English as a foreign language is relatively an easy language to learn. It is simple and quick for most learners to reach intermediate level, as the basic grammatical structures are direct, and the vocabulary is simple and often has traces in students’ first languages and this is one of the reasons why English has become popular language and extended to be a common language among most countries all over the world. However, when students move to a higher level, it becomes quite difficult. Hinofotis and Baily (1980, pp. 124-125) notes that “up to a certain proficiency standard, the fault which most severely impairs the communication process in EFL/ESL learners is pronunciation”, not vocabulary or grammar.
As a teacher I asked myself these questions when teaching ESL students, why is English pronunciation so difficult? Why do students who speak a high level of grammatical English, make mistakes when they actually say their perfectly constructed sentences? And to answer these questions I summarized some
As in Arabic language (which is my learner's first language) there are not silence letters such as the /l/ in walk, the /b/ in comb, the /h/ in where, and the /s/ in island and so other letters that are not pronounced in English. Moreover, there are letters that can be pronounced in different ways such as the `s’ can be pronounced as /z/, the ‘t’ can be pronounced in at least 5 ways, and the ‘n’ can become /m/ or /ŋ/ and that’s just consonants. English contains 19 vowel sounds, but it only has 5 vowels to spell them with, for example ‘foot’, ‘food’ and ‘blood’ all contain different vowel sounds (/ʊ/, /u:/ and /ʌ/), but still have double O in them. All of that confuses the learners when they start reading, they cannot produce correct or accurate pronunciation unless they are informed with these special
Teachers who work with English Language Learners know that academic language takes longer to achieve proficiency in than does conversational language. On average, ELL students need at least two years to achieve conversational language and, five to nine years to develop academic language proficiency. Many English words ELL students are exposed to in school, they have not yet learned or even heard in their first language, which makes transference of knowledge impossible. The vast differences in the ability to use conversational versus academic language can be a hindrance to these students and have lasting effects on their academics and therefore, their lives.
Flynn, K. & Hill, J. (2005). English language learners: A growing population. Mid-Research For Education And Learning, 1-11.
racie Allen of the comedy team of Burns and Allen was once asked how one should speak French. She replied, “Well, you speak it the same way you speak English; you just use different words.” When trying to assist in instructing English language learners, they usually have many concepts and language abilities that they need to master, as do the teachers that are trying to teach them. With the incorporation of the concepts and approaches to identify and assess the issues and concerns that we have learned in our classroom instruction, such as lesson preparation, building background, and comprehensible input, we can indeed teach our future English language learners all the right moves with all the right words.
The proper use of pronunciation is what helps a message be understood easily by other fluent English speakers. Often times, an ELL student can struggle with forming a word correctly and may cause a word to be pronounced as a different, but similarly sounding word. One example of how the pronunciation of a word can cause a message to be unclear a Spanish speaker pronouncing “kitchen” as “chicken”. These two words are very close in sound, but each word has a completely different meaning. A mother that asks a child to “please clean the kitchen” greatly differs from the mispronounced word that has changed the sentence to “please clean the chicken”. There are many speech therapy courses that are offered in schools that will improve a child’s ability to speak productively. In the oral language speech by ELL student Tania, the Spanish student faces challenges while pronouncing “stories about magic, vampires “. These impediments can be worked on and improved over time. The grading scale of pronunciation on a rubric can range from insufficient in the result of being virtually unintelligent; to excellent, being that it pleasantly uses intonation and pronunciation as accurately as a native speaker
The FLaRE (Florida Literacy and Reading Excellence) Center has published a professional paper entitled “Phonemic Awareness” of which I will be presenting a critical review. Phonemic awareness is one of the five essential components of reading identified by the National reading Panel (Learning Point Associates, 2004). Phonemic awareness can be defined as a person’s understanding that each word we speak is comprised of individual sounds called phonemes and that these sounds can be blended to form different words (Learning Point Associates, 2004). The article was intended to give a synopsis of phonemic awareness and the vital role it plays in a literacy program. I found the article to be very clear and concise presenting valuable tactics that can be applied in the classroom.
