile reinforcement incorporates simple tactile descriptions given to the students: ‘When you pronounce /r/ your tongue feels liquid and your jaw is tight (Celce-Mauricia, 1996).
Drama Voice Techniques
The focus of the above techniques has been generally on accuracy of sounds and stress at a word level. Nevertheless, we should bear in mind that both the ability to produce isolated sounds or recognizing suprasegmental features and fluency contribute to effective communication. Today’s pronunciation curriculum which has communicative language teaching as its goal thus seeks to identify the most important features and integrate them in courses. The interactive aspect of pronunciation as well as other aspects of English can be emphasized by the use of drama techniques. In classes where these techniques are employed, they help to reduce the stress that accompanies oral production in a foreign language. They are fun, entertaining and relaxing. Moreover, they also increase learner confidence, because they help learners to speak clearer, louder and in a variety of tones. One means in which drama voice techniques can enter pronunciation classroom is for teachers to employ poetry, tongue twisters and raps.
Audio feedback
In traditional methods, which have been used for a long time now, teachers have taken the advantage of the audio medium, namely a tape recorder, for a dual purpose. First, for listening to the recorded native speaker discourse. And second, for taping students and replaying their own production. As a matter of fact, in today’s pronunciation classroom audio feedback still plays a significant role. Most of all, learners are provided with authentic material and unlimited access to native-speaker’s discourse. They can also record written passages and ask teachers for feedback.
Multimedia enhancement
One of the major developments in the field of linguistics following the audio medium are video
recorders and the use of software. These are an advance over audio tapes in that they provide visual support, which is as important in pronunciation teaching as auditory. Celce-Mauricia (1996) lists also other advantages of multimedia enhancement:
1. access to a wide variety of native-speaker speech samplings
2. sheltered practice sessions in which the learner can take risks without stress and fear of error.
3. opportunity for self-pacing and self-monitoring of progress
4. one-on-one contact without a teachers’ constant supervision
5. an entertaining, game like atmosphere for learning.
As for video recorders, they may serve both as a source of learning material and feedback. Students may not only view a native speakers’ production of speech but can also see and hear themselves if videotaped. Another innovative technique, which is becoming more and more frequently used in pronunciation teaching, are computer displays. The advantages of this medium include: visual feedback, entertaining, game like quality of programs, a great amount of individual feedback and the opportunity to compare learner’s own production of speech with a native-speaker model. The only limitation of this medium that learners and teachers may come across is the availability of software, since many schools are still not equipped with large enough computer labs to meet users needs.
Pronunciation exercises may be of two main groups:
recognition exercises
reproduction exercises
Recognition exercises are aimed at developing learner's ability to listen to, discriminate and understand the sounds, stress, sound sequences and intonation. The assimilation of clear and comprehensible pronunciation depends on learner's ability to and on the factors mentioned above (native language, the age, exposure...).
To acquire the phonic aspect of the language learners should perform a lot of exercises in listening and understanding on the one hand, and speaking, articulating on the other.
Listening can be done in two ways:
Listening to the teacher, classmates and TV
Listening to tape-recording, records or radio.
In the first case listening is reinforced by visual perception, in the second is not. All listening exercises begin with listen and do.
Listen to the following words. When you hear the sound …….. raise your hands or green cards.
Ten, pen, fine, this pan, than, fan
Listen attentively to the following words and raise your green cards or hands
a.when you hear a short sound
b.when you hear a long sound
ship, live, sheep, piece, hit, leave, hid
3. Listen and say whether there is any difference in the following pairs of words:
Ship-sheep; live-leave; use(v)- use(n);Bit-bid;hat-had; niece-knees.
4. Listen to the following sentence and say which words are stressed: )
The table is in the middle of the room.
5. Listen to the following sentences and raise your hands or green cards, when
you hear a rising tone/falling tone/rise-fall tone.
Reproduction exercises are aimed at developing learner's articulating habits. Learners should not only pronounce English sounds correctly but also combine them into words, phrases and sentences. They should be able to produce pronunciation unit correctly, automatically, subconsciously.
