"Pronunciation in the teenage classroom"

Krashen talks about 'meaningful input' being the key to successful language acquisition, basing much of his research on bilingual programmes, but his theories are now being questioned as being only partially valid. One area which could throw an element of doubt into the debate is pronunciation. Take the cases of 'ROGER' and 'NELL':

Both have lived in Spain for over 10 years. Both speak excellent Spanish, in terms of grammar and vocabulary. Both use Spanish, as well as English, in their day-to-day lives at work and at home, but

ROGER'S pronunciation has a heavy L1 influence,   / * / etc. (cf. Robinson on 'El día después' / * /etc.)

NELL'S pronunciation has minimal L1 influence; she often passes for Spanish, albeit of uncertain regional origin.

How are we to account for this difference? The exposure is the same, but the following factors may be significant:

• Sex 

• Age

• Personality (risk-taker etc.)

• Aptitude 

• Previous language learning experience 

• Learning style 

• Motivation 

• Sense of Identity / integration 

• Opinions/ beliefs/attitudes to target language 

• Goals (I want to use L2 to........) 

• Arbitration/correction. (status may come in here; we are more likely to correct our peers than our bosses). 

As teachers, obviously we cannot influence or modify many of these factors, but there are some that we can attempt to adapt to our advantage. I would suggest that they are the following:

• Motivation 

• (Identity/Integration) 

• Opinions et al. 

• (Goals) 

• Arbitration/Correction

The other factors should all be taken into account in any classroom, obviously, but are difficult or impossible for a teacher to actually change.

The five factors I have selected are all inter-linked, and, particularly in the mind of a teenager, can be summed up as 'What's the point?'; our job is to show them the point.

Let us look at each factor in turn:

MOTIVATION 
     
As you know, teenage motivation can be fairly clearly divided into the categories of 'carrot' or 'stick', of 'it's a compulsory subject; I have to pass the exams, si no mis padres me matan' versus 'I like English and I want to learn to speak it'.
Maslow (1968) proposed a hierarchy of needs as defining motivation (which he saw as innate) in adults:

*

1. Physical needs 2. Security 3. Social Acceptance 4. Self-esteem 5. Self-realisation, 'true achievement'.

It could possibly be argued that this pyramid is inaccurate or incomplete as a reference for adults nowadays, but I think it is safe to say that it hardly reflects the average teenager at all. What would the adolescent version of this pyramid look like? I propose something like the following:

*

1. Physical needs 2. Security 3. Social Acceptance 4. Self-esteem 5. Self-realisation, 'true achievement'.

An adult in an English classroom is likely to be at level 5 of the original pyramid, using language learning to reinforce 4 & 5, or possibly at level 3, if he is living in the L2 country.
A teenager is a different ball-game. We, as teachers, have to support and nurture the large area on the left, AS WELL AS teach them a language. Being 'good at English' and having good pronunciation can ostracise a youngster, so it is our job to motivate the WHOLE group, and make liking English be seen to be 'cool' as a priority over merely awarding medals to achievers. Thus we can deal with 'identity' or 'integration' too, as the whole group become the achievers. Whilst not an easy task, it is not impossible, though you may have to alter your expectations, be sensitive to their capabilities, rather than 'where we have to get to in the book'. 
Self-esteem in the classroom has a lot to do with how WE treat them, and with respect; teenagers need to see the point of exercises - in fact of doing pronunciation in the first place - just as adults do, so we should treat them as adults, by using meaningful activities and overtly explaining the point. Just doing an exercise 'because it's the next thing in the book' is meaningless, and may clearly imply that we don't really think about what we do, or think about who we do it for - so why should they be expected do it? If you treat your students with respect, they'll generally return that respect and be willing to take on board most of what you throw at them.

OPINIONS AND ATTITUDES
    
There are two main attitudes to English - or any other language, for that matter - that walk in through the classroom door. Any teacher with experience of teenagers is more than familiar with them:
The predominant opinion
It's a school subject. It's an exam 2 or 3 times a year, and a pass or fail in summer.
The minority opinion
It's a language. I can use it in my 'real life'. It can be fun.

If English is only a subject to be passed, pronunciation is almost irrelevant. Speaking is almost irrelevant. What counts is the completion of exercises. If you do not do many speaking or pronunciation activities in class, you will only compound this opinion.
We have to show students that English is a living entity, it can be a tool, a means, a friend and a source of pleasure. For millions of people it is a way of life. It is music, the Internet, computer games, they can make friends through chats in English and so on. And as a Language, pronunciation is a priority to communication.

