The newest additions to the PronPack family are the books in the Pronunciation for Listening series, which focus on pronunciation as a receptive skill. These books are user-friendly, with short, well-signposted chapters providing maximum accessibility for the busy teacher. The latest book Word Recognition for Listeners focuses on the way individual words sound in context, and conveniently links pronunciation to vocabulary. Meanwhile, the previously published companion volume Connected Speech for Listeners focuses on how words join together in the stream of speech and links pronunciation to grammar. Both books offer practical tips and lesson materials plus a range of support materials here on this website.
Connected Speech for Listeners is available in paperback and ebook formats. The new book, Word Recognition for Listeners is currently available in paperback from Amazon (.com, .com.au, .ca, .de, .es, .fr, .it, .co.uk) and will be published as an eBook shortly.
First published: IATEFL 2022 Conference Selections
Pronunciation for receptive purposes
We often think of pronunciation in terms of productive
skills, but it’s equally important for receptive ones. Indeed, I would argue
that some aspects of pronunciation learning are primarily for the benefit of
listening – connected speech in particular. This point is made very clearly if
you consider the pairs of sentences below:
A B
Give him a hug. Give
them a hug.
Done as a favour. Done
us a favour.
Get a receipt. Get
her a seat.
Gave them an aim. Gave
her my name.
Speakers may pronounce A and B exactly the same. This is
because in connected speech, features such as elision, linking and weak forms
can obscure the differences. Obviously, we don’t necessarily want our learners
to do this in their own speech – it’s usually better to pronounce clearly!
However, as listeners, they have no choice – they’re bound to hear this kind of
connected speech, and we need to prepare them for it.
Raising awareness of connected speech with micro-listening
One approach to preparing learners for real connected speech
is to focus in detail on very short segments of audio – what John Field calls micro-listening.
You can do this by choosing short segments of any audio text which you’re
using, but an easy alternative is to use the online tool YouGlish. Type in any
chunk you’re interested in and this search engine will find it for you across a
whole corpus of online video material. For example, I typed in Give them a.
YouGlish then searched and found the phrase in thousands of videos, and played
them with a few words before and a few words after my chosen phrase. In this
way, my class could hear it in many different contexts, with different speeds,
voices and accents. In most of them, the class could hear how the pronoun them
was reduced in connected speech, for example to ‘em, and how it was
linked up to its neighbouring words.
Integrating connected speech with grammar
A focus on connected speech is important, but it can feel
rather random and difficult to integrate with other aspects of a course. One
idea would be to integrate it into your grammar syllabus. For instance, if you
are teaching a structures such as Give them a hug (that is, ditransitive
verb phrases), you can focus on object pronouns in connected speech. Most
grammar structures have strings of words including function words like
pronouns, articles, auxiliaries and so on – and these are exactly the kinds of
words which are most affected by the features of connected speech. This is the
approach I took in my book PronPack: Connected Speech for Listeners.
Saying it to hear it
Alongside micro-listening, another approach to raising
awareness of connected speech involves learners actually producing it
themselves. Although the procedure is productive, the objective is receptive –
actually hearing yourself produce this kind of speech is one of the best ways
of becoming fully familiar with how it sounds. Any kind of drill which includes
examples of connected speech can be used in this approach, but one which is
very easy to set up is what I call the counting drill. Here’s an example for
object pronouns after ditransitive verbs. You read each line out and the class
repeats:
Give ‘em a ONE, Give ‘em a TWO, Give ‘em a THREE, Give
‘em a FOUR
Send ‘er a ONE, Send ‘er a TWO, Send ‘er a THREE, Send
‘er a FOUR
Buy ‘im a ONE, Buy ‘im a TWO, Buy ‘im a THREE, Buy ‘im a
FOUR
The idea is that the numbers are so predictable, the
learners can focus their attention on the bits which come before and how they
are connected up.
Use earworms
Another kind of drill I would recommend for a connected
speech focus is a short and simple text, preferably with a bit of rhythm and
rhyme. The word-play helps to make the sound of the text ‘stick in the head’ –
the earworm effect. Again, you can say the text line by line getting the
learners to repeat. Here’s an example, focusing on the same grammar point as
the counting chant. The bold shows the stress.
TITLE: Spoken word recognition for listeners NAME(S) OF PRESENTER(S): Mark Hancock DAY: Tuesday 18 April 2023 TIME: 14:50-15:20 LENGTH: 30 mins ROOM: Queen’s Suite 7 – Harrogate Convention Centre AUDIENCE CAPACITY: 75
Knowing
a word is one thing; recognising it in the continuous stream of speech is
something else. How do listeners accomplish this, and how can we help our
learners to achieve the same? In this presentation, we will look at research
into spoken word recognition and try out some classroom activities for
developing this key aspect of the listening skill.
