Master’s Final Project Paper
by Jesús Betancourt
University of Puerto Rico– Rio Piedras Campus Department of Graduate Studies – Education Faculty
Although all English teachers seem to acknowledge the importance of good pronunciation for effective communication, its teaching is usually overshadowed in classrooms by the other fundamental aspects of the language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Factors such as the need for teachers to stringently follow curriculums focused on other language skills, the lack of suitable pronunciation teaching materials, and teacher perceptions that they do not have the technical knowledge required to teach it are mentioned in the research literature as reasons why the teaching of pronunciation is an often neglected aspect of English language education—not only in Puerto Rico but in other countries where the language is studied as a second language.
Considering the reasons cited to explain why pronunciation instruction is not given its proper due, I have developed a 47-lesson course, fully supported by online resources on the sonidosdelingles.com website, that teachers can rely on to help ESL learners in Puerto Rico master the physical mechanics behind the production of the sounds (phonemes) used in American English sounds (phonemes) . Motivated students and adult learners from other countries can also access the website to learn pronunciation on their own.
Table of Contents
Purpose and Justification for the Project. 6
The focal point of pronunciation instruction. 9
The importance of clear pronunciation. 10
Factors that affect learning pronunciation. 12
Teachers’ reluctance to teach pronunciation. 14
Pedagogical Rational for the Proposed Course. 15
Differences between English and Spanish phonemes. 16
Using the IPA to teach pronunciation to ESL Learners 19
Organization of the Proposed Course. 22
Steps to complete the project. 22
Introduction
To successfully convey a verbal message, it must be structured appropriately. This requires both syntactic and phonological competence. Mundanely stated: What good is knowing a lot of English words or having a reasonably large written vocabulary if the way you enunciate sounds precludes the listener from understanding what you are saying? Fortunately, poor pronunciation can be remedied by measured study and practice of the physical dynamics involved in producing the sounds of any language. There is ample evidence that explicit phonetic instruction facilitates L2 pronunciation development (Gordon, 2021).
Disappointingly, despite the many years of official compulsory English education for all Puerto Rico children, many still speak with a heavily accented Spanish accent, which often impedes intelligible communication, especially when speaking on the phone. The lack of pronunciation proficiency can be attributed to many factors beyond the obvious that pronunciation training is not a priority for teachers—in Puerto Rico or the United States. For example, when surveyed, teachers as a group recognized the importance of pronunciation instruction but, at the same time, acknowledged that it is seldom taught (Darcy, 2017).
The problem is compounded in Puerto Rico because many English teachers have language problems[KSC1] . One study found that English teachers in Puerto Rico showed high agreement regarding the concern that not all teachers are good models for their students because their English is not strong (Eisenstein Ebsworth et al, 2018). The researchers affirmed that this finding was not surprising considering the poor pay for teachers in Puerto Rico. They stated that good English speakers in Puerto Rico tend to be attracted to higher-paying jobs in private industry. Similarly, the Director of the English Department in the Faculty of General Studies at the University of Puerto Rico lamented, as far back as 1969, that many teachers in Puerto Rico could not perform a good job teaching English. She cited a Puerto Rico Department of Education study, which found that less than 1% of its more than 4,200 teachers teaching English in Puerto Rico were not certified as teachers of English, Nine (1969).
It also must be acknowledged that speaking practice in schools beyond the elementary grades generally does not include explicit pronunciation practice. Speaking and pronunciation are different concerns. Speaking practice primarily concerns developing the ability to concoct sentences in conversations. However, pronunciation instruction aims to enhance the ability to communicate well by teaching learners how to articulate the language’s phonemes. Learning how to pronounce English phonemes correctly can also improve the listening comprehension skills of learners by helping them distinguish similar-sounding words in speech, such as the differences between “three” and “tree” and “ship” and “sheep.” Research studies have demonstrated that pronunciation accuracy improves intelligibility and listening comprehension (Gordon, 2021).
