ERIC Number: ED230020
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1982
Pages: 9
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Suggestions for Confronting Pronunciation in ESL.
Esling, John H.
A person or a group's accent includes not only vowel and consonant articulations, but also a predictable pattern of rhythmic stress placement and tonal or pitch contours, and a combination of configurational features that constitute voice quality setting. English as a second language (ESL) teachers should make their students aware of the habitual voice quality settings in their own language as well as in English. One could use the terminology of an articulatory phonetic model that is proposed in the literature in connection with descriptions of articulatory phonetics in other languages and in English. Using these as well as student demonstrations, the teacher can enable students to identify voice quality features by auditory as well as visual recognition. Techniques for building awareness of voice quality in pronunciation can be built into lessons. Students might prepare phrases in their native language and other students can then describe what they observe about the position of lip, jaw, and tongue, and about nasality and phonation type. These procedures are recommended for teaching ESL pronunciation and for enabling students to become aware not only of the teacher's voice quality setting but also of the voice quality setting of other speakers of English in contexts outside the classroom. (AMH)
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Teachers of English as an Additional Language, Vancouver (British Columbia).
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A