What is the importance of teaching good pronunciation? There is a common misunderstanding about the importance of pronunciation and language. A common misconception is that many think pronunciation is all about how you speak and if you have an accent or speak like a native. English being a system of class distinction also leads to this conclusion. There is also confusion about the differences between pronunciation and accent. “Pronunciation can be good or bad, but accent is accent and there isn't a good or bad accent really” (Sruton, 2012). All languages have accents and dialects depending on the areas they come from, and the sounds they are exposed to while growing up. “Many people think of language as being all about words and the grammatical …show more content…
Phonology, teaches students about the letter sounds and about the relationship, between letters and combinations of letters, and their sounds. There are twenty six letters in the English alphabet, but, 46 sounds. Most written by combining letters in different ways. In schools, throughout the English speaking world, phonics is used to help students learn to read and spell quickly. By learning the relationship between the letters and their respective sounds, the children use these skills to work out how to read and pronounce the words they see. “It also helps them to guess how to spell and read words. This greatly increases the speed of learning. The focus on identifying sounds also helps English learners with pronunciation and listening skills” (Jenkins, 2011). Not all words in English follow the phonics rules? This is one reason why English is considered to be a difficult language to learn. If it was a phonetic language it would be much easier to learn.
For this reason, while learning phonics is important, children also need to learn the common words that do not fit the phonics rules, such words are called Dolch sight words for example: a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it and many others. To learn Dolch sight words students are taught to memorize the letters of the word, without sounding them out. “This is called the ‘Look and Say’ method. Most modern courses
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“The same is true for learning vocabulary, where doubts about the pronunciation of words make it very difficult for learners to remember them” (Walker, 2012). Grammar is also helped with good pronunciation as a student starts to recognize the right combinations. The basic sounds of a language are the building blocks to speech. The words are the symbols of the sounds that convey the meaning. In recent years “The emergence of so many different kinds of international English, caused a number of linguists to query the use of native speaker pronunciation models in the teaching of English” (Jenkins, 2011). You hear the term 'global English' or EIL. The term is used to refer to English being spoken throughout the world. Countries like India, Philippines, Singapore and other countries use English as their first language. This type of English makes up the largest group of English speakers, numbering around one point five billion. A number of linguists questioned the use of native speaker pronunciation models in the teaching of English. Their argument being that some native speaker accents are not automatically the most intelligible or suitable accents when a non-native speaker is talking with another non-native speaker. In regards to, intelligible pronunciation for 'global English' or EIL, the objective was to find out which
Reading is an integral aspect of succession in life and is required to complete the simplest of tasks. Therefore the teaching of reading, which in England is done mainly through a programme of systematic synthetic phonics, is of great importance in all primary schools. The word phonics, “describes the letters or symbols used to encode a language’s spoken components” (Venezky, 1999. Cited in Mesmer and Griffith, 2006) and the “importance of systematic phonics instruction in relation to the teaching of reading has been increasingly recognised by English-speaking countries” (Wyse and Goswami, 2008). This is most likely due to as Venezky (1999) states, because English as a language is made up of an alphabetic code.
The article “Hands-on and Kinesthetic Activities for Teaching Phonological Awareness” is the study of language being composed of sounds and sounds that can be manipulated. Phonics is one of the primary building blocks of reading and learning. Phonics teaches children to listen more carefully to the sounds that make up each word. The study was performed in two before-school programs, both with students in primary grades. The study contained 1 object box and 5 environmental print card games.
Whole Language versus Phonics has been a question among many top educational groups for years. Which is the best way to teach kindergarten children the proper way to speak and learn the English Language? There are many valid reasons why experts argue for both phonics and/or whole language. Both seem to be exceptional ways to master the English Language. The purpose of this research paper is to compare phonics versus whole language and to determine how technology can support each approach.
Phonological awareness is the ability to be aware of the sounds certain letters in words make. Sue Bredekamp and Carrol Copple explain, “Another strong predicator of phonological awareness; that is, noticing the sounds of spoken language- beginning speech sounds and rhythms, rhyme and other sound similarities, and, at the highest level, syllables and phonemes (the smallest units of speech that make a difference in communication)” (Bredekamp & Copple, 2009, p. 147). An example of something I can use in the classroom will follow standard LAFS.K.RF.2.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes). a. Recognize and produce rhyming words. By teaching children to listen to the ending sounds of a word, I can use a felt board to hang up pictures of a cat, bat, rat, hat, mat, and images showing pat, sat, and splat. I will ask the class to listen for ending sounds and find the similarities. I can assess them by adding pictures of a dog, chair, fan, and pen on the mat and see if they can match the rhyming words and omit the non-rhyming
Crossen, C. (1997). Studies suggest phonics help children learning to read. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 16, 2005 from
In the partial alphabetic phase individuals pay attention to different letters in a word in order to attempt its pronunciation, usually the first and final letters of a word are focused on, Ehri referred to this as ‘phonetic cue reading’. This is a skill which along with others which shows phonological awareness.
