Problems With Pronunciation

The English language is spoken in many countries throughout the world. In this modern day, "global society," the English language is used as the common language for international communication. As a result, English is well on its way to becoming the dominant global language. (1) As a result, people of all nationalities are obliged to learn English as a second language. However, pronunciation of the English language by people of different nationalities is varied the world over. On closer inspection, it appears that different nationalities have their own unique pronunciation problems. This is because English words often contain sounds (or phonemes) that are unique to the English language. The native language spoken in a particular country can effect the English language...  [Read more]

The English language is spoken in many countries throughout the world. In this modern day, "global society," the English language is used as the common language for international communication. As a result, English is well on its way to becoming the dominant global language. (1) As a result, people of all nationalities are obliged to learn English as a second language. However, pronunciation of the English language by people of different nationalities is varied the world over. On closer inspection, it appears that different nationalities have their own unique pronunciation problems. This is because English words often contain sounds (or phonemes) that are unique to the English language. The native language spoken in a particular country can effect...  [Read more]

During my first week at the TEFL course in Phuket, Thailand, I began to notice that the pronunciation of the Thai students was lacking a bit. I do not blame this condition on the teachers, nor on the students themselves, but the pronunciation predicament immediately stuck out to me as a problem for which I would like to find some resolution. For this reason, I decided to look further into the difficulties Thai students have when learning such a widely- used foreign language as English. What I found was that most of the pronunciation problems stem from the vast differences the two languages contain. For many teachers and students alike, the dissimilarities become so numerous that they easily begin to overwhelm everyone involved in the process of learning a new ...  [Read more]

For the ESL teacher in China, it is vitally important to understand common pronunciation problems the Chinese student has pronouncing English words.Using the internet, one can find several websites that provide important information regarding these common pronunciation problems.First it is important to understand why the Chinese have difficulty pronouncing English.A search on the internet provides the following link: http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol36/no1/p37.htm, On this website, Cheng Fanggzhi, an associate professor at Binzhou Teachers´ College in Shandong Province, China has an article titled 'The Teaching of Pronunciation to Chinese Students of English'.According to Cheng Fangzhi, the Chinese students have great difficulty with 'gap' consonants such as:...  [Read more]

Students of English as a foreign language can possibly face a multitude of problems, many of which will be of the same nature for all nationalities. However, different countries will each throw up their own set of specific problems for learners. Having taught all ages/ class sizes and for all purposes in Korea, I have noticed and begun the process of resolving at least, several country specific problems. In Korea, as indeed with many Asian countries, the primary problem arises with beginner learners, of a different alphabet. Learning English must begin first with letter recognition which is entirely different from that of their own language. Although many sounds are similar, the English alphabet does introduce a number of letters unheard of in the Korean alphabet. As will be...  [Read more]

'gIf the English language made any sense, catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.'h (Doug Larson) Before delving into problems facing Thai students learning English I'fll outline some of the positives. Many students prefer farang (foreigner) teachers partly due to a more informal teaching style, but also because a speaker of the native tongue can address pronunciation issues in a way that a non-native speaker cannot. Added to this a lifetimes knowledge of conversational English is more relevant than the rigid, sometimes rarely used, vocabulary and structure of textbooks. Native speakers are employed extensively in schools, businesses and colleges throughout Thailand. Initially the main problem facing students is that the Thai alphabet is entirely different to the Roman...  [Read more]

gIf the English language made any sense, catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.?h (Doug Larson) Before delving into problems facing Thai students learning English I?fll outline some of the positives. Many students prefer farang (foreigner) teachers partly due to a more informal teaching style, but also because a speaker of the native tongue can address pronunciation issues in a way that a non-native speaker cannot. Added to this a lifetimes knowledge of conversational English is more relevant than the rigid, sometimes rarely used, vocabulary and structure of textbooks. Native speakers are employed extensively in schools, businesses and colleges throughout Thailand. Initially the main problem facing students is that the Thai alphabet is entirely different to the...  [Read more]

Like the people of other nations, Thai people face many problems when trying to learn English; some of these problems are cultural and some are more rooted in the many obvious differences between the two languages. Different age groups or students of different levels may not always face the same problems. A class of intermediate children is likely to have different problems to those of an adult class of beginners. One issue that can be quite frustrating as a teacher is rooted in the Thai culture of not wishing to lose face. This often leads to students being shy and unresponsive in class. They are scared of making mistakes in front of their peers as this would cause them to lose face. Another issue that is based on culture and can also be frustrating for a teacher is a tendency...  [Read more]

