Teaching lexics to the pupils of level a 2

1.2. Integrating pronunciation activities in the classroom.
Pronunciation work has traditionally played a secondary role in language teaching, grammar and, more recently, lexis.
I can think of at least two reasons for neglecting pronunciation: firstly, the lack of clear instructions and rules found in the course books, and secondly, the lack of great impact of the exercises allocated once a month. However, this is not surprising; Like all other areas of language teaching, pronunciation requires constant attention in order to have a lasting impact on students, which means incorporating it into everyday classroom processes. Regular problem-solving during the language feedback or group correction phase of the lesson helps to focus students' attention on its importance and leads to a positive experience.
Using student speech to teach pronunciation
Word stress
Vowel sounds
Diphthongs
Weak forms
Stress in the sentence
Using student speech to teach pronunciation
Pronunciation work can be simple, and exercises can be used that are open and interesting for students, regardless of their level. Whenever students engage in freer speaking activities, the main goal is usually for them
to develop their fluency in the language. At the same time, this activity also serves to work on students' accuracy through feedback on their language use.
When my students do group or pair work at any level, I listen and take notes divided into three areas of language: pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. In the latter, as well as the unknown lexicon, I include areas such as register, function, set of phrases, and in the former I include notes on any areas of pronunciation that lead to mispronunciation. This includes diphthongs, vowels (including weak forms), consonants, word stress, and sentence stress. All these areas can be solved quickly and efficiently by preparing simple exercises, which only require basic knowledge of the blackboard and phonemic table.⁷
If students are introduced one phoneme at a time, it can be introduced from an elementary level and students will quickly realize its value. When "ea" is pronounced /e/ (head) and /i:/ (bead) doesn't help to produce a rule, the actions I suggest here do. Pronunciation work will be, dare I say it, more effective if your students get used to the exercises.
Word stress
A simple exercise that I repeat regularly to work on word stress and individual sounds.
I hear an intermediate student say, "I think (pronounced with stress on the first syllable) I'll see him tonight." The listener doesn't understand because of the wrong pronunciation and asks another student to repeat the word until they finish it and we see what the word is.
After the activity, I put two bubble columns on the board to represent word stress, one small and one much larger. I write "guess" under the bubbles and drill it before asking the students to think of other two-syllable words with the second-syllable accent. I get "outside", "today", "below" and "behind", which I only accept as true before asking for verbs. Then I "accept", "believe", "we forget" ... and these go into the same column.⁸
If a student asks for a rule during this exercise, such as "Do all 2-syllable verbs have this stress?", I ask them to think of examples that contradict their rule. I ask either give myself time to look it up or I tell them we'll go over the rules for it in the next lesson. In general, I understand that this procedure encourages students' independence by forming their own hypotheses, which will be confirmed or rejected by the teacher in the next lesson.
Vowel sounds
I hear a pre-intermediate student say, "Not now, because he's dead (dead)."
After practice, I draw a column on the board with the title /e/. In this column I write the word "dead" and the students repeat it. Then I ask for examples of words that rhyme with this word that are easy for the students ("red", "bed", etc.).
However, I do not write these. Then I ask for words that rhyme and have the same vowel sound, ie "ea". I put the students in pairs or groups and give myself time to think about the words. In this case, depending on the level, I get "head", "bread", "read", "lead" and ... and we have an expandable ro of words with the same spelling and sound we will have a list.
It's cognitive work to think of similar words, write them down, and organize them into columns, helping students retain sound and spelling, rather than simply reviewing lists. will give. Therefore, all students should be encouraged to copy the list into their notebooks.⁹
If the class allows it, it's also great for students to hang posters with sound columns on the wall and add to them whenever a new item for that sound comes up, especially if it's an odd or different spelling.
The goal is to get a basic poster with different columns with phonemes and different spellings at the top.
/e/
'e' 'ea''ai'
- he said
pencil head
Diphthongs
I hear the intermediate student say, "I can't find it (pronounced: nd /) anywhere."
I make a column with /ai/, drill 'find' and my students give me 'fight', 'bike', 'buy', 'eye', 'my' etc. for the sound.
I take them without writing them and then encourage students to think of other words that are written, like "find." I get "intelligence" and "kindness".
There may be only one or two for any pattern. If I come up with other words myself, I'll add them to the column, making sure they're not obscure words or too high for the level (in this case I'll use "link" and I might choose to include "grind", but probably not. "bark" or "back").
Weak forms
I hear an elementary school student say, "I'm going to buy vegetables (pronounced 'table' at the end)." I note that this is also an opportunity to work on word stress.
I make a column with schwa and drill down "vegetable" by marking the stress word.
In elementary school, there is a case for simply teaching this idea rather than identifying specific words, so I show the number of syllables and the stress on the beginning of the word, and this is the last syllable I explain that gini is weak and unpronounceable. the word "table".¹⁰
I'll add "comfortable" and "prominent" to the list as additional examples, but avoid adding more to avoid overwhelming students at this level.
For the second example, I note that the stress is on the second syllable. I can think of teacher objections to suggesting this, such as the lack of a strict rule or students' confusion because the examples are not the same, but accommodating it will serve to build students' confidence. language always obeys strict rules. In my experience this approach is not useful. The only way to learn these key pronunciation points is to pay attention to them, note them down, and practice them regularly.
Stress in the sentence
I use fluency exercises to work on sentence stress. I hear an intermediate student say, “He told me I couldn't
holiday' (emphasis in bold). This leads to confusion due to the stress placed on the wrong words
in a sentence, i.e. pronouns or grammatical words, as opposed to content words.
The activity is simply a choral exercise, but maintains the whole sentence and English rhythm. "He told me I couldn't take a vacation."
The trick here is not to overdo the stressed words, but to keep the stress and rhythm natural. Think of it in terms of modeling a rhythm rather than a stress pattern . Using gestures like an orchestra conductor or tapping the board to indicate rhythm is especially helpful for students who can't hear it easily.
Admittedly, this last exercise on sentence stress takes longer to take effect, but if emphasized early and used relatively often, students will learn how stress in English differs from that in their own language. includes and helps to overcome what later stages of learning. becomes a fossilized way of speaking. Sentence stress causes more communication problems for a fluent speaker than any grammatical error.¹¹
One of the beauties of using student speech in pronunciation work is that it directly addresses students' concerns. I've tried to provide some very simple exercises here to help teachers incorporate pronunciation into their classrooms on a regular basis. Regular work in this area helps students develop their intuition and gut feeling about English pronunciation, which experts and researchers have long emphasized as an important skill for a good language learner.