Thoughts on English Pronunciation
I must have written tens of articles about English pronunciation but I never run out of ideas or other angles to view this topic from. Pronunciation, for the majority of learners, is what they study when having problems being understood. On the other hand, for some, it essentially has to do with sounding like a native speaker. Ask one of the majority “why are you studying pronunciation?”, the answer you’ll probably get is “people keep asking me to repeat everything I say, it’s embarrassing” or something along those lines. Ask one of the minority, you’ll probably hear something like “I just love English, and I don’t want to have an accent, I just want to speak like they do”. For those people, it’s a question of pride, perfectionism and total assimilation into the English speaking culture.
The fact of the matter is that pronunciation does improve clarity and can of course lead to native-like proficiency. Is that all there is to it? The answer is “definitely not”. That is probably the reason that pronunciation teaching has always been underrated, neglected and overlooked. That is also the reason that very few teachers know enough about it or how to teach it.
English Pronunciation Misunderstood
Th ESL industry’s sin is that it has always looked at pronunciation as a “what” instead of a “how”. What I mean is English schools and teachers consider it an area of the language that can to be taught, like grammar, vocabulary etc, instead of considering it the manner in which language SHOULD be taught. Teachers should not be saying “we teach grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation”, but rather, “we teach grammar and vocabulary THROUGH pronunciation”. We might as well revoke the use of the word pronunciation and replace it with “sounds”. That’s what pronunciation is. Teachers then would be teaching the language through sounds, while dealing with the students’ problems in sound production and perception as well as in meaning comprehension.
That’s not going to happen because the majority of ESL schools are often heavily regulated and supervised by academics whose job is to resist change and stifle any sense of creativity in teachers and directors. Therefore, I thought you, English learners, and definitely not all of you, as many of you either do not have the ear or you don’t have the time or motivation, could benefit from the following 7 tips to master English pronunciation.
1-Study the IPA
What is IPA? It’s the International Phonetic Alphabet. Pick one, American, British, Australian etc, whichever one you like or need based on where or who you’re going to be speaking English with. The most common ones are American and British. Although I’m Australian, I recommend the American just because of its prevalence and popularity.
So why do you need to learn the IPA? Well because of one very nasty problem in the English language, called spelling. English spelling is a nightmare for all learners and the only way to control this problem when you’re trying to improve your pronunciation is IPA. It’s a relatively good and reliable sound reference system against the mess and chaos of English spelling.
2-Research your English pronunciation problems
You have to do that in parallel with studying IPA. You’ve got to know what areas you need to target, what problems you need to tackle and what challenges you need to focus on. You can’t go into this blind. You’ve got to have solid awareness of the difficulties which await you and maybe even some tips on how to encounter them. There are of course general problems for all learners but specific ones for you, depending on your native language. If you’re Spanish or Italian, your pronunciation problems will be dramatically different from those of Japanese or Chinese. Research and re-surge.
3-Read aloud and record yourself
Once you have gained some knowledge of what you are up against, start allocating time for reading aloud and recording yourself daily. Learners just don’t realize the importance and benefits of hearing their own voice in English. First of all, it’s important physical practice and second, it makes it easier for you to pick up the errors. You can’t correct what you don’t hear right? Now, when you DO read aloud, don’t just read and that’s it. That doesn’t help. You need to focus on certain elements of the language.
For example, let’s say that, having researched the pronunciation problems of Chinese learners, you found out that consonant clusters are a big pain in the butt for you. What you need to do now is ONLY concentrate on consonant clusters like /pr/ /pl/ /ks/ /sk/ /st/ /ts/ etc. When you listen to yourself, focus only on those parts, assess yourself, record again and reassess. Assess and reassess.
4-Listen to and practice with rap songs
For you, as an English learner, training yours ears is indispensable. You’ve got to enable your ears to hear the different sound patterns of the language to better be able to distinguish between similar sounds and minimal pairs. Also, you’ll learn much about how native speakers connect the words together to speak faster and more naturally by listening to rap songs.
5-Use tongue twisters
So you think the /r/ is the source of your suffering and agony because you just can’t get yourself to say it clear enough or you sometimes can but others can’t, no problem, that’s what tongue twisters are for. Find a tongue twister featuring consonant /r/ and drill it. Again, RARAR – Record, Assess, Record Again and Reassess.
6-Find your English-speaker idol
There are hundreds of accents in English, some can even be found in the same country, if not city, so if you listen to everyone during practice, you might get confused even more. Just for the sake of improving your pronunciation, it would be a good idea to pick an idol, some actor or politician you like (the sound of or the way he or she speaks), and use this person to model yourself to. At least, you know this person is consistent in producing the sound system and patterns you hear. You might want to choose to listen to people like Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey or Anthony Robbins etc.
7-Divorce the “old” you
Hold on a sec! Do NOT panic. Don’t go ahead and renounce your citizenship just yet. That’s NOT what I mean. What I mean is that you’ve got to accept the fact that you will sound and feel different when you start speaking English like real English. However, that’s scary for many people, it’s just something that very few people are comfortable with. Mastering pronunciation or sounding like a native require some change in your speaking habits and manner. So you might feel a bit “phony”, and so might your friends and family. You’ve got to be ready to deal with that. The way I see it, it’s a very small cost to pay, but I also know many could disagree.
There you have it, your 7 tips to master English pronunciation. The biggest problem or challenge you would have to deal with is that you are on your own, so you won’t get any feedback or direction from anyone. Those with a good ear for languages can improve without anyone’s help. Those who just don’t have it though do need someone with the ear, knowledge and experience to coach them and guide them through the process.
So whaddaya think? Have you got what it takes?
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