At each lesson a few minutes should be devoted to drilling difficult sounds, stress or intonation. The teacher may turn to pronunciation drill whenever it's necessary to draw his learner's attention to the phonic aspect of the material they deal with.
The material used for drill should be connected with the lesson they study. The teacher should attentively follow the pronunciation of learners, find out mistakes and shortcomings, suggest exercises including mispronounced sounds, phrases with stress and sentences with intonation, suppose they mispronounce ……… .
The teacher selects words including the sound and drills them,man, can, cat, black, has.The man has a black cat.
Teaching present continuous, past simple.
The following skills can be conducted;
speak-speaking wash-washed buy-boughtsit-sat
read-readingopen-opened bring-broughtsing-sang
play-playingwant-wanted teach-taughtrun-ran
sit-sittinghand-handedbegin-began
run-runningDifferent sentence patterns can be used to drill their intonation: such as special, general, alternative, disjunctive questions, poems, proverbs and useful expressions can be used as well.
“A friend in need is a friend indeed’’.
“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise’’.
Achieving the aims of teaching/learning pronunciation, that is forming and developing clear and comprehensible pronunciation habits and skills one and the same time we prepare the learners to use their pronunciation abilities automatically and subconsciously to solve the problems of phonic aspect of communication successfully.
1.5 Factors Affecting the Learning of English Pronunciation.
In this section, the researcher mentions some of the important factors that affect the learning of pronunciation. They are as follows:
Attitude
It seems as though some learners are more adept at acquiring good pronunciation. Even within one homogenous classroom, there is often a large discrepancy among the pronunciation ability of the students. This phenomenon has lead many researchers to study the personal characteristics of the learners that contribute to their success in foreign language acquisition. In a study on pronunciation accuracy of university students studying intermediate Spanish as a foreign language, Elliot (1995) found that subjects’ attitude toward acquiring native or near-native pronunciation as measured by the Pronunciation Attitude Inventory (PAI), was the principal variable in relation to target language pronunciation. In other words, if the students were more concerned about their pronunciation of the target language, they tended to have better pronunciation of the target allophones (Elliot, 1995). This study echoed earlier research done by Suter (1976), which found that students who were ―more concerned‖ about their pronunciation (p. 249) had better pronunciation of English as a Second Language (Elliot, 1995).
When discussing the attitude of the second language learners in relation to their pronunciation and second language acquisition, it is necessary to note the work done by Schumann (1986) on acculturation and its role in the process of language learning. His acculturation model defines that learners will acquire the target language to the degree that they acculturate (Celce-Murcia, et al., 1996). According to Schumann, acculturation refers to a learner’s openness to a target culture as well as a desire to be socially integrated in the target culture. His research (1976, 1986) on acculturation examines the social and psychological integration of immigrant students as a predictor of the amount of English language they acquire and use (Tong, 2000).
Schumann maintains that the acquisition and use of English is a measure of the degree to which students have become acculturated to the host culture. Acculturation, according to Schumann (1986), refers to the social and psychological contact between members of a particular group and members of the target culture. The more interaction (i.e., social/psychological closeness) a group has with the target group, the more opportunities will result for the group to acquire and use English. Conversely, less interaction (i.e., social/psychological distance) results in less acquisition and use of English. The group's amount of contact with the target culture has an effect on the amount of English acquired and used. Sparks and Glachow’s work (1991) on personality found similar results. They state that students with motivation to learn with positive attitudes towards the target language and its speakers were more successful than were students with less positive attitudes. They refer to Gardner and Lambert’s research on motivation wherein two types are highlighted. The first type of motivation is instrumental, which is motivation to learn the L2 for the value of linguistic achievement. Second is integrative motivation, which describes the desire to continue learning about the second language culture. According to Gardner and Lambert students with integrative motivation would be expected to work harder to develop communication skills in the second language because they are more likely than their less interested counterparts to seek out native speakers of the language.
