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I used to teach English Interview technique to adults in Korea and now I want to extend my teaching area to English itself with taking this TEFL course. I am confident that I already have teaching experiences but to change teaching subject, I have to be aware of and focus on language itself. While carry on my previous class, English interview technique class, I faced with several problems and one of them is pronunciation. Since there are some alphabet phonemics that do not exist in Korean language, many of students are having difficult to make sound of ‘F’ ‘V’,‘L’,’R’, ‘TH’,’Z’. This is the most challengeable part of teaching student how to pronounce the above letters. Additionally differentiating between ‘F’ and ‘P’, ‘B’ and ‘V’, ‘L’ and ‘R’ ,’Z’ and ‘J’, ‘D’ and ‘TH’ are also make students who have Korean as their first language confused. From my research, this problem is mostly occurred to adults who learn English in Korean letter pronunciation. So when Korean student who are not able to differentiate above letters, they pronounce like below; 'COFFEE’ pronounce like ‘COPY’ ‘VASE’ pronounce like ‘BASE’ ‘ZOO’ pronounce like ‘JOO’ And ‘L’ and ‘R’ do not exist in Korean, but there is a consonant in Korean that is in between ‘L’ and ‘R’. So when Korean students pronounce ‘L’ or ‘R’ they adopt that Korean consonant and pronounce. It sometimes make difficult to figure out exact meaning by pronouncing one English word. For example : Lice and Rice. Sound of ‘TH’ also do not exist in Korean and most of them are shy to let their tongue out to pronounce, it would be hard part to teach for teachers. Because in Korean language, there is no sound which need to let their tongue out. So when Korean students need to pronounce ‘TH’, they make different sound. And it is mostly depends on its original pronunciation sound which is voiced or voiceless. For example : ‘THEORY’ pronounce like ‘SIORY’ which is voiceless. ‘THERE’ pronounce like ‘DERE’ which is voiced. To help with this pronunciation problem, an English teacher should encourage student learn English pronunciation as itself, not to refer or associate with Korean letter or Korean style pronunciation. Also especially for adults, the ways of showing them the picture of articulation place and the chart which explained both place and manner of articulation for consonant are a lot helpful to make them understand effectively. With those kind of visual material and repetitive drill, make student pronounce naturally and let them get used to do it. For young learners, who are absolute beginner, the visual aids which mentioned above might make them more confused. Or make them hard to understand as those kind of charts consist of difficult explanation or words which also might cause of losing their interest toward English. So in this case, different approach and way of teaching aids are needed. First, teachers should take extra care of their pronounce in front of students. Because teacher are always students’ role model, especially for children. And using other material which contained English natives’ pronunciation would be more helpful and effective. For example Youtube video or Audio aids. But repetitive drill are still need to this group.