This article first appeared in the TEIS Newsletter (TESOL Teacher Educator Interest Section Newsletter), December 2022
Know weigh!
Learners are sometimes amazed to discover that words which
look completely different in written form are sometimes pronounced exactly the
same. It seems almost unbelievable that know weigh sounds the same as no
way! With English spelling being so unreliable, it’s no wonder that
learners and teachers look for alternative ways to represent pronunciation in
writing. One popular option is to write the word using the spelling conventions
of your first language. For example, I once noticed White House written
as guait haus in a piece of graffiti in Madrid. I often see learners using similar
kinds of informal phonetics in their notebooks. I’ve done the same thing
myself, representing French enfant as onfon. Seeing the
pronunciation in a written form can help to understand it and fix it in the
memory – ears and eyes are better than ears alone. But these kinds of
informal spellings are very personal – each learner will have their own version
– and they are often inaccurate. It’s useful to have something more reliable,
and this is where phonemic symbols come in.
IPA symbols
In the world of English Language Teaching (ELT), it’s common
to use a set of symbols to represent pronunciation, and the most widely used
symbols come from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Becoming familiar
with these symbols is a rite-of-passage for trainee teachers, but too often we
fail to understand what they are and how they work. There’s a widespread and
unhelpful belief that the symbols somehow only represent one specific accent,
and I think this derives from a confusion of ‘phonemic’ and ‘phonetic’.
Phonemic versus phonetic
The first thing we should understand about the IPA that we typically use in ELT is that it’s not the full set –that is designed to cover all languages – but only that small set of symbols needed to represent English. It’s also important to note that in ELT, we normally use the symbols phonemically rather than phonetically. Let me explain this with a concrete example. There are two kinds of L – the clear L and the dark L, and there is a different phonetic symbol for each of these – [l] and [ɫ]. English does have both of these sounds, but there is no meaningful difference between them – they are simply different ‘flavours’ of the same phoneme. We use one phonemic symbol /l/ to represent this phoneme. In other words, the phoneme /l/ includes both sounds [l]and [ɫ]. Trainees should know that a phonemic symbol does not represent one exact and specific sound. By the way, make sure they notice that phonetic symbols are shown between square brackets and phonemic symbols between slash brackets!
Love them or hate them?
There seems to be a love-hate relationship between teachers and
the IPA symbols. Some teachers love them, others won’t use them, or only ever
use them for the observed lessons they did as trainees. So what’s the problem? The
main objection which I’ve heard to the IPA goes like this: ‘My accent is not
the same as the accent shown by the IPA, so I can’t use it!’ I believe this
worry is based on an important misunderstanding. Phonetic symbols may
represent one specific accent, but phonemic symbols don’t.
Symbols and accents
I think the phonemic symbols are best regarded as accent-neutral.
Take for example the word bet in a typical English accent and a typical New Zealand
accent. The vowel sounds quite different in the two accents – New Zealand pet
sounds like bit to English ears. Or from the opposite point of view, English
bet sounds like bat to New Zealand ears. However, we can
use the same phonemic symbol /e/ for the vowel sound in both accents.
This is because the symbol represents a phoneme, not a sound. If we wanted to
represent a sound, we would use a phonetic symbol instead.
Phonemes are like chess pieces
The pieces in different chess sets often have slightly
different shapes. For example, in one set, the knight may look like a horse’s
head; in another set the knight may be a more abstract shape. But despite the
differences in shape, both of these pieces play the same role in the game.
Phonemes are like this. The /e/ in UK English sounds different from the /e/ in
New Zealand English, but they both play the same role in the system as a whole.
You could define it this way: /e/ represents the vowel sound in ‘bet’
whatever your accent. As a teacher trainer, this is the message I try to
get across to trainees: phonemic symbols don’t represent only one accent; if
you are an intelligible speaker of English, they can represent YOUR accent too!
Why do UK
and US books often use different symbols?
If phonemic symbols are accent-neutral, then why would
British and American books use different ones? I think the answer is that the
differences more about academic tradition than accent. Take for example the
vowel phoneme in boot, which is often given as /u:/ in UK texts but /uw/ in US ones. This
difference has nothing to do with a contrast between the British and American
pronunciations of boot; it is merely a different habitual use of
symbols. The symbols in themselves are arbitrary – it’s the role they play in
the system as a whole which matters.
A chart as a box of chocolates
Phonemic charts often look rather like a box of chocolates –
a collection of intriguing symbols, each one in its own separate compartment. Naturally,
our attention is drawn to the symbols, like the chocolates in the box, but what
if the box itself is actually the important part? I think that’s the case with
a phonemic chart – the system as a whole is more important than the individual
symbols within.
