Techniques for better pronunciation (Part 1)

Now we have arrived at concrete techniques. A warning: techniques without a proper quality management system, both in the classroom and at home, will yield significantly less results.

If I had to choose between techniques, quality management and mindset, I would prioritize them in inverse order.

Without having a proper attitude towards the process (patience, adopting a long-term perspective, constructive responses towards failure and obstacles), only few will see sense in systematizing their learning process, and without a system, there will be less chances that suitable techniques will be applied, evaluated, adapted or changed at a regular basis.

Otherwise, we will have the commonplace phenomenon of sporadic outburst of activity, especially before exams or after exhortations by the teacher, and frequent slumps, especially around holiday time.

Here are some techniques to play and experiment with in the classroom. There are many more available on the internet and in language textbooks. However, those included here have shown particularly good results with my students. Some of them are actually fun to do.

In general, encourage your students to maintain a playful attitude while practicing them, to think more of it like playing with Lego^©, assembling model airplanes or painting, than like studying hard in a school setting.

As you experiment with various techniques, monitor the challenges and results they bring along. Create a document for your standard teaching procedure, where you gather tips and tricks, as well as your experience with the various methods. Sketch out the process of your typical lessons (for different types of courses and levels). Write it down as a sequence of exercises and/or themes. 

Experiment and find out what works best for you. Try to order the sequence differently. Vary the length and depth of each segment.

Personally, I stick mostly to the bottom-up approach. We start by warming-up working on phonetics and then go up to improvised conversations at the end of each lesson. However, from time to time I create disruptions so that my lessons stay less predictable to students.

I start by formulating the instructions I give to students. You can use them initially verbatim, and then adapt them according to your students´ needs and understanding.

Then I give advice on how to incorporate each technique into the classroom, and what the rationale behind it is, as well as common difficulties and objections.

Reading out loud to a metronome

Student instruction

A metronome is something familiar to most musicians. Some of you may have even a physical one at home. However, using one of the sites below works just as well.

Set the metronome at moderate speed and read a text in rhythm with the clicks; one syllable per click. Then, repeat the reading, increasing the tempo each time.

This forces us to pronounce each syllable more clearly. Especially since many of us have the habit of clipping syllables.

This is quite a mechanical exercise. Of course, there is nothing aesthetic in speaking to a monotonous beat. You should not aspire to always speak in exactly the same tempo. This is just for clarity and for building up speed.

·        Learn the rules in your target language as to how you can identify where a syllable starts and where it ends.

·        Start very slowly; increase gradually to the maximum.

·        Work with a short passage and improve your performance.

·        Play with the rhythm. For example, vary the number of syllables per click (between 1 and 3).

·        Try to maintain the original stress in every word. You need not put equal stress on each syllable. This, in combination with the equally loud clicks, creates an interesting rhythmic experience. My intuition is that it would be a useful tool for aspiring hip hoppers, too, although I have never had anyone among my students test it out.

You can use the following online metronomes

http://www.metronomeonline.com/

http://bestmetronome.com/

Advice for teachers

This is a technique I rarely use in the classroom with texts, but recommend occasionally for homework.

Combine this with explaining the rules for detecting syllables in the language teach. How do we recognize the onset and coda of a syllable?

However, in the classroom I often use the metronome for

·        Conjugating verbs (for building up speed, staying energized and not slumping down);

·        Building short phrases/word groups based on lists (see this technique in the corresponding section below);

·        Practicing words difficult to pronounce, tongue twisters or the main stress in a sentence.

Initially, many students untrained in music while find it difficult to maintain a steady pulse, as well as to speak and listen to the click at the same time. Often, it is helpful to accompany the metronome with you clapping.

If you want be notified about the upcoming book or more articles and materials on the psychology and quality management of language teaching, please subscribe to my mailing list.

If you want to read more about quality management in language teaching, please check out the other articles on this blog. If you have not read it yet, I recommend those on student feedback questionnaires and on how to standardize your teaching.

Stay tuned!

Gerhard

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About me

Psychologist and polyglot from Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married with children. MA in psychology from the University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, IOM, the EU and private companies. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.

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