Enhancing Pronunciation Skills for English Language Learners

3.         2007

4. INTRODUCTION • Difficulties in learning a foreign/second language range from SYNTAX, SEMANTICS, PRAGMATICS, to MORPHOLOGY and PHONOLOGY. • The role of correct pronunciation in learning a language has been regarded vital (Celce-Muria, 1987; Morley, 1991; Pennington, 1989; Leather, 1983)

5. On the contrary,pronunciation teaching does NOT receive much attention by the practitioners due to its difficult-to-teach nature.

6. What to teach: segmental features VS suprasegmental properties

7. I agree with Arbor (1992) SPOKEN ENGLISH SPEECH PRODUCTION SPEECH PERFORMANCE (A focus on specific elements of pronunciation) (A focus on general elements of oral communication) PRONUNCIATION: MICROFOCUS ORAL COMUNCATION: MACRO FOCUS -clear, precise articulation of consonant and vowel sounds -overall clarity and precision of speech -consonant combinations both within and across word -general vocal effectiveness boundaries, elisions, assimilations, etc. -neutral vowel use, reductions, contractions, etc. -overall fluency and ongoing, planning and structuring of “speech” as it proceeds -syllable structure, phrase groups, and linking words -overall intelligibility across word boundaries -general command and control of grammar -features of stress, rhythm, and intonation -general command of appropriate vocabulary -features of rate, volume, and vocal qualities -expressiveness of nonverbal behaviors

8. Native-like pronunciation is impossible? • Accurate pronunciation is SUBSTANTIALLY BEYOND the control of educators (Suter, 1976 and Suter & Purcell, 1980 cited in Otlowski, 1998:2) SO, let’s just ignore pronunciation. The Cinderella of Language Teaching (Dalton, 1997)

9. Problem sounds of English; //, //, //, //, //, and //. • Non-existing sounds should of course be practiced. • How about the importance of the learners’ native language? • Turkish students have major problems with //, //, and //; //, //, and //; final // and // and // and //

10. Research Questions • How intelligible and successful are Turkish learners in their production and discrimination of English /v/, judged and spoken by native and non-native speakers? • Is there a significant success difference between native informants and Turkish students in discriminating /v/ and /w/ pairs, spoken by a native speaker? • Is there a significant success difference between native informants and Turkish students in discriminating /v/ and /w/ pairs, spoken by Turkish speakers?

11. METHODOLOGY • Subjects: 40 freshman English Language Teaching students with at least 6 years of background in learning English, and with similar levels of knowledge about English. • Informants: 10 American speakers of English (NI).

12. Data Collection • Instrument: 22 different lists of the same 20 minimal pairs of /v/ and /w/. • List 1: the ones spoken by Turkish Student Speakers (TSS) to test 10 native informants and 20 other Turkish Student Listeners (TSL). • List 2: spoken by a native speaker to test 10 native informants. • List 3: spoken by a native speaker to test 20 TSLs.

13. IPA Transcriptions of Minimal Pairs vest—west /-/ vet—wet /-/ vary—wary /-/ vine—wine /-/ vent—went /-/ veil—whale /()-()/ vile—while /()-()/ veal—wheel /()-()/ verse—worse/-/ vie—why/-/ vein—wane /-/ viper—wiper /-/ vend—wend /-/ visor—wiser /-/ veered—weird /-/ very—wherry /-/ vale—wail /()-()/ vim—whim /-/ vow—wow /-/ vair—wear /-/

14. Procedure • 20 TSS 10 NI • 1 NS 20 TSLs • 1 NS 10 NI • 20 TSS 20 TSLs

15. Descriptive statistics 80% (16 items) One sample t-test Independent t-test Data Set 1 Native Speaker Native Listeners Turkish Listeners Data Set 2 Turkish Speakers Native Listeners Turkish Listeners Data Analysis

16. FINDINGS/RESULTS • Mean scores lower than 16 and • Percentages lower than 80% mean that participants are either unintelligible as a speaker or unsuccessful as a listener • NS NI 19.8 & 98% • NS TSL 10.3 & 51.5% • TSS NI 5.73 & 28.65% • TSS TSL 12.29 & 60.7% as listeners 11.55 & 60.82%as speakers

17. Significance of the Scores

18. CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION Turkish students; • are not successful listeners (10.3) • are not intelligible speakers (5.73) in terms of producing and perceiving the difference between /v/ and /w/. WHY?

19. English /v/ sound DOES NOT exist as a phoneme in Turkish language. • English /v/ sound is a labiodental, fricative and voiced consonant while • Turkish sound is a labiodental, voiced and Central Approximant sound, shown as // • The same alphabetical symbol, letter v. • The English sound is an allophone of // in Turkish language, and is used when // preceded by a voiceless stop or fricative sound [//--//]

20. Most of the teachers and almost all students of English in Turkey are unaware of the difference between // & /v/. “If the English sound is not clearly perceived, the brain of the learner converts it into the closest sound in their own language” Dalton (1997). That’s why we need language-sensitive pronunciation books and/or programs.