The Importance Of Pronunciation In Education

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Many ESL/EFL teachers struggle with teaching pronunciation. The textbook may have pronunciation exercises or the syllabus may require them. However, few teachers have any real idea how to convey this important information besides using the standard practice of listening and repeating sounds and words in isolation, whether the students are successful or not. Teachers are sometimes unequipped to deal with difficulties, besides asking for even more repetition. Students are disheartened because, no matter how hard they might try, they just cannot hear and produce the correct sound. Rather than teachers and students frustrating themselves and each other, why not give teachers the skills to guide their students into achieving an intelligible pronunciation …show more content…

Pronunciation may not seem as important as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. It may not rank as high as vocabulary and grammar. Nevertheless, speakers of English as a second language (L2) are often evaluated on their pronunciation ability (Li, 2016). Unfortunately, native speakers and advanced L2 speakers alike often judge others based on their pronunciation. A speaker with poor pronunciation may be judged as less intelligent and with little to contribute, regardless of the size of vocabulary or the depth of grammar knowledge. Although pronunciation makes a huge difference in communicative ability and intelligibility, it is usually given the least amount of attention in the classroom (Yang, 2017). Improving pronunciation has tangible benefits which include having others understand the L2 speakers and value their contributions. The L2 speaker gains confidence and makes a good impression while the listener is relieved from having to struggle to understand (Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016). Equally important, Hu (2017) suggests that learning correct pronunciation is not just about repairing errors; it is about hearing the beauty of the English language. Unfortunately, much of the research is excellent at pinpointing pronunciation problems while only giving vague suggestions for solving the indicated problems. …show more content…

Learners must study the sounds of L2 speech in their minimal units and understand how those sounds are produced within the mouth anatomy. Chinese and English have considerable phonetic differences. While some of the phones are similar, each language has sounds missing from the other. Chinese and English have a similar number of sounds, with Chinese having 40 sounds of which 15 are vowels and 25 are consonants while English has 42 sounds, 15 of which are vowels and 27 are consonants. As many as 14 of the consonants and 8 of the vowels can be considered knotty for English learners of Chinese. On the other hand, English has at least 7 vowels and 9 consonants which are often problematic. Furthermore, Chinese is composed of syllables made up of initials, which are usually consonants, and finals which are vowels. While English syllables commonly end with consonants, most Chinese syllables do not. The exception is some syllables that end with the alveolar and velar nasals, [n] and [ŋ]. Accordingly, this causes some Chinese learners of English to add an extra final vowel sound to English words that end in consonants (Ao & Low, 2016). Even sounds which are similar between the two languages do not always have the same mouth positions. For example, most Chinese vowels are formed further back and lower in the mouth than their English counterparts. English vowels tend to be longer in duration than Chinese

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