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TESOL Matters Vol. 9 No. 6     (December 1999/January 2000)

From the column of the TESOL Speech/Pronunciation Interest Section
by Linda Grant

One of the greatest challenges in teaching pronunciation is facilitating the carryover of teaching points into everyday communication. Although adult learners may be accurate in controlled practice, they have difficulty transferring this accuracy into spontaneous spoken English. Indeed, most instructors have had the experience of hearing flawless productions of the th sound in structured exercises, only to hear at the end of class, "Sanks, see you on Sursday." Teachers often wonder if this phenomenon is more common in pronunciation than in other areas of language learning. And if it is, they wonder what they can do in practical terms to accelerate the process.

For most learners, improving intelligibility generally takes longer than expected. A clear need for more research into pronunciation development exists, but here are some characteristics of pronunciation learning that teachers may notice.

1. Progress varies from student to student and depends on factors such as motivation, personality, nature of the L1, attitude toward the L2 culture, and amount of out-of-class practice.

2. New skills are acquired over time and often appear in controlled reading and speaking before they appear in spontaneous speech. New skills may be most difficult to incorporate when communicative demands are high.

3. Errors are a natural and expected part of learning. Learners may approximate features before they produce them clearly and may overgeneralize rules before refining them.

4. Learners may only partially integrate new features into spontaneous speech; however, even partial integration has a positive impact on overall intelligibility.

Although teachers need to understand and be patient with the process, they also have a strategic role to play in optimizing the context and conditions for learning. Learners probably need more support than teachers typically provide as they bridge the gap from a focus on form to a focus on meaning -- from controlled practice to communicative speaking situations. As Morley (1994) states.

Yule (1990) has commented that if the class is called pronunciation class, one can expect to find a focus on "getting-the-sounds-correct" exercises, but if a class is called spoken English class, then one can expect to find a focus on "getting-the-message-across" activities. Today successful new-wave pronunciation programs appear to be making a serious business of a principled combination of these two goals. (p. 71)

In the past 15 years, the field has made considerable progress in making pronunciation a part of effective speaking/oral communication, yet a "principled combination of these two goals" remains a challenge. In controlled pronunciation tasks, students focus on only one feature of speech in the context of reading a ready-made script. Hence, the cognitive load is light. In speaking tasks, on the other hand, students grapple with all features of speech, not to mention word choice, grammar, and the myriad microskills associated with generating an original, meaningful utterance. Pronouncing clearly is a small part of a complex task. With this dramatic increase in cognitive load, it is no wonder that accuracy breaks down. How can teachers help students bridge this gap and facilitate a more gradual transition from controlled practice to communicative practice? These suggestions for contextualizing pronunciation practice can aid students in their efforts to blend form and meaning.

1. Bridge activities provide intermediate practice between reading and speaking. In these activities, there is only one pronunciation target. Students create some, not all, of the language, grammar, or vocabulary. Language complexity is controlled by seating the practice in the format of an outline, calendar, schedule, or menu.

2. In action replays, students repeat a communicative practice two or more times. The first one or two times the focus is on meaning and fluency. Once the student is comfortable with the content, the focus shifts to form. Students can audio- or videotape the initial communication, monitor the recording for one or two pronunciation features, and retape the communication with attention to accuracy.

3. In modeling, learners engage in controlled practice with dialogues, chants, or poems. They then use these models to write and read their own products. When students create their own dialogues and exchanges, learning becomes more meaningful.

4. According to the zoom principle as described by Firth (1992), pronunciation work relies "on a constantly shifting focus -- from overall effectiveness of communication to a specific problem, to overall effectiveness of communication and so on" (p. 173). Thus, instruction might begin with a target pronunciation point presented in the context of a broad stretch of authentic discourse from radio, TV, or film. This technique illustrates how a pronunciation point contributes to meaning before the feature is isolated for controlled practice.

Providing communicative context is time-consuming. It takes time for teachers to develop tasks and time for students to complete activities. Yet when we devote time to these intermediate tasks, we acknowledge that the goal of pronunciation instruction is more comprehensive than simply the teaching of sounds or skills. These tasks enable learners to observe how pronunciation functions in naturalistic communication. They give learners the chance to practice pronunciation in situations that are slightly more controlled than those outside of class. And they increase the likelihood that students will ultimately integrate pronunciation features into everyday communication.

References

Firth, S. (1992). Pronunciation syllabus design: A question of focus. In P. Avery and S. Ehrlich (Eds.), Teaching American English pronunciation (pp. 173-183). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morley, J. (1994). A multidimensional curriculum design. In J. Morley (Ed.) Pronunciation pedagogy and theory (pp. 64-91). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Linda Grant teaches ESL at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.