Hence, in response to the need to facilitate teaching and learning English pronunciation, I am proposing a course consisting of 47 lessons that teachers can integrate into their regular English classes to help ESL learners in Puerto Rico master the physical mechanics behind the production of American English sounds. The course is fully supported by resources available on the sonidosdelingles.com website, which I developed for this purpose. Learners are also encouraged to download to their mobile phones for additional pronunciation practice the Sounds of Speech app from the University of Iowa, which is freely variable on the Apple App Store or Google Play. Teachers in other Spanish-speaking countries where English is studied as a second or foreign language can also rely on sonidosdelingles.com to teach their students English pronunciation.
The way the lessons are designed, and the fact that the lessons will be readily available online, is also conducive to self-study by determined high-school students and adults who wish to improve their English pronunciation and familiarize themselves with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the transcription system I employ to help teach the phonemes.
Considering that the discrepancy between the spelling and pronunciation of English can make it extremely hard for learners to infer the phonetic form of some words, it is highly recommended that learners get acquainted with the American English IPA symbols. Knowing the symbols enables learners to use the phonetic transcriptions of words in online dictionaries, allowing them to learn and practice pronunciation independently without asking a teacher for assistance (Mompean & Fouz-González, 2021).
Purpose and Justification for the Project
By developing this course to teach American English phonemes, this project helps address a significant shortcoming of English teaching in Puerto Rico schools, particularly in the public school system: the need for systematic and deliberate pronunciation instruction[KSC2]. Even though it seems evident that clear pronunciation is an essential part of communication competence, much research has shown that pronunciation is a neglected aspect of English teaching in schools. Lack of time, motivation, resources, and teaching materials have prevented many teachers from teaching pronunciation. In contrast, other areas of the language, such as reading comprehension, grammar, and listening skills, are emphasized in school (Pourhosein Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016).
The course aims to help teachers teach their students how to properly articulate the sounds of American English since it is the variety of English most students in Puerto Rico are expected to encounter in their lives and use in future professional settings. Although all English teachers seem to acknowledge the importance of good pronunciation for compelling speech, its teaching is usually overshadowed in classrooms by the other fundamental aspects of the language: listening, reading, and writing. The teaching of speaking that usually goes on in classrooms is more geared toward helping learners carry out conversations in controlled settings rather than developing the ability to communicate clearly. Various research studies surveyed by Thomson and Derwing (2014) showed that pronunciation instruction is quite effective and, if systematically done, usually leads to significant improvement. However, they reported that the largest gains are possible when a limited number of sounds are targeted. Although my proposed course, for the sake of completeness and review, covers all the sounds of the language, it is reasonable to expect that teachers will dedicate more effort to teaching and practicing with their students those sounds known to be difficult for Spanish first language speakers. Ideally, pronunciation instruction should be as individualized as possible; some individuals may need instruction in generating particular phonemes, [KSC3] while others may not. However, this is only a realistic operating scenario for some classrooms in Puerto Rico because it would require highly skilled instructors who can accurately pinpoint the specific pronunciation needs of individual learners.
From personal experience as a teacher of conversational English courses to first-year college students in Puerto Rico, I have observed that many students face a significant challenge when pronouncing various English words. The main issue lies in their attempts to mimic or reproduce sounds that are absent in the Spanish language and unfamiliar to them. Consequently, they make approximations by using similar-sounding Spanish sounds while speaking. Once the dissonance between sounds is explicitly pointed out to them, and they are provided articulatory descriptions of how the sounds are produced, pronunciation problems usually disappear without pestering students with full-blown phonetic explanations or intricate phonological details. Additionally, I have found that showing learners how to use their oral articulators [KSC4] to generate sounds contributes to boosting their confidence levels and leads to successful communication because they stop worrying so much about how they sound when speaking English.
Therefore, a course like the one proposed here is more than justified because many ESL learners with a heavily accented speech in English, to the extent that it impedes intelligibility and comprehensibility, would undoubtedly benefit from strategically focused pronunciation instruction in the form of articulatory descriptions of how sounds are produced. Moreover, using phonetic notation as a metalanguage to teach pronunciation will help students overcome the problems posed by the lack of correspondence in English between spelling and pronunciation, which is a source of much confusion among learners accustomed to the phonetic nature of Spanish orthography.