  Then, we have a set of objectives and aims. Here, the learner objectives relate to what we're hoping the students are going to be able to do by the end of your lesson and quite often, that can be a useful way of writing out what the objectives are. So, we would start the sentence "By the end of the lesson, students should be able to?" and then a list of two, three or four items that we're expecting the students to be able to do by completing this lesson. The learner objectives are different to the teacher aims the teacher aims are what you are expecting from that lesson itself. Now, when you first start teaching, quite a normal aim might be to complete the lesson successfully, to get through the whole thing without having any problems. As time goes on and you become more...  [Read more]

During my first week at the TEFL course in Phuket, Thailand, I began to notice that the pronunciation of the Thai students was lacking a bit. I do not blame this condition on the teachers, nor on the students themselves, but the pronunciation predicament immediately stuck out to me as a problem for which I would like to find some resolution. For this reason, I decided to look further into the difficulties Thai students have when learning such a widely- used foreign language as English. What I found was that most of the pronunciation problems stem from the vast differences the two languages contain. For many teachers and students alike, the dissimilarities become so numerous that they easily begin to overwhelm everyone involved in the process of learning a new language. But...  [Read more]

  In this episode, we cover the pronunciation of the word "jinni". This word describes an entity or a spirit in Muslim beliefs that can take human or animal form and influence human with supernatural powers. The word came into the English language from the Arabic word "jinn?" that can also mean demon. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. This unit covered common problems that occur and solutions. It also served as a review for other units that...  [Read more]

As a global language, English has been popularly taught as the second language in China for quite a few years. Now there are more Chinese people learning English on various purposes, such as applying for a higher paid job, studying and living abroad, or establishing business with western countries. According to my experience of learning and teaching English, it is harder to master English pronunciation than English grammar for Chinese students. Chinese grammar may appear quite simple compared to that of many highly-inflected Western languages (e.g. Russian, Latin, etc.), or even the low-scale verb conjugations, for instance, of English (e.g. "swim, swam, swum") because of the lack of inflections. (1) Even though there are similarities between...  [Read more]

English is one of the most commonly used languages in India, especially by the urban Indian. Almost every Indian, even if he/she has had no formal schooling, uses at least a dozen English words in day to day communication. However, this 'In-glish' doesn't suffice in an international scenario, and one can see that language schools here in the UAE have a larger percentage of Indian students than others. Interestingly, an Indian student finds it easier to write English than speak. This may partly be due to cultural reasons. Similarly, an Indian learner has a larger receptive vocabulary than a productive one. As an Indian EFL teacher, I find these aspects intriguing.Problems with grammar:All EFL students find it difficult to understand ' and use -- perfect tenses. They usually...  [Read more]

As a global language, English has been popularly taught as the second language in China for quite a few years. Now there are more Chinese people learning English on various purposes, such as applying for a higher paid job, studying and living abroad, or establishing business with western countries. According to my experience of learning and teaching English, it is harder to master English pronunciation than English grammar for Chinese students. Chinese grammar may appear quite simple compared to that of many highly-inflected Western languages (e.g. Russian, Latin, etc.), or even the low-scale verb conjugations, for instance, of English (e.g. "swim, swam, swum") because of the lack of inflections. (1)Even though there are similarities between English alphabet and Chinese one...  [Read more]

Rapid globalisation has developed the need to find a common means of international communication. Throughout modern history English has been the language for most of the worlds economic, political and scientific leaders. Now-a-days if any non-English speaking country want to communicate outside its borders then English is usually the language of choice. To meet the demand of teaching non-English speakers, many language courses have been developed e.g. TEFEL, TESOL etc. These courses have to meet demand in many different situations one of which being multi-lingual and mono-lingual classes. Multi--lingual classes consist of students speaking different languages and are most often found in English speaking countries where students have come with an aim to learn English. ...  [Read more]

