PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Segmental Aspects

Most of the English non-native learners see pronunciation as one of the most difficult aspects in learning English. Teaching “correct”, the most accurate pronunciation to non-native English learners should be an inevitable part of the educational process targeting foreign language learning. Incorrect or improper pronunciation (i.e. inadequate usage of orthoepic or orthophonic aspects) could cause breakdowns in communication, so training the most accurate and imitating the most authentic pronunciation must not be underestimated.

In Slovakia, the teaching pronunciation model is British Received Pronunciation. Creative and flexible teachers vary teaching materials and methods to reach what they expect from the students. The materials used for motivating students to learn a foreign language should be relevant and the goals set achievable. It is best if the selected activities are challenging and inspiring.

Nowadays, not only usual traditional techniques, traditional classroom methodology and activities are used in the process of raising the phonic awareness when teaching languages. There are loads of exercises, tasks, applications and items included in specialised pronunciation handbooks, in magazines, or on the internet, particularly, e.g. https://dood.al/pinktrombone/ or pronunciationstudio.com. Teachers are highly recommended to use dictionaries presenting accurate pronunciation (e.g. Daniel Jones: Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 2003) where users can find the transcription of individual words, as well as some specialised theoretical information with practical exercises. Such dictionaries are usually available on-line, as well.

According to the specialised literature, traditional ways for assessing (in)correctness in pronunciation are the following ones: repeating – a student is asked to repeat what they have said, echoing – a teacher repeats what the student has said, emphasising their mistake(s), statement and question – to simply ask about something that was not correct, expression – the teacher uses a simple facial expression, or a gesture to indicate that something was inappropriate, hinting – the teacher gives a quiet hint to the student (Harmer, 2012).

Focusing on training the accurate pronunciation of only individual speech sounds in isolation is important, but unnatural. Both teachers and students have tendencies to exaggerate isolated vowel or consonant sounds. Methodologists, namely, for example, Brown points at practising speech sounds in minimal pairs (pairs of words with only one different sound), e.g. tree /tri:/ and three /θri:/ (Brown, 2006). A more effective way for training pronunciation of individual sounds is putting them into sentences and drilling the most accurate pronunciation. This strategy is recognised as more natural.

One of modern approaches used for intensifying the awareness of authentic pronunciation is Jolly Phonics. As stated by the Jolly Phonics teachers who describe this method at https://www.jollylearning.co.uk/jolly-phonics/, “this method is age-bound, suitable for children. It is a comprehensive programme, based on the proven, fun and muliti-sensory synthetic phonics method that gets children reading and writing from an early age. This means that we teach letter sounds as opposed to the alphabet. These 42 letter-sounds are phonic building blocks that children, with the right tools, use to decode the English language. When reading a word, they recognise the letters and blend together the respective sounds; when writing a word they identify the sounds and write down the corresponding letters. These skills are called blending and segmenting”. The town where the Jolly Phonics method was introduced for the first time in Slovakia is Pezinok. As this approach is becoming more and more popular among both parents and children, nowadays, there are also other Slovak schools, particularly kindergartens, where children are taught by this method.

There are cardinal ways of language/ pronunciation exposure: a phonic approach (a letter vs sound correspondence) or a look-and-say approach (a whole word vs sound correspondence) (Crystal, 2011).

Activities for training transcription and the most authentic pronunciation cover segmental, as well as suprasegmental aspects, it means not only individual vowel and consonant sounds, but also the tasks for syllable identification, word and sentence stress, rhythm or intonation.

One of recommended methods for training prosodic features is an activity presented by Mendelson in her article published in the magazine English Teaching Forum (2017). She recommends using percussion to teach “correct”, i.e. the most accurate and authentic pronunciation as possible. She says: “In this kinaesthetic pronunciation activity, learners use percussion – instruments, to recognize syllables and practise word stress” (Mendelson, 2017, p. 43).  

Another popular activity is Bingo. The teacher prepares cards with phonetic symbols (six different symbols on each card, the symbols on cards are different) and gives them to students. They either work as individuals, or are organised into pairs or groups. Subsequently, the teacher reads many different words targeted at pronunciation of selected phonemes. Students carefully follow whether the corresponding sound occurs on their card. If they find it, they cross it off. The winner is the student, pair or group who has crossed off all the symbols on their card and shouts Bingo! first (Dolz, English File poster, 2001).

Sounds shopping is another activity used for training students‘ most accurate pronunciation and for checking their ability to use the phonetic symbols correctly. The teacher prepares a poster with phonetic symbols planned to be trained by the students. A possible beginning of this game is the sentence “Yesterday, I went shopping and I bought…e.g. some ham /hæm/”, or “I went for a walk and I saw…e.g. a snake /sneɪk/”. The students take turns, each of them repeats what they have heard previously and adds one more product or object with the same sound that is being practised (Lee, English File poster, 2001).

Password is the name of another, quite a funny activity. The teacher chooses the word for a “password of the day”. No student is allowed to leave the classroom without saying the password correctly. Learners can also check whether they are able to transcribe selected “password word(s)” correctly.

Phonetic dictations are also a useful method for training students‘ recognition of sounds. Students can either transcribe the words, spell them, or write them correctly according to the rules of orthography. Learners are recommended to see the relationship between single letters and their pronunciation.

Harmer emphasises the importance of reading aloud. Reading as one of the receptive skills is crucial for training authentic pronunciation in learning languages (Harmer, 2012). Hudcovičová recognises three stages in reading with comprehension: “At first stage we develop predictive skills, at the second stage we focus on specific skills, e.g. scanning, skimming, extracting detailed information, recognising function and discourse patterns and deducing meaning from context. At the third stage we draw our attention to communicative skills” (Hudcovičová, 2019, p. 47).

In foreign language learning, the ways of presenting information and data depend on and are influenced by many factors. The age, the language level, or the learners´ motivation for studying are cardinal for the teacher to choose the appropriate methods, activities and approaches for reaching success in the most effective way.

In the educational process in Slovakia, teaching and testing pronunciation has often been neglected by teachers and lecturers. This could be one of the reasons why some learners underestimate training and using the appropriate pronunciation of foreign language phonemes and prefer studying grammar or vocabulary first – “pronunciation only becomes important when it interferes with communication” (Madsen, 2003, p. 11). However, the strengthening of the learners´ awareness of the most accurate pronunciation in the process of foreign language teaching and learning is undoubtedly important, because by taking this as one of the main educational aims, we can avoid much misunderstanding caused by incorrect pronunciation.

At schools and other educational institutions in Slovakia, standard British English serves as a model reproduced by Slovak learners. Good teachers aim at inspiring, challenging, and motivating their students to make the best possible progress in learning. Besides, providing learners with regular feedback is also crucial and considered extremely effective in achieving success in the educational process. The teacher´s fundamental goal is to prepare fluent, self-confident graduates who can use their knowledge in the future career. Particularly, teaching and learning foreign languages have their own specifics. Not only new cultural, historical, or geographical facts are presented to learners, the main focus is devoted to mastering both productive and receptive skills to complete the overall educational process.