Remarkably, when asked, most of the students I have taught did not recall ever being explained in school the physical process involved in generating English phonemes, and very few knew about IPA as a tool to accurately transcribe the sounds of speech.
My interest in the teaching of pronunciation is motivated by my experience as a son of Puerto Rican parents attending elementary school in New York City at a time when American teachers insisted that students speak English as “natively” as possible and later as a student in public schools in Puerto Rico where scant attention was given to pronunciation. Also, by attempts to learn to speak Mandarin as an adult without the benefit of having native speakers of the language around me to listen to them talk and try to imitate. This made me rely mostly on IPA phonic symbols to learn how to produce the sounds of that language.
My ultimate goals with this course are to underscore the importance of integrating pronunciation instruction into regular English classes and provide teachers with a centralized online resource that they can readily access to help their students learn how each of the language’s phonemes is physically generated. [KSC5]
This course proposal comprises four sections. This first section introduces the topic, the purpose, and the justification for the proposal. The second reviews the pronunciation instruction theories on which my proposal is grounded; in section three, I discuss how setting aside class time to teach students how to produce the American English phonemes and familiarize them with IPA phonetic notation can be an expeditious and effective instructional technique. I also introduce the phonemes that may pose the most significant problems for ESL Spanish-speaking learners to produce. In the final section, I describe how the course is organized and the online platform specifically developed for this course: www.sonidosdelingles.com.
Literature Review
The following is a review of scholarship that addresses the following issues: the focal point of pronunciation instruction, the importance of clear pronunciation, factors that affect learning pronunciation, and teachers’ reluctance to teach pronunciation despite acknowledging its importance.
The Focal Point of Pronunciation Instruction[KSC6]
According to Jenkins (2004), until the last few decades, the focal point of pronunciation teaching research was on applying contrastive analysis techniques to the sound segments of the L1 and L2 to identify differences between them and, from there, underscore areas where L1 transfer errors were likely to occur. She affirmed, however, that lately, pronunciation teaching research has embraced more sophisticated approaches to interlanguage phonology, which consider universal, developmental, and other processes and focuses more on the suprasegmental features of speech (intonation, stress placement, and rhythm).
Pennington (2021), meanwhile, informed that current trends in pronunciation teaching include, among others, greater communicative and task-based methodologies that combine a focus on meaning with a focus on form; the increased understanding and acceptance of the importance of socio-psychological factors to pronunciation, a greater emphasis on intelligibility and communicative effectiveness rather than correctness or accuracy; and continuing development and improvement of applications to improve pronunciation. She added that although no one questions whether pronunciation should be in the language curriculum, there are still plenty of questions about how to teach it.
However, what many do not question—and my experience teaching conversational English at a University has shown me— is that ESL learners with a heavily accented speech in English, to the extent that it impedes intelligibility and comprehensibility, can benefit from strategically focused pronunciation instruction in the form of articulatory descriptions of how sounds are produced. The ability to produce sounds accurately and understand the sounds that others produce are areas that pronunciation instruction should emphasize. This involves providing learners with targeted instruction, practice exercises, and feedback highlighting specific aspects of their pronunciation that they need to improve.
Moreover, using phonetic notation as a metalanguage to teach pronunciation can help students overcome the problems posed by the lack of correspondence in English between spelling and pronunciation, which is a source of much confusion among learners accustomed to the phonetic nature of Spanish orthography.
Although sounding like a native speaker of English is certainly not necessary to be well understood in most speaking contexts, the truth of the matter is that even ESL learners proficient in English often need to improve their L2 pronunciation to improve linguistic self-confidence and meet academic and professional requirements (Johnson & Parrish, 2010).