Motivation and Exposure
Along with age at the acquisition of a language, the learner’s motivation for learning the language and the cultural group that the learner identifies and spends time determine whether the learner will develop native-like pronunciation. Research has found that having a personal or professional goal for learning English can influence the need and desire for native-like pronunciation .The review by Marinova- Todd et al. (2000) of research on adult acquisition of English concluded that adults can become highly proficient, even native-like speakers of second languages, especially if motivated to do so. Moyer (2007) found that experience with and positive orientation to the language appears to be important factors in developing native-like pronunciation. In a study of learners of Spanish, Shively (2008) found that accuracy in the production of Spanish is significantly related to age at first exposure to the language, amount of formal instruction in Spanish, residence in a Spanish-speaking country, amount of out-of-class contact with Spanish, and focus on pronunciation in class. Therefore, in addition to focusing on pronunciation and accent in class, teachers should encourage learners to speak English outside the classroom and provide them with assignments that structure those interactions.
Instruction
Foreign language instruction generally focuses on four main areas of development: listening, speaking reading and writing. Foreign language curricula emphasize pronunciation in the first year of study as it introduces the target language’s alphabet and sound system, but rarely continues this focus past the introductory level. Lack of emphasis on pronunciation development may be due to a general lack of fervor on the part of the second language acquisition researchers, second language teachers and students, that pronunciation of a second language is not very important (Elliot, 1995). Pennington (1994) maintains that pronunciation which is typically viewed as a component of linguistic rather than conversational fluency, is often regarded with little importance in a communicatively oriented classroom (Elliot, 1995).
According to Elliot (1995), teachers tend to view pronunciation as the least useful of the basic language skills and therefore they generally sacrifice teaching pronunciation in order to spend valuable class time on other areas of language. Or maybe, teachers feel justified neglecting pronunciation believing that for adult foreign language learners, it is more difficult to attain target language pronunciation skills than other facets of second language acquisition. Teachers just do not have the background or tools to properly teach pronunciation and therefore it is disregarded (Elliot, 1995).
Teachers have taught what they thought was pronunciation via repetition drills on both a discrete word or phrase level, or give the students the rules of pronunciation like the vowel in a CVC pattern, when given an e at the end, says its name. For example, when an e is added to the word bit (CVC) the pronunciation of the ―short i‖, becomes long and therefore ―says its name‖. This type of instruction is meant to help students with decoding words for the purpose of reading rather than pronunciation.
For example, students are rarely given information about the differences between fricatives and non-fricative continuants, or the subtleties between the trilled or flapped /r/ between Spanish and English (Elliot, 1995). This particular information is often left up to the students to attain on their own. Researchers have explored the question of whether explicit instruction helps these second language learners. Such studies have generated inconsistent results. Suter (1976) reported an insignificant relationship between formal pronunciation and students’ pronunciation of English as a Second Language (Elliot, 1995). Murakawa (1981) found that, with 12 weeks of phonetic instruction, adult L2 learners of English can improve their allophonic articulation (Elliot, 1995). Nuefield and Scheiderman (1980) reported that adults are able to achieve near native fluency and it can be developed in a relatively short time without serious disruption to the second language teaching program with adequate pronunciation instruction (Elliot, 1995). It is necessary to note at this point that even though there seems to be quite a contradiction in the range of results presented, the diversity of those results may be due to the differing designs of the particular experiments.
Some pronunciation studies focus specifically on the instruction of supra-segmental. Derwing, Munro and Wiebe (1997) conducted research in which ESL learners who had been studying for an average of ten years, participated in a speaking improvement course that focused on the supra-segmental features of pronunciation (e.g. stress, rhythm, intonation). Thirty-seven native listeners transcribed speech samples (true/false sentences) taken at the beginning of a 12-week course in order to assess the learners’ intelligibility. Each sample was rated in order of comprehensibility and degree of accentedness. In the end, there was a significant improvement in the intelligibility, and better ratings over time of comprehensibility and accentedness. They showed that 30 language learners could alter their pronunciation in a reading task (Derwing & Rossiter, 2003).
