Assignment 3
Overview & background knowledge- This person is a middle age man who has a strong background in Hindi language which reflects in his speaking manner (the strong accent). He is good at making sentences and he knows what exactly he is talking about and he is a very confident speaker as well. Although his main problem is his weak presentation and delivery skills. He lacks proper enunciation while speaking which affects the clarity of his voice and the ability of others to understand him. This student would definitely benefit from correct pronunciation exercises
Speaking level- English high intermediate (fluent in Hindi). Has a very strong accent in his way of speaking.
Objective: Improving pronunciation by Active Listening Skills. This would improve the student’s fluency and fluidity in oral aspects of the language without breaking up the speech, and help focus on syllables, r sounds, t sounds, etc.
Time: 15 minutes
Activity Outline:
Improving pronunciation through focus on stress and intonation is one of the best ways to improve higher intermediate to advanced level English learners. At this level, students have a good grasp on the basics of each phoneme using exercises such as minimal pairs, and individual syllable stress. However, English learners at this level often focus too much on correct pronunciation of each word, rather than on the music of each sentence. To introduce the concept of stress and intonation and the role it plays in understanding, the students first need to understand the role of content and function words. Use this lesson on practicing stress and intonation to help. Next, students should learn how to use sound scripting - a way of marking up texts to help prepare for reading aloud. Finally, high intermediate level students should be capable of changing meaning through word stresses within sentences to bring out contextual meaning through pronunciation.
Benefit:
Since the student is a high intermediate level speaker, the normal speed would not hinder them and would allow them to concentrate on areas that they lack such as proper grammar, pronunciation of syllables, and hearing skills.
Some of the words that a student says that are syllabically incorrect
Some other problems with Hindi speakers and their pronunciation that we have noticed is the incorrect pronunciation of “Vâ€, R and “W†sounds.
For example, in the audio some of the other words that he incorrectly pronounces are: Career (Care-yeer), tourism (Tour-eesm), travel (tra-wel), benefits (ban-ifits), target (tar-gate).
A script we thought would be helpful to correct another pronunciation problem which is the harsh “R’†sounds, is as follows:
R- /r/
teacher- today we will learn how to make the /r/ sounds. So lets get started, try to repeat after me (showing the mouth expressions) To make the r sound you only use your tongue and lips, tongue has to be in the middle of the mouth and tip should not touch anything.
student- am I doing it right (trilled r sound)
teacher- not quite you are still touching the tip of your tongue. Demonstrate the r sound again.
student- is it better now
teacher- yes much better. Now let’s try it out with some easy words. Run so tip of the tongue should not touch anything and it should sound like one.
student- repeats (sounds like one).
teacher- awesome you have got the hang of it.
Corrective feedback
Checking on the students for their correct pronunciation skills or their correct mouth expressions so that they pronounce the words in a better or improved way.
Helpful resources:
Harmer, J. (2001). Chapter 13: Teaching Pronunciation. In Harmer, J. (Ed.). The practice of English language teaching (pp. 188). Essex, England: Longman.
