As school teachers faced with EAL learners in our classrooms, we often push the teaching of phonics down the list, especially at secondary school level. Yet communication is dependent on comprehensive pronunciation when speaking, and on decoding graphemes when reading. Consider for a moment the impact mispronunciation can have on accurate communication. For example, if I ask for soap in a restaurant, I might be faced with a blank stare! This error is caused by confusing two very similar phonemes in soap/soup.
Sometimes, dialect causes confusion too. Compare, for instance, the British and New Zealand pronunciation of vowel sounds. Speakers in New Zealand backslide their vowels, meaning that /a/ sounds like /e/ (pan or pen?) and /e/ sounds like /i/ (pen or pin?). Raising awareness of this can support learners in their understanding.
As a stress-timed language, the suprasegmental elements of speech such as stress or intonation can also become miscommunication problems when not taught. It is therefore important to teach the stress of a word along with the pronunciation of the phoneme. Consider the difficulties in understanding a sentence where the stress is placed on the wrong syllable: "I left the bottle in the hotel."
Failure to teach pronunciation often leads to fossilised errors, which become difficult to correct. The question for me is therefore: how do we include the deliberate teaching of pronunciation within a multi-skilled language-based classroom environment?
There are a couple of options. We can remediate and focus on teaching the phoneme when a communication problem arises in the classroom caused by mispronunciation. Alternatively, we can weave pronunciation teaching into our programme through deliberate planning, ensuring that we give purpose to the activities.
The resource accompanying this article shows how we can incorporate the teaching of pronunciation into our language programme in a format that can be both fun and constructive. It focuses on eliciting language and honing in on key elements of pronunciation. It raises learners awareness of the subtle differences in phonemes and provides an opportunity to improve pronunciation within the wider context of the lesson.
Teresa has worked at St John’s C of E for over 2 years. She differentiates for all ability levels but, up to now, she has never had to consider the needs of a child new to English in her class. Teresa admitted to initially feeling a little anxious, however, after seeking advice, referring to the new arrivals procedures at the school, working closely with her teaching assistant, Rumena Aktar, and giving a lot of careful thought to her planning, Teresa put the following in place:
Before arrival:
The transition from EAL beginner to intermediate learner can take from one term to a year depending on the learner.
Learning Village is an invaluable tool for deaf learners with or without EAL. The use of image as the main language of instruction provides visual cues to support your learners.
Tip or Idea: Deaf learners may need to lip read or see speech physically modelled to support their understanding. Using our resources in an adult-led small group session and/or using the demo learner as a teaching tool can be very powerful for deaf learners.