Exposure to Target Language
When we speak of the exposure that a learner has to the target language, it may come in the form of their current day-to-day life as well as the amount of prior instruction a learner received in the target language. According to the language learning theories, learners acquire language primarily from the input they receive and they must receive large amounts of comprehensible input before they are required to speak. Adult learners may have little opportunity to surround themselves with the native target language input. Whereas children who are possibly in English-speaking schools for hours during the day, their adult counterparts are likely to live and work in what these theorists call ―linguistic ghettos‖ where they again have little meaningful exposure to the target language thus inhibiting their acquisition. Learning a new language and speaking it is especially difficult for foreign language learners because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in a variety of interactions (Shumin, 1997).
Verbal communication also affects the supra-segmental features of speech such as pitch, stress and intonation. Such features are often not learned from reading a textbook or dictionary. Beyond the supra-segmental features, are the non-linguistic elements involved in language such as gestures, body language, and facial expressions that carry so much meaning yet are not learned through explicit instruction, but rather through sheer experience in a language and culture. Due to minimal exposure to the target language and contact with native speakers, adult English language learners often do not acquire a native-like level of pronunciation, regarding fluency, control of idiomatic expressions and cultural pragmatics (gestures, body language, and facial expressions) (Shumin, 1997).
Integration of English Pronunciation into the Curriculum
Because pronunciation is everywhere it is possible to deal with pronunciation through what is already in the curriculum. This involves two basic ideas. First teachers need to be aware of what is in the curriculum and what will be doing with the learners and how this relates to sound structure. So in order to do this, teachers need to have quite a good idea of what sound structure entails. The decisions that the teachers make on what particular aspect of pronunciation recovered within a certain phase of a curriculum need to be based on their overall knowledge of sound structure. The second major idea is that of learner centeredness. Using this type of approach, it might be best to do this based on what’s observed in the classroom. Teachers can focus their attention on areas learners need particular help on as demonstrated by their own performance. This is more efficient than basing what teachers are doing on assumptions that may or may not be right. At the same time it means that the teachers need to be very flexible in their approaches to dealing with the class. What is important here is implementing a task-based model more than a presentation based model of language teaching.
This type of integration for pronunciation means that the basic approach the classroom needs to be founded on learners actually doing things with language, not listening to presentations from their teachers all day (Walker, 2010). A long range oral communication goals and objectives should be established to identify pronunciation needs as well as speech functions and the context in which they might occur (Morley, 1998). These goals and objectives should be realistic, aiming for functional intelligibility (ability to make oneself relatively easily understood), functional communicability (ability to meet the communication needs one faces), and enhanced self-confidence in use (Gillette, 1994; Jordan, 1992). They should result from a careful analysis and description of the learners’ needs (Jordan, 1992; Moley, 1998). This analysis should then be used to support selection and sequencing of the pronunciation information and skills for each sub-group or proficiency level within the larger learner group (Celce-Murcia, Bringon, & Goodwin, 1996). To determine the level of emphasis to be placed on pronunciation within the curriculum, programs should consider the following particular variables: 1. the learners (ages, educational backgrounds, experiences with pronunciation instruction, motivations, general English proficiency levels) 2. the instructional setting (academic, workplace, English for specific purposes, literacy, conversation) 3. institutional variables (teachers’ instructional and educational experiences, focus of curriculum, availability of pronunciation materials, class size, availability of equipment) 4. linguistic variables (learners’ native languages, diversity or lack of diversity of native languages within the group) 5. methodological variables (method or approach included by the program).

2. Practical aspect of teaching pronunciation in foreign language teaching and learning.
In my course work I would like to present lesson plans, which are plans of approbation. These lessons I would like to use during my practice. In these plans I would like to introduce the traditional forms of English lessons in a different and more living form.
Lesson plans.
Lesson plan
Theme: Weather forecast
Aims: - Introduction of new lexical topic and grammar structure.
- Developing of listening and speaking skills
Objectives: - Develop students’ listening and reading skills.
Review grammar.
