I have loved this and the previous post, thank you so much. As someone with an allergy to academic articles, this is exactly what I need :) I created a Pronunciation Training course based around problem sounds/ important phonological features based on my years of teaching, and it's encouraging to see a lot of what I did featured in this article - albeit with room for improvement on my part!
Coming to your point about why the authors don't cover teaching assimilation etc in pronunciation - I do teach this to students but not so much for their pronunciation It's for their listening skills. My mantra is if you can produce a sound, you can hear a sound, and I think that's important for learners to realise that teaching pronunciation and listening is completely connected. Improve one, and the other will follow.
Obviously it depends on the needs of the learner and who they use English with, but if they are living in an English speaking country or working with L1 speakers of British English for example, I like to raise their awareness of things like assimilation and showing them ways they can begin to bring it into their speaking (always emphasising that it's not for their communication but so they can better understand others).
Thanks for another amazing article. Very interesting and will certainly affect the way I approach teaching pronunciation. It would definitely be worth checking out the work of Jennifer Jenkins and the Lingua Franca Core.
She carried out a study that looked at the impact of segmental and suprasegmental errors on intelligibility and came up with some key findings on what areas of pronunciation should be focussed on.
Yeah it’s not just videos but coursebooks too. I suppose that despite some of these features not being necessary to produce intelligible speech, it might useful to be aware of them for comprehension. Not being able to understand fast speakers is always a big complaint for learners and weak forms and connected speech have surely got a part to play in that.
Either way, with the LFC and Funtional Load in hand we’ve got a pretty good idea of how to best serve your students. What aspects of pronunciation I addressed first was always a bit random so it’s nice to have a more reasoned approach!
I have loved this and the previous post, thank you so much. As someone with an allergy to academic articles, this is exactly what I need :) I created a Pronunciation Training course based around problem sounds/ important phonological features based on my years of teaching, and it's encouraging to see a lot of what I did featured in this article - albeit with room for improvement on my part!
Coming to your point about why the authors don't cover teaching assimilation etc in pronunciation - I do teach this to students but not so much for their pronunciation It's for their listening skills. My mantra is if you can produce a sound, you can hear a sound, and I think that's important for learners to realise that teaching pronunciation and listening is completely connected. Improve one, and the other will follow.
Obviously it depends on the needs of the learner and who they use English with, but if they are living in an English speaking country or working with L1 speakers of British English for example, I like to raise their awareness of things like assimilation and showing them ways they can begin to bring it into their speaking (always emphasising that it's not for their communication but so they can better understand others).
Thanks for another amazing article. Very interesting and will certainly affect the way I approach teaching pronunciation. It would definitely be worth checking out the work of Jennifer Jenkins and the Lingua Franca Core.
She carried out a study that looked at the impact of segmental and suprasegmental errors on intelligibility and came up with some key findings on what areas of pronunciation should be focussed on.
Yeah it’s not just videos but coursebooks too. I suppose that despite some of these features not being necessary to produce intelligible speech, it might useful to be aware of them for comprehension. Not being able to understand fast speakers is always a big complaint for learners and weak forms and connected speech have surely got a part to play in that.
Either way, with the LFC and Funtional Load in hand we’ve got a pretty good idea of how to best serve your students. What aspects of pronunciation I addressed first was always a bit random so it’s nice to have a more reasoned approach!