Changing these attitudes, swinging the opinion implies changing goals - the exam..........AND BEYOND!!

ARBITRATION

This really means some form of meaningful correction, feedback or quite simply coherent input. Pronunciation is often at worst ignored, and at best corrected in isolation and 'sobre la marcha', on the spot. The keyword in these post Krashen times is 'noticing'. This is all about drawing attention to items so that the learners consciously become aware of them, for example, features of the language as a whole such as connected speech features like word-linking between consonants and vowels, or an individual student's problem - I thought I spoke fairly good Spanish after a spell in Granada until my teacher, a Salmantina, said to me one day "Fiona, it's often difficult to catch the end of your words; 'foco' and 'foca' become indistinguishable." I then became aware of this tendency and consciously started to correct it. With teenagers, it's not usually a good idea to put then in the spotlight, but if you are aware of one student's problem (for instance 'good', 'would', 'bood'), a quick 5-10 minute identifying/correcting activity, disguised within a class on the 2nd conditional may help to solve the problem. (see below for activities).

SEEING THE POINT and SWINGING THE OPINION can be reinforced by as much speaking and listening as possible. But how should we organise the activities and what activities are likely to work, taking all of the above into account.?

Activities
General tips

The main thing is to actually DO pronunciation, insist on its value, be consistent, teach good habits from the start. If you do it with enthusiasm, they'll take it more seriously; if you treat it like a pointless exercise, your students will reflect your attitude. Systematic 'arbitration' and the teaching of good habits are vital. You should start pronunciation from day one - sentence stress is a good starting point, as they can use it immediately.

Let the students be responsible for much of the class. Don't simply plan a P-P-P (Presentation-Practice-Production) class on, say, /b/ & /v/ , plan a T-T-T class ( Task, Teach, Task) on 'an aspect of pronunciation'; it's riskier but more valid, and ultimately more satisfying. Give them a speaking activity, tape record them if you can, then troubleshoot an area you've noticed in the task - it may well be /b/ & /v/, but they might be quite good at that and shaky on sentence stress, or diphthongs or..... This is a good technique to avoid wasting time on elements which they may already know, such as Greem Park/ whipe meat et al. - Spanish speakers tend to pronounce these correctly anyway cf. Um beso/ caminang cogidos de la mano.

Teenagers are usually better at imitating sounds than adults, but worse at sentence stress and intonation (that natural, adolescent 'yo qué sé' boredom element, mixed with embarrassment, intonation being 'una mariconada', if you'll pardon the expression ), so it is important to take these tendencies into account when planning pronunciation activities. Furthermore, pronunciation activities can be brought into a class on virtually anything - functions, grammar, vocabulary.........

Activities you might like to try

Remembering that you'll always have a variety of learning styles and aptitudes in any given group, you should offer a variety of activities during the year, not always repeat the same type of thing. What is more, it is a good idea to mix group drilling (or 'rap') activities with activities in smaller groups, pairs etc. Individual work is only practical in a language laboratory or for homework (you could ask them to find 8 types of fruit or vegetables with the schwa sound in their names). I find that at all levels, using the phonemic symbols is extremely useful, as it gives the learner a further tool or point of reference, and I recommend the chart provided by 'English File' as a fun visual aid/ wall decoration!

My own pronunciation teaching activities tend to fall into one of five loosely defined categories.

1. For features such as word-linking, minimal pairs, individual sounds and so on, .I usually do pair-work. Sentences like those in the Headway Pronunciation or English File series are fine for this. Use the cassettes for identification of the feature in question, check the learners' ability to produce it, model it or use the typical cross-section of a mouth diagram to explain it, then working in pairs one student produces the target sound/s and the other evaluates the degree of success. This system has several advantages:

A) They, the students, are the arbitrators; they have the responsibility, and responsibility means motivation. 
B) They are 'noticing', heightening their awareness by teaching & evaluating, as well as producing.
C) It is a competitive situation, 'I'm better than you, mate', so they are far more likely to make an effort. 
D) You are free to monitor and help 'weaker' students.

2. I do a lot of 'rhythm' practice, right from day one, and explain the whole stress-time system, comparing it with bars of music. Understanding is half way to learning. Personally, I focus on sentence stress first, then bring intonation in later.
   Any interview type activity will do for this - 'What's your name?', 'Have you ever...?', 'What would you do if.........?'. Let them identify the content words, then click them through the sentences starting with Teacher>Group, Teacher>Student, then into St.>St. quickly so as not to lose momentum. A word of advice; when I was training, we were told that sentence stress could be demonstrated either by clapping in time, or by snapping fingers. In my experience, clapping is out, especially with teenagers as it just isn't cool !
   To monitor, simply move around the room listening and clicking your fingers, guiding or reminding only when necessary. You can develop this area via rapping (try the Prince of Bel Air, anything in the charts or ask them to write their own), and chants ('Jazz Chants',...), whichever you are more comfortable with.
      