I am a ?Purist? at heart. For me the only acceptable, the only correct, the only ?propah? way to speak (and spell) English is as illustrated in the Encyclopedia Britannica ? the British English, so to speak. I have always been a staunch champion of Dr. Doolittle and all the other guardians of the English language. However, being a teacher of the English language, I can no longer turn a blind eye to the ?globalization? of English, which is - ?now a mish-mash of words incorporated from over 350 languages, and is still undergoing constant change, with hundreds of words/phrases coming into existence every year, some fading away, but many finding their way into dictionaries and thesauruses! One can pronounce words in many different ways and still be understood!! The...  [Read more]

I am a 'Purist' at heart. For me the only acceptable, the only correct, the only 'propah' way to speak (and spell) English is as illustrated in the Encyclopedia Britannica ' the British English, so to speak. I have always been a staunch champion of Dr. Doolittle and all the other guardians of the English language.However, being a teacher of the English language, I can no longer turn a blind eye to the 'globalization' of English, which is - 'now a mish-mash of words incorporated from over 350 languages, and is still undergoing constant change, with hundreds of words/phrases coming into existence every year, some fading away, but many finding their way into dictionaries and thesauruses! One can pronounce words in many different ways and still be understood!! The emergence of so ...  [Read more]

  Okay, so we're going to use this pro-forma as our lesson plan and we're going to fill one out as though we were planning for an actual lesson. So, we start off with some basic information about the class. So, the name of the teacher, date and time and the class level. In this particular case, our class is going to be an elementary class and the room will be room 3. Having looked through the registers we see that the expected number of students for this particular class is going to be 10. This will help us in creating our worksheet copies. The context of the lesson for this class is going to be present continuous tense and it may well be the first time that this particular level of class has been introduced to this tense. So, our focus is going to be fairly general and it's going...  [Read more]

Teaching English to students in Costa Rica is probably one of the easiest countries in the world in which to teach English. First of all, English is now required in the schools, Spanish is much closer to English in most sounds, almost identical alphabets are used, the general culture is open, the students like to talk, and the education of Costa Ricans is relatively high. However, there are several problems that can be encountered, some of which are rather unexpected, which include pronunciation, spelling, discipline, motivation, and general education level. There are certain pronunciation difficulties that Costa Ricans encounter. The primary one is with the 'th' sound. There is no sound like that in Latin American Spanish so they want to say it with just a 't', 'd', or 'f'...  [Read more]

ESL students whose first language is Italian certainly have many advantages over some students who speak languages less closely related to English. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State, which recently categorized languages into how closely they were related to English and how long it would take speakers of those languages to reach a certain level of proficiency in English, placed Italian in the category of languages most closely related to English. Indeed, Italian speakers have the advantage of familiarity with the Roman alphabet, and the two languages share many similar grammatical structures and even similar-sounding vocabulary items. At the same time, Italian students of English still encounter many difficulties relating to the...  [Read more]

Within the English Language there are many problems that as native speakers we don?t really think about but when learning the English language as a second language there are many common misunderstandings and problems that arise. These can be divided into lexical and structural problems. One of the most common lexical problems is that of ambiguity. This is evident in idiomatic speech, homographs and homonyms within the English language. ?Kick the bucket? is a classic idiom that describes death and someone physically kicking a bucket. ?This ambiguity cannot be resolved by syntactic structure? because they both have exactly the same structure so the only way to analyse the meaning of this sentence is to look at the context that it is said or...  [Read more]

Japanese people are known to be well educated. In the case of English, most people have at least six years of English learning experience in school. However in reality, the majority of those people are not able to hold a short, basic conversation in English, even just a few lines of greeting. A language is a communication tool. If you cannot communicate with it, it is pointless to spend so much time and effort on learning it? Thus, clearly something is ineffective in the way that English was taught in Japan to my generation or to the generations who are old enough to prove this inefficient result. In this article, I try to describe the problems that Japanese people have and the appropriate teaching aspects in terms of their English fluency and pronunciation, ...  [Read more]

Within the English Language there are many problems that as native speakers we don't really think about but when learning the English language as a second language there are many common misunderstandings and problems that arise. These can be divided into lexical and structural problems.One of the most common lexical problems is that of ambiguity. This is evident in idiomatic speech, homographs and homonyms within the English language.'Kick the bucket' is a classic idiom that describes death and someone physically kicking a bucket. 'This ambiguity cannot be resolved by syntactic structure' because they both have exactly the same structure so the only way to analyse the meaning of this sentence is to look at the context that it is said or written in. ...  [Read more]

