Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

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Box 4.6 The lingua franca pronunciation core
Elements of English pronunciation that need to be right to avoid problems
between students with different L1s (Jenkins, 2000: 159):
1 all consonants except for /
ð⬃θ/ which can be dispensed with.
2 aspiration after voiceless plosives /
p⬃t⬃k/ needs to be maintained in ‘spy’,
‘sting’, ‘scorn’, etc.
3 simplification of initial clusters should be avoided e.g. ‘product’ as /
pɒdk/.
4 pure vowels should be longer before voiced consonants than before voice-
less consonants in, say, ‘bad/bat’, ‘league/leak’, ‘bard/bart’.
5 the placement of the nuclear tone in the tone-groups is vital; ‘John is here’/
‘John is here’/ ‘John is here’, but not choice of tone.
Box 4.7 Models of pronunciation
●
In teaching a native speaker variety, the choice has to be made between
national varieties and between different local and class accents.
●
In teaching an international language like English (ELF), the choice is which
forms work best among non-native speakers from different countries.
4.5 Learning and teaching pronunciation
What does this mean for teaching? Most language teachers use ‘integrated pronunci-
ation teaching’, as Joanne Kenworthy (1987) calls it, in which pronunciation is
taught as an incidental to other aspects of language, similar to the focus on form
described in Chapter 2. The Pronunciation Book (Bowen and Marks, 1992), for exam-
ple, describes including pronunciation work within activities primarily devoted to
other ends, such as texts and dialogues. Some teachers correct wrong pronunciations
when they arise on an ad hoc basis. Such incidental correction probably does not do
much good directly if it concentrates on a single phoneme rather than on the role of
the phoneme in the whole system; it may only improve the students’ pronunciation
of a single word said in isolation. It also relies on direct correction being a good way
of teaching, something which has been out of fashion in other areas of language
teaching for generations. Correction may indirectly serve to raise the students’ aware-
ness of pronunciation, but may also succeed in embarrassing all but the most thick-
skinned of students.
One clear implication from SLA research is that the learning of sounds is not
just a matter of mastering the L2 phonemes and their predictable variants. At one

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level, it means learning the rules of pronunciation for the language, such as those
for forming syllables; at another level, it is learning precise control over VOT.
While phonemes are indeed important, pronunciation difficulties often have to do
with general effects; in the case of English we have come across a problem with
voicing for German students, syllable structure for Arabic students, VOT for
Spanish students, and so on. Language teaching should pay more attention to such
general features of pronunciation rather than the phoneme.
Learners have their own interlanguage phonologies – temporary rules of their
own. The sounds of the language are not just separate items on a list to be learnt
one at a time, but are related in a complex system. An English /
p/ is different from
a /
b/ because it is voiced and fortis, different from a /t/ because it involves the lips,
different from a /
v/ because it is a stop consonant rather than a fricative, and so on.
Teaching or correcting a single phoneme may not have much effect on the stu-
dents’ pronunciation, or may even have the wrong effect. It is like taking a brick
out of a wall and replacing it with another. Unless the replacement fits exactly, all
the other bricks will move to accommodate it or, at worst, the wall will fall down.
Understanding how to help students’ pronunciation means relating the faults first
to their current interlanguage and only secondly to the target. The differences
between their speech and that of native speakers should not be corrected without
taking into account both the interlanguage and the target system. The Austrian
research suggests that teachers should be aware which sounds are going to improve
gradually and which are never going to improve, so that these can be treated dif-
ferently. It also suggests that pronunciation teaching should relate to the particu-
lar stage the learner is at, emphasizing individual words at the beginning, relating
pronunciation to the first language for intermediates, and treating the sound sys-
tem of the new language in its own right for advanced students.
Let us go through some standard techniques for teaching pronunciation in the
light of what we have been saying.