3. Songs. Lots of songs. Songs are wonderful things, and nearly everybody likes music, don't they? However, you do need to keep yourself up-to-date AND have a supply of Beatles, Police, maybe even Guns'n'Roses and Green Day, but forget Phil Collins, Elton John, Sting..........they're for 'old guys'! Learners can anticipate words through sound or rhyme (Every Breath You Take by Police); they can write every other line of a song, again following the rhyme structure, syllable count (choose something easy, with a bit of a story), or write a 'missing verse' ('Hand in Pocket' by Alanis Morissette).
   You can provide a 'wrong lyric' sheet, and they identify the improbable words from the meaning, and correct them from sound recognition (When I get colder, losing my heart......' a variation on 'When I'm 64' by the Beatles). I always oblige my students to sing at the end of the activity; they don't have to sing like Pavarotti, though, as mumbling along in time is also valid pronunciation practice.
   Lip-synching ('playback') is also a good awareness activity, and it works from about 9 years old up. They can BE the group. I've tried 'Love, love me do' with 12 year-olds in groups of 4, playing air guitars, drums, fighting over who wants to be Paul McCartney, and with 4ESO and Bachillerato last summer, I used 'America' from 'Westside Story', a direct lift from 'Gran Hermano' I am embarrassed to confess, though to make it more fun, and draw on the show-off instinct particularly evident in teenage boys, the boys mimed the women's part, and the girls mimed that of the men. I also video-recorded the result, which added motivation. They DO get into it, especially the boys, and the video can really help if you can borrow one. 
      

4. Theatre, sketches and 'Caiga Quien Caiga' type projects. Teenaged learners will make far more effort for an audience, or if they're pretending to be someone else; somehow the embarrassment element is reduced when you are no longer Pepe, Tanausú or Marta, but Humphrey Bogart, Tonino, Boris Izaguirre or Leticia Sabater (the latter two being excellent for intonation!!). It works with all ages, but you need a lot of patience and a fair amount of time. Again, a borrowed video recorder is a plus.  
      

5. Noticing tasks. These are useful for intonation, connected speech features or even for problem sounds like the 's' (Canarias, Andalucía....). There is intonation work in the Headway Pronunciation series, which you can also use for connected speech. The English File books are good, especially the intermediate one. And again songs; I use 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' with beginners - they try to sing it, then listen and count the 's' sounds, then sing again (much more successfully)- and the song 'What it feels like for a girl' by Madonna could be used for the same purpose with older students, as it is full of 's' and 'h' sounds. I have used songs by the likes of Pearl Jam and Alanis Morissette with higher level groups, in activities where they mark probable cases of word-linking, assimilation and so on, listen to check their predictions- and then sing of course.
   
   
   What I do in the classroom may not work, or be comfortable, for everyone, but there are an enormous number of activities you can try; the main thing is to actually DO THEM, and do them interestingly, make it fun. Believe in what you are doing, and hopefully your students will follow your lead; you never know, they might even see the point......................................................     

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When I was preparing this article, I asked several teachers what they thought on the subject. Several gave me very valid replies, but I think these two teachers , both of whom have been teaching for longer than we usually like to admit, were particularly helpful:

THE VOICE OF THE NATIVE EFL TEACHER
1. The American
2. The Brit.

1. "The whole question of teaching pronunciation is complex. The objectives that one sets for oneself and the students of a language classroom are usually somehow predetermined either by the students´ own agenda, ie. "I want to be able to understand a business meeting carried out in English" or by the present curriculum of the organization or academy in which one is working (level Interm. 3: units 5-10 Headway Int). Pronunciation is usually not treated as a top priority in ether case. Students rarely think of it as important as vocabulary or grammar, and textbook tend to throw it in now and again to be able to fall into the "well rounded textbook" domain.
   
   It seems to me that teachers themselves don´t know where to put pronunciation on their personal list of priorities. I tend to forget about it all too often, as do many of my fellow teachers. I once believed it was the last thing a student would deal with and could be left for when the student already achieved a more advanced level of English. I was very mistaken, and now begin to work on it with total beginners.
   