The Importance of Clear Pronunciation
Further, research referenced by Nguyen et al. (2020) from multiple sources in the context of L2 learners found that learners’ ability to decode spoken English is enhanced by good pronunciation and supports the subsequent development of oral skills. Some research studies have also shown that improving pronunciation enhances other language skills, such as listening, writing, and reading. For example, Underhill (2011) wrote that pronunciation permeates all language activities, “Even if you do not speak aloud, pronunciation is still at work. Think about this: When you read, your inner voice may be saying and therefore pronouncing the phrases. When you prepare to speak, an inner voice may be rehearsing the words and, therefore, of course, the pronunciation. When you write, you may say the phrases internally with your inner voice” (p. 1). Birch (2011) also declared that phonology and phonemic processing knowledge supports reading.
Moreover, as a teacher of English at a local university in Puerto Rico, I observed that learners with poor pronunciation tend to shy away from volunteering to speak or read aloud in class, which likely impacts their ability to develop their oral and reading skills further. Other English teachers have told me that they have noticed that students with poor pronunciation are reluctant to participate in class. Moreover, as a graduate student of English education at the University of Puerto Rico, I have occasionally witnessed professors striving to make sense of what students are saying and students [KSC7] laboring to articulate intelligible ideas—not due to limitations in vocabulary but because of poor pronunciation.
Factors That Affect Learning Pronunciation
It is widely acknowledged that many Puerto Ricans experience significant difficulties pronouncing English despite many years of formal schooling. Rodriguez (2013) claimed that this is notwithstanding the many different language policies and instructional approaches implemented and adopted in schools since 1898—when U.S. forces invaded Puerto Rico and initially tried to impose English-only laws. She cited 2010 U.S. Census data that showed that only 15% of Puerto Ricans reported they speak English “very well.”
Similarly, De Jesus (2011) lamented that even after 13 years of formal schooling, many intelligent and promising students in Puerto Rico still cannot formulate a simple sentence clearly and correctly in English. She argued that teaching English suffers primarily because teachers, instead of teaching students how to use the language to communicate, emphasize learning other aspects of the language, such as grammar. Therefore, insufficient time is dedicated to teaching students how to communicate in clear and correct English. She said that English learning would improve if teachers provided comprehensible input on meaningful and interesting topics students want to hear and stopped mixing so much Spanish and English in class. She also stated that too much translation from English to Spanish goes on in classrooms in Puerto Rico, obviating the need for students to think in English, which is precisely one of the cognitive benefits of learning a second language.
Hinofotis & Baily (1980) said that in the case of ESL learners, pronunciation, not vocabulary or grammar, is the deficiency that impairs the communication process the most. In our experience as a teacher, we have noticed that students are very concerned about sounding “right” in English. We have also perceived that those students with good pronunciation, despite errors in other areas of speech, are easier to understand than more accurate speakers with wrong pronunciation. Teacher colleagues have validated my observations.
According to Brown & Lee (2020), native language; age; exposure; innate phonetic ability; identity and language ego; and motivation and concern for good pronunciation are the six main factors within learners that most affect pronunciation. Of these six, they stated that a learner’s native language is the most influential factor affecting pronunciation. However, many carryovers from the native language can be overcome through focused awareness and learner effort. Regarding age, he stated that children under puberty have an excellent opportunity to speak like a native if, while learning, they have continued exposure to authentic contexts. Adult learners, however, will almost surely retain their native accents. Although conceding that some people are innately better than others regarding phonetic ability, they affirmed that everyone could improve their pronunciation with some effort and concentration.
Further, they stated that research indicates that the quality and intensity of exposure to the target language are more significant factors than the length of time spent exposed to the language. Moreover, the extent to which learners are motivated to improve determines the effort they will expend to reach their pronunciation goals.
Complicating the matter of pronunciation instruction, according to Harmer (2001), is that many learners incorrectly think that they can communicate in English easily just because they can talk and be understood by their teachers and peers—I have also witnessed this phenomenon among students. He affirmed that this perception is due to various factors, including that teachers can understand their students better than the average person because they are accustomed to hearing “bad English.” He also mentioned that other students, not being native speakers themselves, tend to make the same mistakes, which makes it easier for them to understand each other, and that classrooms are not real situations because students do not have an opportunity to speak with native speakers.
