Elements of Pronunciation
Before going too deep into the world of ESL pronunciation, let us step back for a minute and discuss the basic elements of English Pronunciation.
In the world of Second-Language Acquisition, there are two umbrellas under which lie all aspects of pronunciation—segmentals and suprasegmentals.
Segmentals are simply a focus on the smallest unit of sound that we produce in language: vowels and consonants.
Below are some common segmental errors:
Substitution: learners replace one consonant or vowel sound with another. For example, a student may say the sentence, “Thank you for everything.” as, “Tank you for everyting.”
Omission: learners omit a vowel or consonant sound altogether. A student may, for instance, say the sentence, “Click the button.” as, “Cli_ the buttah.”
Articulation: learners struggle to produce a vowel or a consonant sound. For example, Asian language speakers often struggle to articulate the “l” and “r” sounds, producing a sound somewhere in between the two.
Suprasegmentals cover everything related to pronunciation extending beyond individual sounds—stress, intonation, loudness, pausing, and linking.
Stress is the emphasis placed at either the word level or syllable level. At the word level, we often emphasize words that provide new information, contrast information, or that convey an emotional message. For example, we may say “I love restaurants. I especially love Italian and French restaurants.” The first sentence tells the listener that they love restaurants, while the second sentence adds the information of which restaurants they love and how much they love them. I would say that the primary stress would fall on “especially” with secondary stresses on “Italian” and “French.” Contrasting emphasis would appear in sentences like, “I like strawberries but not blueberries.” Emotional emphasis can come in many forms, but the easiest to notice is probably emphasis expressing anger or frustration: “Close the door. I said, close the door!”
On the syllable level, different syllables are stressed more than others:
“Forgettable,” “tomato,” “Christmas tree…”
Sometimes, the different stress placement can indicate a different grammatical form: “Record,” a noun, vs “record,” a verb.
In some languages, each syllable is given the same amount of time and stress. One activity that can help students identify stressed and unstressed syllables is the rubber band activity. Give each of your students a rubber band and teach them to clap on deemphasized syllables and to stretch the rubber band on the stressed syllables. As they stretch the rubber band, they will naturally add energy to the syllable and elongate it, thus giving it stress.
Intonation is the rise and fall of pitch as we speak. Stress causes a change in intonation, whether up or down. We also use intonation to signal a question vs a declarative statement. Our pitch rises at the end of yes or no questions like, “Did you like the movie?” When asking a person to choose something from a list, our pitch rises with each suggestion, and then falls with the final: “Would you like coffee, tea, or lemonade?” Typically, with a declarative statement, our tone rises at a comma and falls at the end of the sentence: “After going to the store, John picked up his sister, grabbed some coffee, and went to the movies.” Intonation can also be used to express emotions like surprise (rising pitch) or disappointment (falling pitch.)
Loudness is just like it sounds. Part of creating intelligible speech is helping your students speak at an appropriate volume. Of course, we want to avoid shouting, but it is important to teach your students to have adequate breath support and to project their voices. It is impossible for your students’ speech to be intelligible if it is not audible. One way to help your students add support to their speech and to project with confidence is to bring their attention to their breath by conducting a breathing activity. They could practice breathing in for 8 seconds, and then exhaling for 8. You could spice this activity up by asking the students to produce a vowel or consonant sound on the exhale like an “o” sound or a “th” sound. This will engage their diaphragm and help your students to use their breathing to their advantage. Deep breaths can also calm nerves and raise confidence. Maybe this activity would be helpful right before class presentations or a speaking exam!
Pausing is essential in creating coherent speech. Correct pause placement can mark grammatical features, clarify meaning, and give the listener time to process what was said. Too few pauses can be exhausting for a listener to keep up with, but too many pauses can break up ideas and impact speaker intelligibility. To help with pause placement, stress, and intonation, something to consider teaching your students is the concept of thought groups. Thought groups are units of speech that convey meaning. They are often marked with natural pauses, falls in intonation, and the containing of at least one stressed word. I’ve marked the following few sentences with slashes indicating the start and end of thought groups:
“While I was outside/ I saw a rabbit and a cat/ They were talking with one another/ and I thought I heard them laugh/.” Help your students understand that they should avoid pausing before the end of a thought group. Pausing only at the end of thought groups can help your students’ ideas remain complete and uninterrupted, so the speaker can follow their train of thought. Consider giving your students a passage without punctuation, and ask them to mark where they think the thought groups begin and end. Have them then practice placing their pauses only at the end of thought groups as they read aloud their marked passage. This will help raise your students’ awareness of their thought groups when reading and producing spontaneous speech alike.
Linking is carrying the ending consonant of one word to the beginning sound of another. For example, we say “Carol‗asked him out,” linking the “l” sound to the “a” sound in “Carol” and “asked.” Some language learners may have unnatural pauses between words that native speakers would blur together. To help your students learn how to link words, you could have a drill where your students read through the following guided process:
“Carol asked” à “Caro l asked” à “Caro lasked” à “Carolasked”
This will help your students blend the separation between words and help their speech become more fluid.
It is common for ESOL teachers to focus on segmentals, running drill after drill on forming correct consonant sounds and distinguishing between vowel sounds. While drills like this may have a place in the classroom, it is more important to give time, attention, and energy to suprasegmentals than segmentals. Helping your students master intonation, stress, pausing, and other overarching elements of English pronunciation will help your students improve their speech intelligibility far more than a focus on vowels and consonants could ever dream to. Correct vowels and consonants are useless if the listener is trying to distinguish where your students’ thoughts begin and where they end. Tackle frequent errors in suprasegmentals before turning your attention to the minute details of segmentals.