   The easiest, and perhaps most useful thing for students at all levels is the pronunciation of single words. I am a vocabulary freak, and I have included pronunciation of the word as part of the total assimilation/learning of the word. Nothing new under the sun, I know…. Nevertheless it may be understood that that is important, but I think many of us forget to do it. The syllable stress is not difficult to teach (in comparison, intonation, I feel is a much more complex and abstract musical idea of the language.). Teaching the students a very concrete system to record and pronounce a word with the correct stress is not at all impossible. The circle representation is something I use a lot (Mathematician- ooOo) and I have students add this to their vocabulary notes that they have (endless and unstudied list). This is an easy way to help students with pronunciation from the very first time they use a new vocabulary item. No biggie, I know, but if this information is recycled (THE KEY) than is can be easily mastered by the student. Other words have their own specific difficulties which I also have student note (Island no /s/, does /z/ not /s/ - that /z/ pronunciation is important for students who of course see an s written and pronounce it as an /s/ when it is a voiced /z/, Character the /k/ sound, etc) These little things are important, take no major understanding of phonology and can be easily (/i:zIly/!!!!) assimilated by even the most beginning level students. 
   
   The past tense ""ed" pronunciation is another fairly easy and yet extremely important idea that many advanced learners haven't mastered, for they think it is not important. The idea of adding an extra syllable or not to the word is more important than if they pronounce /t/ or /d/. I have a young woman in a company class who is quite advanced. She speaks on the phone in English a lot and after working with the ed pronunciation for 15 mins every class for about three weeks (2 days a week) she came into class and was delighted to announce that she found that she was much better understood on the phone. Her enthusiastic discovery was contagious and the other students began to take pronunciation more seriously. They have improved a lot in their pronunciation of ed past tense verbs and think twice now before spitting out work-ed. Small point, but important, and NOT OVERWHELMING for the teacher to present.
   
   Maybe that hinders us as teachers. I think WE see pronunciation as overwhelming. I do. I can´t begin to deal with all the jargon and different complex aspects of pronunciation, so I don´t communicate it to my students. We have to believe it is important before they will. I teach what I feel comfortable with. I could learn more, and do try, but it falls by the wayside as I wrestle with clarifying modal auxiliaries.
   I have begun to give all students a photocopy of the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is used in dictionaries and I choose a few of the most problematic sound to go over. Students don´t buy it at first, but with time they do begin to see it´s use. I am no master at the symbols, and don´t pretend to be, but I do find that by writing even the most basic words in phonetic script, the students begin to get an understanding of how totally non-phonetic English is when written. This is a basic fact, and I feel teacher need to make students aware of it by spending a bit of time on principles of English pronunciation and how different it is from Spanish (for us monolingual classroom teachers here in Spain). 
   
   We can´t go for perfection. Nor should we expect it from students. Intelligibility is my goal (as in the case with the woman and the ed pronunciation.) Awareness is the key. We have to help students become aware of very basic ideas. I have a stupid speech that I generally give all my classes when talking about intonation. My "speech" is intended to just show students that English does have a much wider range of pitch than Spanish. I put a chart/graph on the board and show the range of Spanish pitch which is very limited and compare it to American English, British English (wider than American) and Arabic (more limited than Spanish). I point out that when we say "You're kidding!" with surprise, we cover a very wide range in one phrase. Spanish tend to feel ridiculous (Arabic speakers even more) if they were to copy this exactly. The men may feel effeminate, and all feel like they are being total clowns. Nevertheless, it is a phenomenon of the English language. Monotone speaking communicates boredom to the listener. 
   
   It is this type of general information that must be given to beginning students so that they can start to concentrate on pronunciation from an early stage and incorporate it in their own objectives. If grammatically X does not equal Y when translating from one language to another, than this is also true when translating the idea of intonation, rhythm, etc. I think we as teachers hardly ever make a point to explain this to our students.
   
   Jazz Chants and Small Talk (Carolyn Graham) are two books which I still use. They are the products of someone who is both an English teacher and Jazz musician. Music and songs are based on rhyme and rhythm and pitch and all that good stuff that makes up the communicative possibilities of intonation, stress, etc in a language. Songs and Jazz chants can be used with learners of any age. I have used Jazz Chants with executives of large companies, teenagers and college students. I get into it, present it as a game type activity, and the executives, although they feel childish at first, do feel the power of the chant- for they are full of the power of the language. Teenagers like the repetition and possibility of mastering the chant in a short time. The hardest part is the presentation and acceptance on the part of the learner that it is, in fact "worth it" to embrace as a valid activity. It is not for all (but) I believe in it, feel comfortable with it and can therefore "sell it" to the students. There is a power in music which parallels the power of the music of a Language.
   