Develop students’ communication skills.
Present new vocabulary.
Age: teenage
Level:intermediate
Timing:45 minutes

Stage Procedure Time Material Note
Engage
Study–reading, vocabulary
(recognition)
Study (vocabulary work, drill)
Activate
Study ( pre-listening)
Study (while-listening)
Study (post-listening)
Study
Activate
Activate Good morning pupils! Nice to see you! How are you today?
Now I want to present you a tongue twister about weather “Whether the weather is warm, whether the weather is hot, we have to put up with the weather, whether we like it or not.” Do you understand the meaning of it? What is the keyword of this tongue twister? (weather) Yes, right. And as you have already understood the theme of our lesson is “Weather forecast”.
And now let’s read the text but before it I want to present you new words. And I want you to pronounce these words after me. (to ask several students to repeat) Read the definitions of each word one by one. Rewrite them to your dictionaries.
Is that clear?
And now let’s read the text.
In the text you should underline new vocabulary words.
Here you should choose the correct word to complete the sentences.
Make up your own sentences using the new words.
Ok, let’s have some listening practice. Some unknown words are written on the board. Listen and repeat after me. (to ask several students to repeat)
Students listen to the tape. Ok. Here are the exercises, where you should fill in the gaps. Let’s listen to it again.(Ok, let’s check your answers)
Answer my questions.
And now I want to introduce you a new grammar – Present Continuous.
Write a short story using a new grammar structure and new vocabulary concerning the theme weather.
In pairs, create a dialogue. Take cards with the situations. 2-3
5-6
2-3
4-5
2-3
5-6
2-3
4-5
5-6
4-5 Computer and blackboard
Computer and blackboard
Handouts
New words
Computer and blackboard
Handouts
Computer and blackboard
Cards with situation to ask several students to repeat
If they do not understand I will give them Russian translation
Students read them twice, one time with teacher, second time without teacher.
Check them
They will listen to the tape twice.
To show the schemes,
examples.
To ask 3-4 students to read
Lesson plan
Theme: GREAT BRITAIN
Aims: - Introduction of new lexical topic and grammar structure.
- Developing of listening and speaking skills
Objectives: - Develop students’ listening and reading skills.
Review grammar.
Develop students’ communication skills.
Present new vocabulary.
Age: teenage
Level:intermediate
Timing:45 minutes
Stage Procedure Time Material Note
Engage
Study
Study
(pre-reading)
Study
(while-reading)
Study
(post-reading)
Activate
Study ( pre-listening)
Study (while-listening)
Study (post-listening)
Study
Activate Good morning pupils! Nice to see you! How are you today?
Now I want to present you a rhyme called “Raindrops”. Do you understand the meaning of it?
Let’s check your home task.
And now let’s read the text but before it I want to present you new words. And I want you to pronounce these words after me. Read the definitions of each word one by one. Rewrite them to your dictionaries.
Before reading I’m going to give you 30 seconds to look through the text and to find the key words from it. Close your sheets.
So, what words have you found? Can you guess what about this text is?
Let’s read the text. Check your guesses.
Answer my questions.
Look through the text again and answer, how this numbers and names are related to each other.
Divide into three groups and your task is to present our country. Use our new vocabulary and make your presentations.
Ok, let’s have some listening practice. Some unknown words are written on the board. Listen and repeat after me.
Listen to the text and complete the sentences.
Let’s check the sentences.
And now I want to introduce you a new grammar – Past Simple.
In this exercise you should choose the correct form of the verbs.
Make up your own sentences using new word and grammar structure. 2-3
3-4
4-5
3-4
2-3
5-6
2-3
4-5
2-3
4-5
3-4 Computer and blackboard
Handouts
Handouts
Computer and blackboard
Computer
Handouts
Handouts
Computer and blackboard
to ask several students to repeat
to ask several students to repeat
to ask several students to repeat
students will listen to the text twice
To show the schemes,
examples.
Lesson plan
Theme: Environment
Aims: - Introduction of new lexical topic and grammar structure.