There are four rules of language discussed in this class. The study of phonetics is the study of the sounds of language. The International Phonetic Alphabet was invented to transcribe the sounds of speech which was independent of any particular language and applicable to all languages ("International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)," 2014). The study of phonology is the study of the sound patterns of language. Phonology tells you what sounds are part of your language and what combinations of sounds form words. Phonology also explains why some phon...
The proper use of pronunciation is what helps a message be understood easily by other fluent English speakers. Often times, an ELL student can struggle with forming a word correctly and may cause a word to be pronounced as a different, but similarly sounding word. One example of how the pronunciation of a word can cause a message to be unclear a Spanish speaker pronouncing “kitchen” as “chicken”. These two words are very close in sound, but each word has a completely different meaning. A mother that asks a child to “please clean the kitchen” greatly differs from the mispronounced word that has changed the sentence to “please clean the chicken”. There are many speech therapy courses that are offered in schools that will improve a child’s ability to speak productively. In the oral language speech by ELL student Tania, the Spanish student faces challenges while pronouncing “stories about magic, vampires “. These impediments can be worked on and improved over time. The grading scale of pronunciation on a rubric can range from insufficient in the result of being virtually unintelligent; to excellent, being that it pleasantly uses intonation and pronunciation as accurately as a native speaker
Phonological awareness and phonics are closely connected in teaching young children, firstly we need to understand what phonics is. Phonics is a method of the teaching smallest unit of sound in the English language, not only repressed by one letter but also between patterns and sound-letter relationship. Phonics is the sound that
The five key elements are one, Phonemic Awareness. This is when a teacher helps children to learn how to manipulate sounds in our language and this helps children to learn how to read. Phonemic Awareness can help to improve a student’s reading, and spelling. With this type of training the effects on a child’s reading will last long after training is over. The second key is Phonics. Phonics has many positive benefits for children in elementary schools from kindergarten up to the sixth grade level. Phonics helps children who struggle with learning how to read by teaching them how to spell, comprehend what they are reading, and by showing them how to decode words. The third key is Vocabulary. Vocabulary is important when children are learning how to comprehend what they are reading. Showing children, the same vocabulary words by using repetition will help them to remember the words. The fourth key is comprehension. Comprehension is when a child’s understanding of comprehension is improved when teachers use different techniques such as generating questions, answering questions, and summarizing what they are
Experiencing those days where people would laugh at other for the broken English; the grammar and pronunciation are the toughest parts of the language. People with English as a second language always stumble upon difficulties; however, the determination of learning a new language do not decrease easily as the motivation is still surrounding one’s mind. Today, English has become an international communication; even the teaching and learning of the language has already spread throughout the world. English is known as one of the most common use language and has been offering classes everywhere for years especially around Asia; additionally, the world common language has now become the number one language uses in every fields of career that is being offer everywhere. Non-American students should be required to take English class as a second language in school
(2005). Learning and Teaching Pronunciation. Oxford: MacMillan is based on segmental approach, because it presents segments of the English Language particularly and at minute details of vowels and consonants. As evidence, in the discovery activity 3, the horizontal tongue position, students are asked to say /i:/ as in tea, and /u:/as in two. Further this, teaching pronunciation book provides English students with details on the tongue, jaw and lips position to produce certain sound(s), for example how to articulate key /ki:/ and kay /keI/. As stated above, both excerpts are not based on the suprasegmental approach but on the segmental
The title of the article gave a fair representation of the topic as it was clear and concise in the wording. The title encompassed the idea that alphabet letter instruction on young children’s word recognition would be explored through experiments and analysis. Reading on through the article it was evident that the effects of alphabet letter instruction on you children’s word recognition were addressed.
By assuming that students will learn proper communication skills without guidance is a big mistake. Individuals should begin learning basic communication skills at birth and continue learning throughout their educational experience. There are, of course, many types of communication. We use verbal communication, non-verbal communication, written communication and many different forms of. Additionally, communication plays an important role in the process of conveying knowledge as well. Communication is instrumental in education since it helps the instructor and the students to work together with each other. Communication is the most important component of any society. In order, to communicate properly we need correct pronunciation, because pronunciation affects how we understand the meaning of the words. If the sound of a word is different it could lead the listener to believe that the word has a different meaning, and if this happens, it is very obvious that it is a form of improper communication. This may lead to a lot of misinterpretations. To avoid these kinds of problems we need to teach accurate pronunciation. English, in schools, is a very important subject for teaching proper...
In this course we study both phonetics and phonology. Phonetics to improve the way we should spell the sounds, and in order to spell the correct sounds we should learn how to listen accurately. It’s also known as the study of language which contains 44 sounds and 26 letters. Phonology is to study the rules for combining phonemes and what happened due to this combination. Phonetics contains consonant, vowels & diphthongs. It’s also used in language and linguistics rules that specify how the phonemes are organized into syllables, words, and sentences to