   I guess I would have to stress that we as teachers need to become more comfortable presenting and teaching pronunciation. I took a course in teaching pronunciation many years ago…oh God!…at IH. It opened my head to possibilities. I have forgotten much. Possibly we need to incorporate pronunciation more as part of our personal agenda. In order to do that though, we must feel it is important. I thing that as a general rule teachers play "hit and miss" and incorporate an aspect of pronunciation in our lesson plans when it comes up in the book, or when a question is asked. We quickly go over the pronunciation exercise in the book or answer the question as best we can and move on to grammar. We do not (at least most of the teachers I know) place the importance that we possibly should on pronunciation. That is nothing new. Why then is it still an issue? Is it lacking really? Do students need more work on it? How do we know that? 
   
   A couple of weeks ago I had students read a passage aloud. They took turns. I decided not to read along in the book with them, just to see if I could understand what they were reading by listening. I suprised myself and them. I had to stop them for clarification so much that it became embarrassing to the students reading. Since I didn´t want to embarrass the hell out of them, I decided to stop, and follow along in the book. I took advantage of the situation to point out that we had some major work to do on pronunciation. They agreed. I've done little work since. Why? Well the overwhelming feeling of "where to begin". I started on ed pronunciation, and have begun to look for new stuff to cover. I am also trying to RECYCLE pronunciation activities just as we do grammar activities. It´s a beginning."
      

2. "As for the pronunciation....mmmm....well, visitors from IH London used to be horror-stricken or struck by the amount (very little) that teachers at IH Barcelona used to do on this subject with their students. They always used to tell us how the Spanish speakers were amongst the worst pronouncers in mixed nationality classes and we should be doing our five penn'orth to improve things. But it wasn't easy. What I used to do on a very regular basis was work on word stress and schwa because it was so manageable, intonation in questions and question tags and a bit of work on sounds, and trying to eradicate the loCH sound that some students had, trying to get them to pronounce would with a /w/ and not a /g/ at the beginning...little bits and pieces, and the easier ones (eg: /b/ vs: /v/, not rolling the rrrrrrrr) The main problem was that they couldn't see the point and thought it was ridiculous /hopeless. I remember Scott (Thornbury)having a thing about getting people to imagine they were English or American - "Say this as though you were John Wayne, or Brad Pitt, or Hugh Grant" or female equivalents - this worked well with teenagers, they loved mimicking. Play them a tape and ask them what it sounds like and can they make themselves sound like that. Pure imitation, of tapes, videos......Also using different emotions.. 
   
   Of course, I could tell you masses of pron. exercises that students will amuse themselves doing, but how much rubs off.....I did a pronunciation course in London a couple of years ago and used Mark Hancock's "Pronunciation Games" a lot, they really enjoyed it. I'm sure you know it. At IH London they had a language lab so students could listen to themselves, this is really useful I think. So much of pronunciation work is the ability or otherwise to mimic, and submersion in the target language culture - I remember after my first year in Bilbao going back to the UK and realising that when I spoke, my tongue was automatically positioning itself further back and flattening (as in making a /d/ rather than a /t/) even when I spoke English, as I'd been working so hard to learn Spanish in the previous twelve months and spent most of my time with Spanish speakers."

"Fiona"                           
                        

RECOMMENDED READING
     
S. Thornbury - 'About Language..' (CUP) - The thinking teacher's bedside companion, to be read and inwardly digested, with a solid section on pronunciation, an area missed or ignored by many general teacher development/training books.

S. Thornbury - 'how to Teach Grammar' (Longman) - good examples of T-T-T classes and 'noticing'.

P. Skehan - 'A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning' (OUP).
T. Wright - 'Roles of Teachers and Learners' (OUP) -both very useful, readable methodology books, dealing with language acquisition and teaching styles.

P.Ur - more or less anything she has ever written can give you ideas for activities you can use as a pronunciation focus.

M.Swan & B. Smith - 'Learner English' (CUP) describes the pronunciation, and other, difficulties found by various speakers of various nationalities including Spanish.

Bowler & Cunningham - Headway Pronunciation series (OUP)

M. Hancock - 'Pronunciation Games' (CUP) - see The Bookmark/ Libro Abierto.

Oxenden, Seligson, & Latham-Koenig - English File series (OUP) - see The Bookmark/Libro Abierto.

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