- Developing of listening and speaking skills
Objectives: - Develop students’ listening and reading skills.
Review grammar.
Develop students’ communication skills.
Present new vocabulary.
Age: teenage
Level:intermediate
Timing:45 minutes
Stage Procedure Time Material Note
Engage
Study
Study
Study ( pre-listening)
(while-listening)
(post-listening)
Activate
Engage Good morning pupils! Nice to see you! How are you today?
Now I want to present you a tongue twister. “A big black bug bit a big black bear, made the big black bear bleed blood.” Do you understand the meaning of it? Which words don’t you understand?
Ok. Right now I want you to pronounce this word after me.
Ok. And now let’s pronounce the whole tongue twister. T reads A big black bug (Ss pronounce after the teacher), bit a big black bear (Ss pronounce after the teacher), made the big black bear (Ss pronounce after the teacher), bleed blood (Ss pronounce after the teacher).
Ok. Let’s pronounce the whole tongue twister all together.
Ok now let’s do it quicker.
Ok, It’s great! Thank you!
Let’s check your home task.
That’s all right! And now we are going to revise “Modal verbs” In this exercise you should fill in the gaps with necessary modal verb.
Let’s have some listening practice. Some unknown words are written on the board. Listen and repeat after me. Now I give you the cards with the text, here you should fill in the gaps.
Listen to the text.
Did you manage it? Yes? Let’s check.
Now I will give you a time to look through the text. Be ready we are going to answer true or false sentences.
Read the sentences one by one and answer.
Let’s continue. Make up a role play between ecologist and journalist.
Evaluation and home task 2
3
4-5
6-7
3-4
5-6
2-3
5-6
5
3
Computer and blackboard
Handouts
Computer and blackboard
Computer
Handouts
Teacher reads the tongue twister.
Teacher writes unknown words and pronounces them.
T pronounces the words, Ss pronounce them after the teacher.
Ss pronounce
Ss pronounce
Check them all together.
to ask several students to repeat
Ss will listen to the text twice
Lesson plan
Theme: Environment
Aims: - Introduction of new lexical topic and grammar structure.
- Developing of listening and speaking skills
Objectives: - Develop students’ listening and reading skills.
Review grammar.
Develop students’ communication skills.
Present new vocabulary.
Age: teenage
Level:intermediate
Timing:45 minutes
Stage Procedure Time Material Note
Engage
Activate
Study
(pre-reading)
Study
(while-reading)
Study
(post-reading)
Study
Study (pre-listening)
Study (while-listening)
Study (post-listening)
Activate
Engage Good morning pupils! Nice to see you! How are you today?
First of all you should divide into groups of 4 and think the name of the team. Then you should introduce your team.
And now let’s read the text but before it I want to present you new words. And I want you to pronounce these words after me. Read the definitions of each word one by one. Rewrite them to your dictionaries.
Read the text very attentively and underline the new words.
Here are the questions and exercises. One representative from each group will answer these questions and for right answer I will give you the points.
Today we are going to continue the theme “Phrasal Verbs.” There are some phrasal verbs with translations on the blackboard. Put them into the sentences by their meaning. Then representatives from each group will write the correct answer one by one on the blackboard.
Let’s learn some unknown words. Read them and their translations. Are you ready? Listen to the speaker and repeat the words after her.
Listen to the text very attentively.
In groups put these sentences in the correct order.
The next task is to choose the situation. And in groups you have to write a short story concerning this situation and give the solution.
Choose the winning team and evaluate them. 2
3
3-4
4-5
4-5
5-6
2-3
3-4
3-4
5-6
2 Computer and blackboard
Handouts
Handouts
Computer and blackboard
Computer and blackboard
Computer
Computer and blackboard
Cards with situations
to ask several students to repeat
Check all together
T reads and Ss repeat after her.
To give points for correct answer.
Ss listen to the tape recorder and repeat after the speaker.
To check them.
Lesson plan
Theme: Wildlife
Aims: - Introduction of new lexical topic and grammar structure.