Teachers’ Reluctance to Teach Pronunciation
Research is abundant on the issue of why teachers refrain from teaching pronunciation. One reason often cited is that many teachers believe pronunciation is unnecessary and that listening, speaking, grammar, reading, and writing are more important. Elliot (1995) asserted that teachers perceive pronunciation as the least useful of the basic language skills and thus usually sacrifice teaching pronunciation to spend class time on other areas of the language.
Another commonly cited reason is that it takes too long to deal with all aspects of language in the class. Reading, writing, and listening comprehension are given priority because they are the areas tested during the school year and in standardized exams. Since pronunciation proficiency is not commonly tested, that area is usually brushed aside. In the estimation of teachers, there is simply not enough time for pronunciation instruction. Unfortunately, not teaching it reinforces students’ view that pronunciation is unimportant (Darcy, 2017).
Moreover, many teachers need clarification about how to teach pronunciation. In a series of surveys conducted by the University of Indiana School of Education, teachers prominently voiced the concern of needing to be assured that their pronunciation teaching would be effective (Darcy, 2017). Similarly, another study found that teachers feel more uncertain about teaching pronunciation than grammar and lexis due to their lack of pronunciation proficiency to teach their learners effectively (Kelly, 2004).
I can attest from my experience as a student in public schools in Puerto Rico that my English classes throughout high school were taught primarily in Spanish by teachers with heavily accented English which was not conducive to the teaching of good English pronunciation. Further, I do not recall ever being explicitly taught in school how to use the mouth articulators to generate specific English sounds, nor have I heard from colleagues, fellow graduate students, and my students that they had received this type of pronunciation instruction as students in Puerto Rico. Neither the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE) English Program Core Standards nor the Content Standards and Grade Level Expectations documentation, which purportedly provide the framework and expectations for what students in Puerto Rico should know and be able to do at each grade level, make mention of using articulatory descriptions, diagrams, videos, nor a phonetic alphabet to teach students English pronunciation (Puerto Rico Dept. of Education, 2014, 2022).
Pedagogical Rational for the Proposed Course
Pennington (2021) stated that current trends in pronunciation teaching include, among other considerations, greater communicative and task-based methodologies that combine a focus on meaning with a focus on form; the increased understanding and acceptance of the importance of socio-psychological factors to pronunciation, a greater focus on intelligibility and communicative effectiveness rather than correctness or accuracy; and continuing development and improvement of applications to improve pronunciation. She added that although no one questions whether pronunciation should be in the language curriculum, there are still plenty of questions about how to teach it.
I argue, however, based on my observations and teaching experiences with ESL learners in Puerto Rico, that explicit instruction on how to articulate the phonemes of English and describing how the mouth organs [KSC8] produce each sound can be an expeditious and effective teaching method to improve pronunciation because it addresses one of the main problems confronted by learners with persistent pronunciation difficulties: the incorrect production of English sounds, particularly those that do not occur in Spanish. As a result, some ESL learners often replace an unfamiliar or complex English sound with the closest-sounding one in Spanish. With time, improper sound-producing mechanics for producing specific English phonemes become fossilized. To make those sounds, learners must be taught how to use the tongue, teeth, lips, and vocal cords. This task is compounded by the fact that there are more speech sounds to learn in English than in Spanish—only 24 phonemes in Spanish compared to 47 in some English dialects.
Research shows that explicit segmental instruction focused on teaching individual sounds to L2 learners helps create phonological awareness for sounds that do not have equivalents in their L1, which helps improve English language perception and comprehensibility (Saito, 2011).
Differences between English and Spanish phonemes
There are many documented phonemic and phonological differences between Spanish and English. This lack of equivalency makes English pronunciation particularly challenging for Spanish speakers. Perhaps the most significant difference between both languages is that Spanish has five vowel sounds. At the same time, English has at least 12, depending on the dialect, and most of those sounds do not occur in Spanish, including the short vowel sounds for a, i, o and u—(IPAs: /æ/, /ɪ/, /ɑ:/, /ə/, respectively). Since these vowels do not have equivalents in Spanish many learners tend to replace them with a strong pronunciation of the vowel they see written or replace them with the closest-sounding one in Spanish (Mansur, 2020).
