CEP Course: Reading and Speaking

SPEAKING – part 2Paul Viggers

SantanderJanuary - February 2019

Speaking part 2

Aims

◦ Reply to your questionnaires

◦ Check your homework!

◦ Improve oral understanding and intelligibility…

… by looking at key aspects of pronunciation: how segmental and prosodic features all work together

Speaking part 2

Your questionnaires

• Student awareness and memorization of English pronunciation

• ... Noticing and remembering word stress

• … Regular “-ed” past

Speaking part 2

Your homework

• VOWELS: spelling and pronunciation

• (Relatively) Simple rules for vowels (Gilbert, 2008)

1. Start with the “alphabet names”

2. Practise the vowel names

3. Learn that each alphabet vowel name has a “relative” sound:

• A /eɪ/ has its “relative” /æ/, E /iː/ has /e/ , I has /ɪ/, O has /ɒ/, U has /ʌ/… , which are the usual pronunciations of these letters in words.

Gilbert (2008)

Spelling rules continued …

We can use these ten sounds (which are the most common, apart from schwa)as follows:

1. The “two vowel rule”: If there are two alphabet vowels in a short word, the first vowel sounds like its alphabet name. The second vowel is silent

A – cake, main E – these, cream I – ice, pie O – home, road U – fruit, Sue

Gilbert (2008)

Spelling rules continued …

2. The “one vowel rule”: If there is only one alphabet vowel letter in a short word, it sounds like its “relative”

had, pan = /æ/

bed, pen = /e/

his, pin = /ɪ/ hot, John = /ɑ/

sun, must= /ʌ/

… of course there are exceptions!!!!

Gilbert (2008)

Spelling rules continued …

For more advanced students: 1. The “two vowel rule”: If there are two alphabet

vowel letters in a stressed syllable, the first vowel usually sounds like its alphabet name. The second vowel in that syllable is silent.

available, arrangement complete, agreement advice, mileage approach, unloading recruit, accuse

BUT… of course there are exceptions!!!!

Gilbert (2008)

Spelling rules continued …

For more advanced students: 2. The “one vowel rule”: If there is only one alphabet

vowel letter in a stressed syllable, it usually sounds like its “relative”

apple, adapted relative, integrity interesting, articulatory possible, laboratory redundant, husbandry

Generally, any non-stressed syllables can be pronounced as “schwa”, or “schwi”

(From Gilbert, 2008)

(From Gilbert, 2008)

…

Teacher: Oh, you mean “committee”!

Student: Yes, what I said you, “comedy”.

Speaking

The importance of identifying syllables, and which ones are

stressed in words:

= aspects of PROSODY

Prosodic features

Words

◦ Words with more than one (pronounced) syllable

◦ Typical question: “Where is the stress?”

You try:

conduct, contract, contrast, desert, object, produce, present, record, … minute

What is “stress”?

◦ Gimson / Cruttenden prefers the terms “prominence” and “accent”, but most books and dictionaries don’t

◦ Gimson: 4 ways to signal “accent”

pitch change

loudness

quantity and quality of vowels in syllables

Syllables

The Sonority Hierarchy

1. Open vowels2. Close vowels3. Glides /j, w/4. Liquids /l, r/5. Nasals6. Fricatives7. Affricates8. plosives

Pitch change

(Cruttenden 2014)

Primary stress and secondary stress

◦ How many syllables in “nationality”?

◦ Where is the primary stress?

◦ …and the secondary?

◦ What happens to the unstressed syllables?

◦ Phonemic transcription?

/ ‚næʃǝˈnælǝtɪ / … or … / ‚næʃˈnælǝtɪ /

Sometimes there’s no stress

◦ Vowel will be weak, or reduced:

◦ / ɪ , ʊ , ə / or /i/

◦ … or syllabic / m , n , l /

◦ … or just disappear! (= elision)

/ ‚næʃˈnælǝtɪ /

How constant is word stress?

◦ record, contract

◦ adult

◦ controversy

◦ integral

◦ deficit

◦ television

Elision

◦ Sometimes established historically:

brouGHt , Know , lisTen … ofTen?

◦ Important to know when it’s happening

secretary , comfortable

asked

◦ … but not always best to teach it!

Accentual shift and some differences between GB and GA

(Cruttenden 2014)

Sentence stress

Same system as for word stress:

◦ Pitch variation

◦ Loudness

◦ Quantity

◦ Quality

Sentence stress

◦ How many possibilities?

1. She can.

2. She can go.

3. How can she do it?

Sentence stress

◦ Which words are usually stressed?

Content, or lexical words (main verbs, adverbs, nouns, adjectives …)

◦ Usually unstressed:

Form or grammar words (auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, prepositions …)

Gimson/Cruttenden (2014) has a list of words which typically have weaker forms

… but …(Cruttenden 2014)

◦ … recommends that while foreign learners should be able to understand forms like the last example “Got any money?”, they should aim to produce more careful versions!

◦ “How are you doing?”◦ or … ‘ow ya doin’?

Practice: “How many words?” exercises

◦ (from “Speakout Advanced”, Pearson)

◦ 1A – (6) Dictionaries are allowed in the exam.

◦ 1B – (12) It’s obligatory for companies to provide details of their industrial processes.

◦ 2A – (9) She felt compelled to resign because of the scandal.

◦ 2B – (9) Only a few journalists dared to cover the story.

The “Prosody Pyramid” (Gilbert, 2008)

Identifying a focus word in a thought group

Practice of rhythmic sentences:

Jazz chants (Carolyn Graham) http://jazzchants.net

Songs

Rap – Google “Simple raps for teaching English” (for example)

◦ The food and drink rap (from “Sky 2”, Longman)

…Pronunciation practice of a rhythmic poem, just choosing the potentially stressed syllables:

In June this year I’ll finish schoolAnd the summer’s getting near (silent beat)My classmates all know what they want to doBut I haven’t got any idea

(or … ) But I haven’t got any idea (silent beat)

From “Headway” pronunciation

Hard-wired = established in long term memory

= good◦ … if the original learning is accurate

= bad◦ … if the original learning was wrong

Summary

Teachers can make good and bad habits become hard-wired

Aural models before written

Make sure model is as correct as possible

Make students NOTICE, PRODUCE and REMEMBER new items

Teacher listens, corrects, listens again … and checks written records of dictations, vocabulary stores etc.

Visual associations when possible

Bibliography:

Gilbert, Judy B (2008) “Teaching pronunciation using the prosody pyramid” Cambridge University Press

Cruttenden, Alan (2014) Gimson's Pronunciation of English, 8th Edition, Routledge