- Developing of listening and speaking skills
Objectives: - Develop students’ listening and reading skills.
Review grammar.
Develop students’ communication skills.
Present new vocabulary.
Age: teenage
Level:intermediate
Timing:45 minutes
Stage Procedure Time Material Note
Engage
Study
Study
(pre-listening)
Study (while-listening)
Study (post-listening)
Study
Study
Study
(pre-reading)
Study
(while-reading)
Study
(post-reading)
Activate Good morning pupils! Nice to see you! How are you today?
The theme of our lesson is “Wildlife”. We live in a world that full of the beauty of the nature. Animals are part of that natural world. Today we will learn about Wildlife of Kazakhstan.
So, What categories of animals do you know? What species of animals do you know?
You know animals are differ in their habitats and characteristics. And now we are going to divide the words into three groups: habitats, characteristics and words that mean actions: jungle, wild, forest, protect, ocean, rare, hunt, river, fast, save, desert, endangered, destroy, strong, mountain, pollute, steppe, lake. First of all repeat them after me. (Ss divide them, and check all together)
Let’s learn some unknown words. Read them and their translations. Repeat after me.
Listen to the text and fill in the gaps.
Let’s listen to it again.
Ok, let’s check your answers. And now answer my questions concerning the text.
And now I want to introduce you a new grammar – Past Perfect.
In this exercise you should choose the correct form of the verbs.
And now let’s read the text but before it I want to present you new words. I want you to pronounce these words after me. Read the definitions of each word one by one. Rewrite them to your dictionaries.
Read the text and underline a new grammar structure.
In this exercise you have to match the sentences of column A to the sentences of column B.
Ok, let’s check. Read the correct sentences one by one. Good! All right!
Make up your own sentences using new word and grammar structure.
2-3
4-5
3
4-5
3
5-6
5
3-4
5
4
2-3 Computer and blackboard
Computer and blackboard
Computer
Computer and blackboard
Handouts
Handouts
Handouts
Computer and blackboard
T reads and Ss repeat after her.
to ask several students to repeat
They will listen to the tape twice.
To show the schemes,
examples.
Check them
T reads and Ss repeat after her.
Conclusion.Pronunciation can be one of the most difficult parts of a language for EFL learners to master and one of the least favorite topics for teachers to address in the EFL classroom. All learners can do well in learning the pronunciation of a foreign language if the teacher and learner participate together in the total learning process. Success can be achieved if each has set individual teaching and learning goals. Pronunciation must be viewed as more than correct production of phonemes: it must be viewed in the same light as grammar, syntax, and discourse that is an important part of communication. Research has shown and current pedagogical thinking on pronunciation maintains that intelligible pronunciation is seen as an essential component of communicative competence. With this in mind, the teacher must then set obtainable aims that are applicable and suitable for the communication needs of the learner. The learner must also become part of the learning process, actively involved in their own learning. The content of the course should be integrated into the communication class, with the content emphasizing the teaching of suprasegmentals, linking pronunciation with listening comprehension, and allowing for meaningful pronunciation practice. With the teacher acting as a 'speech coach', rather than as a mere checker of pronunciation, the feedback given to the student can encourage learners to improve their pronunciation. If these criteria are met, all learners, within their learner unique aims, can be expected to do well learning the pronunciation of a foreign language.
In this paper all objectives of research are followed:
1. Study and analyze the scientific, educational, and periodic psychological-pedagogical and methodological literature on the problem of working on pronunciation in foreign language teaching and learning.
2. Reveal the particular structure and content of English pronunciation.
3. To highlight the methodological techniques of analysis.
References.1. Bernaus, M., Masgoret, A., Gardner, R., & Reyes, E. (2004). Motivation and attitudes towards learning language in multicultural classrooms.2. Bott, A. (2005). Computer-aided self-access pronunciation materials designed to teach stress in American English.
3. Braithwaite, M. (2008). Sounds right. New Plymouth, New Zealand:Curriculum Concepts.
4. Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., & Goodwin, J. (1996). Teaching Pronunciation: A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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