English Language Learners range from Newcomers learning survival English and developing foundational literacy skills to Long-Term English Learners who have had 6 years or more of their education in English yet continue have significant language gaps. These students may speak English with little or no accent and still lack the vocabulary, grammar and grade level literacy to be successful in school. English language learners may remain silent in the classroom as they adjust to a new school, environment, and culture unless he is a native language comrade to interact with. The English language learners are concerned about decoding verbal and non- verbal communication as well as understanding the social culture framework of the school. Most of the time English language learners are observing during instruction, trying to repeat words used by others, memorizing simple phrases and sentences, tired by midday or be frustrated attending long lectures unaccompanied by visual and gestures, relying on first language translation used peer translation or bilingual dictionary, as the students begin to learner they become more involved in the classroom, they can respond non-verbally to commands, statements, and questions in simple form. As their oral comprehension increases, they begin to use simple word and phrases and may use English spontaneously. They can understand short conversation on a simple topic when reading students can understand a narrative text and authentic materials, although they will be below
In the article it discuss that for North America students it will be confusing to refer to the letter only by their sounds. There was a study done in Virginia were students were taught letter names and letter sounds and another group were they was taught only letter sounds. This study concluded that North American student to refer only the letters by their sounds was not normal and confusing. As well that students should be taught both, their letter sounds and their names and how to apply this skill while reading and writing.
In the partial alphabetic phase individuals pay attention to different letters in a word in order to attempt its pronunciation, usually the first and final letters of a word are focused on, Ehri referred to this as ‘phonetic cue reading’. This is a skill which along with others which shows phonological awareness.
Take a minute and stop and think what you do every day. If you were to make a list of five things that you do every day would communication be one of them. Sure it is something that many of us do not think about. But have you ever stopped to wonder how we learned what letters made what sounds. How to pronounce certain words? For most it is easy we just taught them it in school. But have you wondered how students who are hearing impaired learn it? The major difference is that students who are hearing impaired would not hear the sounds that are associated with letters the same way a hearing person would. The majority of individuals with normal hearing hear the words of their own language spoken to them thousands of times before, they are able to speak their first word. Not being able to hear the sounds of a language creates a problem for some individuals when it comes phonemic awareness. Every teacher should know how to teach phonemic awareness and phonics to hearing impaired students.
New languages are always overwhelming.English is difficult language to learn, especially if it isn’t practiced often. The english language includes rules that can be frustrating to get a grip of. Many International students face the fear of not being understood or not pronouncing something correct...
Many researchers like Krashen (1985), Harmer (2007), and Turnbull (2001) emphasise that in most EFL (English as a foreign language) environment, a teacher’s English proficiency ...
One of the main purposes for learning English is to communicate with others, but when you start facing obstacles in dealing with people because you're not being understood even though you spent a lot of time learning English, then you need to stop for a minute and ask yourself why is it difficult for people to understand me even though my grammar and vocabulary is right?
By assuming that students will learn proper communication skills without guidance is a big mistake. Individuals should begin learning basic communication skills at birth and continue learning throughout their educational experience. There are, of course, many types of communication. We use verbal communication, non-verbal communication, written communication and many different forms of. Additionally, communication plays an important role in the process of conveying knowledge as well. Communication is instrumental in education since it helps the instructor and the students to work together with each other. Communication is the most important component of any society. In order, to communicate properly we need correct pronunciation, because pronunciation affects how we understand the meaning of the words. If the sound of a word is different it could lead the listener to believe that the word has a different meaning, and if this happens, it is very obvious that it is a form of improper communication. This may lead to a lot of misinterpretations. To avoid these kinds of problems we need to teach accurate pronunciation. English, in schools, is a very important subject for teaching proper...
Since the 1940s, new solutions to successful English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction have been discovered many times. Like bestseller novels, the latest hit pop songs, and blockbuster films, second-language theories and methodologies enjoy a few months or years in the spotlight and then fade away into oblivion due to many instructors not taking the chance to truly experiment with these instructional methods. There was always a “tried-and-true” methodology from an expert theorist, who may or may not have had first-hand experience learning a second language, to fall on. Douglas Brown, a renowned professor of San Francisco State University, notes that languages were “not being taught primarily to learn oral communication, but to learn for the sake of being ‘scholarly’ or…for reading proficiency” (15). Theories of second-language acquisition did not start to pop up until the instructional objective became oral competence and comprehension. New and effective methodologies of ESL classrooms are necessary in order for learners to obtain and understand the language and its culture; teachers need to consider their teaching style, each student’s learning style, and the classroom behavior, interests, and culture.
All languages have vast variety of speech sound. Phonology have essentials terms in which each of them show the difference between how phonology is differ than phonetics as its not responsible for how to articulate. These phonological terms known as : phoneme , allophone, clear & dark l , syllabic l, minimal pairs , assimilation ,linking r , intrusive r, aspiration , consonant structure & syllable structure. A phoneme is a meaningful sound which shows the difference between two sounds which can change the meaning of word like : . Although allophones are the variation of same sound but they don’t change the meaning of it like < pin / spin >. However