Phonetics and its Uses in Foreign Language Instruction Phonetics is the study of the physical aspects of speech. It is broken down into three categories: articulatory phonetics deals with the way in which speech sounds are produced, concerning itself with the actual organs involved in speech (vocal tract, tongue, lips, etc.); acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds, such as the properties of sound waves and the acoustics of speech; and auditory phonetics analyses the way in which humans perceive sounds, and involves the anatomy and physiology of the human ear and brain (Nicole Dehe, ?Phonology and Phonetics,? 1-2). Phonetics looks only at sounds themselves, rather their meanings or the context in which they are used, while the study of...  [Read more]

IntroductionIn this article I will gather the most common problems/difficulties Thai learners have when learning English. I will spot the main difficulties you as the teacher will deal with and I will give my tips/solutions of how you can understand the problems and deal with them.The article is based on own experience and new information I have learned from this course.Some of the major differences between Thai learners and European learners are:Certain students can be reluctant to talk and produce English in class. It can be caused by natural shyness or just the fact that they cannot express themselves in English or it can have its roots in cultural issues.How do we deal with these issues and how do we know if certain behaviour is caused by student´s culture or by natural ...  [Read more]

Phonetics and its Uses in Foreign Language InstructionPhonetics is the study of the physical aspects of speech. It is broken down into three categories: articulatory phonetics deals with the way in which speech sounds are produced, concerning itself with the actual organs involved in speech (vocal tract, tongue, lips, etc.); acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds, such as the properties of sound waves and the acoustics of speech; and auditory phonetics analyses the way in which humans perceive sounds, and involves the anatomy and physiology of the human ear and brain (Nicole Dehe, 'Phonology and Phonetics,' 1-2). Phonetics looks only at sounds themselves, rather their meanings or the context in which they are used, while the study of sound systems...  [Read more]

Japanese people are known to be well educated. In the case of English, most people have at least six years of English learning experience in school. However in reality, the majority of those people are not able to hold a short, basic conversation in English, even just a few lines of greeting. A language is a communication tool. If you cannot communicate with it, it is pointless to spend so much time and effort on learning it' Thus, clearly something is ineffective in the way that English was taught in Japan to my generation or to the generations who are old enough to prove this inefficient result. In this article, I try to describe the problems that Japanese people have and the appropriate teaching aspects in terms of their English fluency and pronunciation, from the...  [Read more]

For the native Japanese speaker, English poses a couple distinct problems in pronunciation. The first being the basic pronunciation of l and r. As is stated in Nakama 1: 'the [r] sound in Japanese'is neither [l] nor [r] in English(p. 12).' The Japanese speaker has difficulty separating and pronouncing the sounds of l and r as he or she has a predisposition to pronounce them as a hybridized sound being both l and r. Another difficulty in English pronunciation for Japanese speakers is the non-phonetic/non-pictographic nature of English. The twp basic Japanese alphabets, the Hiragana and Katakana, are phonetic alphabets, the Hiragana used for Japanese words and particles, while the Katakana is used for foreign words transferred into Japanese. Given these two alphabets,...  [Read more]

Teaching beginners is one of the most interesting and ongoing training as a teacher will keep on discovering other techniques in order to capture the understanding of the beginner, rather to make the beginner understand. The term ?beginner? may not mean all the students are in one category, they are categorized as follows: The absolute beginner- these are students who don?t know English at all. (htt://esl.about.com) there are a number of things to keep in mind when teaching someone who has had no prior (or very little) contact with the language, you need to carefully choose what you present, for instance, types of needs that needs to go into planning a lesson: If I begin the lesson with, Hi my name is--------.What?s your name? I am presenting three (!) concepts at once...  [Read more]

Multiple intelligences is a fascinating topic that really caught our attention for writing our final article. This topic broadens minds and gives strategies and resources not only to psychologists but also to teachers who are willing to do whatever it takes to help students give their very best and learn at their own pace and through their individual abilities or skills. There are students who like music, others who like numbers, and others who like sports. The different likes are non other than the special characteristics each human being was born with and traits of the different kinds of intelligences.When you study the work of people such as Howard Gardner or Elaine de Beauport, you start to understand why some students react to certain teaching modes and some to others....  [Read more]