A system of distinctions
So how is the box more important than the symbols? Well,
it’s this: the system of phonemes in English is a system of distinctions. What
matters about the vowel in bet is not so much its intrinsic quality, but
more the fact that it is distinguishable from the vowels in bit, beat
or bait, for example. What is important is not the precise quality of the
occupant of each cell in the chart, but the fact that it is different from its
neighbours. English and New
Zealand speakers may pronounce those
individual vowels differently, but they can still distinguish the words and
that’s what counts. We have to keep the chocolates separate from one another!
What if you don’t have a distinction in your accent?
I should acknowledge a difficulty with the phonemic chart. Unfortunately,
it can’t always be as accent neutral is we might want. Some accents have only one
phoneme where other accents have two. It’s as if two of the chocolates in your
box have melted together into one. Take for example the two vowel phonemes in full
and fool. For many Scottish speakers, there’s only one phoneme here and
these two words are homophones. If you are a Scottish teacher and your class
asks you to explain the difference between these two symbols in the chart, you
will be obliged to say something like, ‘Well, they are the same in my accent,
but different in some other accents’. It’s not ideal, but nor is it a reason to
reject the entire IPA. That would be like throwing the baby out with the
bathwater.
The big picture
No doubt difficulties arise from time to time when we try to use the same set of phonemic symbols for a variety of accents of English, as illustrated with the full and fool example above. But I think the essential point to bear in mind in teaching and teacher training is that the IPA symbols that we use in class are phonemic and not phonetic. This means that they do not represent specific, precise sounds but rather a range of sounds, for example, /l/ represents both the clear and the dark L. It also means that they don’t represent one specific accent, but are flexible enough to accommodate a range of accents – for example, /e/ can represent the vowel phoneme in bet in both British and New Zealand accents. Dear teacher educator, the phonemic symbols can represent your trainees’ accents too; encourage them to feel that they can own them!
This article first appeared in the TEIS Newsletter (TESOL Teacher Educator Interest Section Newsletter), December 2022
PronPack: Connected Speech for Listeners print and ebook
“Connected Speech for Listeners”: New book is now out in electronic format on Kobo and Apple Books. Some folks prefer to hold a physical book, but the ebook has certain advantages too, such as easy click-to-hear audio for a quick idea of what this all sounds like.
Imagine this: You’re in the middle of the ocean, and you can see two ships. But the top part of the nearest one actually looks like a huge sheep! And above the other ship, there’s a cloud in the sky which is also the shape of a sheep. It’s a surreal scene which looks like a painting by Salvador Dali, but in fact it is part of an advertising campaign for an English language school in Brazil. ‘What on earth is the connection between this image and English?’, you may ask. But of course, you know already; shipandsheep is a minimal pair. The picture represents one of the more well-known pronunciation problems of English.
Delighted to announce the arrival of a new member of the PronPack family! Connected Speech for Listeners provides background tips plus a wealth of teaching ideas and materials for dealing in class with the pronunciation of natural spoken English. The main objective is to help learners improve their listening skills. This pocketbook-style volume is user-friendly, with short well signposted chapters providing maximum accessibility for the busy teacher.
Pronunciation in spontaneous speech does not follow the dictionary form, nor does it obey the ‘rules’ of connected speech often given in pronunciation books. It helps if learners are aware of this.
Why isn’t a racing
car shaped like a brick on wheels? Why isn’t a speedboat shaped like a bathtub?
It’s all about efficiency, making it faster and easier for the vehicle or
vessel to move through air or water. It’s about, in a word, streamlining.
Richard Cauldwell uses this term to refer to the changes that speakers make to
words and phrases so that they will slip out of the mouth with the maximum
speed and comfort. Perhaps the most obvious such change is to simply drop
sounds altogether – otherwise known as elision.
My argument in a nutshell is this: that the point of the phonemic chart is to help you to teach and your learners to learn. It is not there to police your accent. The widespread idea that the chart represents only RP (‘received pronunciation’) speech, or any other such ‘standard’ form, is profoundly unhelpful. I think we need to embrace a more flexible attitude to the chart, one that takes account of the idea that the symbols are phonemic rather than phonetic. We should recognise that each symbol represents not a single, precise sound but rather a range of sounds which listeners may interpret as that phoneme. In other words, the chart allows different accents.
A new book has just joined the PronPack family. We welcome PronPack 6: Pronunciation of English for Brazilian Learners. This volume is packed with motivating puzzles, games and raps, and it’s designed to focus on pronunciation issues which are specific to Brazilian learners of English – the kinds of problems which make it hard to distinguish pairs of words like: rat / hat; teas / cheese; piece / peas; cough / coffee; live / leave; Brad / bread, some / sung; thin / fin or Hal / how. If you teach learners from Brazil, this book is for you, and it’s available in print from Amazon.com(link is external), and as an ebook from Kobo (link is external) and Apple iBooks(link is external).