Teaching Pronunciation

I have to do this a lot.  Japanese has a much smaller set of sounds than English and a few sounds that English doesn't have at all.  Furthermore it has a completely different system of phonology.  Syllables are constructed differently and stress (debate-ably not appropriately called stress in Japanese) is tonal rather than by vowel variation, length, and intensity as in English.  I'm still learning how to teach pronunciation myself but having a little background in Linguistics is extremely useful.

Consonants where the articulators (parts of the mouth that you use to make sounds) can be seen are pretty easy to teach.  For example 'F' and 'V' you make by touching your top teeth to your bottom lip and blowing air through through them.  Consonants where the articulators aren't so easily visible are much harder to teach and require careful explanations, diagrams, and other teaching tools.  This latter bit applies to vowels too but in my experience vowels are even harder to teach because the manner of production is difficult to describe in spatial and physical terms.

To teach the sounds of your language you first need to learn them.  You might not realize all of the sounds you use in your language and your writing system might influence the way you think about those sounds as well.  I advise looking up the phonology on the internet and saying the sounds and examples while you read through them.  Learn how they're different from English.  Focus on the differences but learn the similarities as well.

Tools:

• Mid-sagittal diagrams (They show the vocal tract as if the head were sliced in two between the eyes)
• Mirrors (So your students can see their articulators moving while watching yours)
• Listening practice pyramids with minimal pairs
• A list of words that use the sounds that you can read through to exemplify the sound in different environments (context helps people learn!)
• If at all possible, videos/3d simulations of the mouth moving to make the sound
• A kazoo for teaching intonation or stress patterns
• These and more tips are available at http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/esl/pronunciation.cfm
  

So.. What the heck is a minimal pair?

Good question.  A minimal pair is a pair of like words that differ in only one regard.  For example "bad" and "bid" are minimal pairs.  You could say that "bad", "bid", and "bud" is a minimal triplet.  The important part is that the only thing different about these words is the vowel sound.  The pronunciation is otherwise the same.  Other examples are "cat" and "bat", as well as "mean" and "meal".

There are also something called near minimal pairs. These are pairs of words that differ slightly more, but not much.  We can use near minimal pairs if there isn't a minimal pair to explain a certain sound.  For example, in English "blimey" and "crimey" are a near minimal pair.  They differ in the initial consonant cluster.  A Japanese listener however would only realize that they differ in the first consonant.  The "l" and "r" distinction isn't immediately perceptible by most Japanese learners of English.  Thus if I needed to teach the difference between "b" and "k" (the sound 'c' makes here) I would need to use a different example if possible, because there are other potentially complicating factors.  It's also not a great example for "l" and "r" because the first part of the consonant cluster is different.

Start off with simple, direct differences.  Move towards more complicated ones once people have clearly mastered the simple ones.

Teaching Tips from Mark

I'll try to occasionally post some basic teaching tips for HelloWM instructors to peruse here.  I teach children from grades 1-9 every day and adults of all ages once per week.  These tips and factoids and pointers come from my own experience and the resources I've been given, though they're not necessarily of my own design.

First off, in descending order of importance:

1. Cover the material slowly.

     There are some reasons why you might not want to move slowly but in general it's better not to rush through material.  Human memory is limited, especially in how much it can store at one time.  Psychology will tell you that people will only remember some number of units of information +/- 2.  That's a weird definition, but you'll notice it's true as you check for comprehension.  Until people start learning patterns in the language (which takes time) they won't be able to group those units of information together and will be severely limited.  So don't try to cover more than they can learn.  Keep it to about 3-5 points at a time.
 
2. Keep the class moving at a relatively quick pace.

     That's not meant to contradict the previous entry in the least.  You should, rather than cover those few points very slowly, try to come up with several activities that reinforce the same few points and keep them going at a good clip.  This is to keep people engaged.  Think how easily you yourself get bored.  Although you love to hear yourself talk, all teacher's do, realize that the students might be interested in what you have to say, but zone out anyway.  Lectures can get boring fast, especially if you're saying the same thing five times over the course of ten minutes.  Keep the pace up and keep everyone into it, be lively and engaging.

3. Review more often than you introduce new material.

      You heard the maxim, Practice Makes Perfect.  Well it works with language too.  Don't assume your students have learned the material just because you've covered it.  Review it at least twice after you've introduced it.  There are many ways of reviewing including reinforcement activities, question and response, and various review games.  Continue to review material in future lessons.  Everytime try to review previous material at least at the beginning.  I try to tie in review of previous materials alongside new information.  Point out that you've covered it already and people will be more likely to remember it.

4. If you havn't heard your students voices during the lecture, you don't know if they understood anything you said or not- Ask for verbal responses, repeatedly.

     Again, don't assume your students have learned the material just because you've covered it.  Verbal practice should be a part of every language learning lesson.  Have everyone repeat after you together, then individually, then together again.  Especially with difficult pronunciations you'll have to get lots and lots of attempts before they're good.  This isn't to say that written practice is bad, but verbal practice is easier to assess DURING class/instruction time.  Also, I'll go into this more later but use Minimal Pairs to demonstrate difficult pronunciations.

New Blog

Because I'm unsure as to how long Google is going to let me keep the HelloWM website on their deprecated Pages server I'm making this blog as the backup information center for HelloWM.  I'm planning to purchase a new webserver to host the site from, but until I get around to that you can have this wonderful blog.

News!

• HelloWM is starting it's second school year with some exciting new class offerings including Bengali and Tagalog.
• I hear the activities fair and language fair both went pretty well with lots of interested folks signing up.
• We now have this blog!
• Lots more exciting stuff is in the works, but I don't want to publish it until it's final.