Teach English in MandelA Sumu - Alashan Meng — Alxa

One of the most difficult parts of learning English as a foreign language is pronunciation. Many EFL teachers perceive pronunciation as a rather small part of the learning process. This essay describes all parts of pronunciation including producing the sounds of speech, articulation, stress, and intonation. The most common definition of pronunciation would be described as “the way in which a word is spoken”. It’s definitely essential and takes a lot of details. During the pronunciation act, we push air from our lungs, it goes through our throat and vocal chords, then through our mouth, passing our tongue and goes between our teeth and lips. (Sometimes through our nose too). The organs which are taking part in the sound production is named the apparatus of articulation. We can divide all consonant sounds in the English language by the place of articulation (alveolar, palatal-alveolar, velar, palatal, dental and labio-dental, bilabial, glottal) and by the manner of articulation (plosive, fricative, nasal, lateral, affricative and approximate). When it is clear, where and how the sounds are created we can adjust our apparatus of articulation for correct pronunciation. English teachers can use drawing diagrams of the mouth to explain how a particular sound is made. Tongue twisters are a good and funny way to learn pronunciation. However, pronunciation is not just about producing the word sounds. The rhythm of English words is also a part of pronunciation. The rhythm is closely linked with stress patterns in English. Stress is the emphasis that can be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. In English, stressed syllables are louder than non-stressed syllables. Besides, they are longer and have a higher pitch. There are a few rules, which can help to put the stress in words in the right place, but the difficulty of the stress is that there are a lot of exceptions from these rules. So, it is better to learn how to "feel" the music of the language. Such activities for students as choral repetition, reading out loud, listening to audio materials from authentic sources can be very helpful. The stress plays an important role in the sentence or phrase. If we compare the next sentences we can notice, that stress changes the meaning. • Are YOU going to the theatre tonight? (or is it someone else?) • Are you GOING to the theatre tonight? (or not?) • Are you going to the THEATRE tonight? (or somewhere else?) • Are you going to the theatre TONIGHT? (or another night?) Thus, we have to train how to put stress correctly and understand right the meaning. Finally, intonation and stress are closely linked. In fact, they go hand in hand. Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say, the way the voice rises and falls during the speaking process. In English, there are two basic intonations: falling and rising. Falling intonation is the most common intonation, we use this type for statements (I want to change my car), commands (Leave your car on the parking lot), questions which begin with who, which, where, when, whose, why and how (Whose car is this?), Questions Tags that are statements requesting confirmation rather than questions (It is your car, isn't it?), exclamations (That's nice!). Meanwhile, we use rising intonation in the situations, when we invite the speaker to continue: in Yes/No questions (Do you need a car?), Questions tags that show uncertainty and require an answer (We've met already, haven't we?). For students to improve it can be useful to work with intonation like drama-actors. For example, try to say “I love you” with different expressions. In conclusion, it is necessary to say, that pronunciation is a wide part of the English learning process and it is composed of different components. Thus, we need to pay attention to all aspects of pronunciation in order to teach ESL students to speak understandably.