For instance, the English vowel sound known as schwa /ə/ is one of the unique features of English and the most common vowel sound in the language. Since the vowel does not exist in Spanish, its pronunciation is difficult for many Puerto Rican ESL learners. Some learners substitute this vowel sound for the sound of the Spanish “o”: carrot [ /ˈkær ət /] for [ kar-roht], for example, Rachel (2012).
According to Uribe-Enciso et al. (2019), another problematic vowel phoneme for many learners is the “ur” in words like hurt and bird. It is not easy because many do not realize that to produce it, the tongue must be pulled back before coming forward to pronounce the ending consonant. He adds that other complex English vowel sounds for Spanish speakers are the English vowel sounds / iy / and /ɪ/, which they usually pronounce both as the Spanish /i/ sound. The /ɪ/ is more relaxed than the Spanish /i/. It appears in the English vowel chart lower than the English sound /i/ but higher than the /e/ sound. Many Spanish speakers have a hard time identifying and producing this intermediate quality.
Moreover, Uribe-Enciso stated that the English sound /ʊ/ is also troublesome because it is more relaxed than the Spanish /u/. The phoneme is between the Spanish sounds /u / and /o/, so students tend to pronounce it as a high tense /u/. Further, since English phonemes /ɑ/ and /ʌ/ do not exist in Spanish, learners tend to substitute them for other sounds. For instance, because of how words are spelled in English, learners commonly produce the English vowel /ɑ/ as the Spanish /o/ or as the diphthongs /ou/ or /au/.
Some learners also experience difficulties pronouncing English consonants. Kolesnikov (2017) pointed out many differences between the pronunciation of consonants in English and Spanish. The sounds associated with the consonants d, t, v, b, g, h, j, l, r, w, v, and z are not the same in Spanish as in English. Learners must be taught how to produce these sounds to become aware of the differences. For example, Kolesnikov (2017) added that in Spanish, the /t/ and /d/ are pronounced by touching the teeth with the tongue; conversely, in English, those consonants are generated by pressing the tongue on the alveolar ridge (the small protuberance behind the upper front teeth). The only difference between the two sounds in English is that the vocal folds vibrate when producing the /d/, but when making the /t/, they should not. Therefore, learners must be advised that they are doing it wrong if their tongue is touching their teeth when producing the /t/ and /d/ sounds in English.
Additionally, Mansur (2020) advised that learners must be taught that /ch/ and /sh/) (IPAs: /tʃ/ and /ʃ/, respectively) are two different phonemes in English. The /ch/ is pronounced in English by touching the back of the front teeth with the tip of the tongue and then pulling back the tongue for the sound, whereas the /sh/ sound is produced by bringing the teeth together, pulling the corners of the lips to make them flare, and lifting the tongue so the front, middle part is very close to the roof of the mouth but does not touch it—the English /zh/ (IPA: /ʃ/ ) sound is made the same way, except that /sh/ is unvoiced, meaning only air passes through the mouth and /zh/ is voiced, meaning you make sound with your vocal cords. In Spanish, ESL learners pronounce /ch/ and /sh/ interchangeably without changing word meanings: “cheque” or “sheque.”
The consonants “v” and “b” (IPAs: /v/ and /b/) are also two different phonemes in English, but in Spanish, both consonants are pronounced as the same phoneme: /b/. That is why you commonly here ESL learners in Puerto Rican ask “v de vaca?” (v as in cow?) to ask whether to write the Spanish word for a cow as either “vaca” or “baca. Teaching learners that you need to put your upper teeth on your lower lip to produce the English /v/ and that /b/ requires you to close your lips can help remedy this problem.
Similarly, the “s” and “z” (IPAs: /s/ and /z/) in English are two different phonemes. However, in some Spanish dialects, like Puerto Rican Spanish, both letters are pronounced alike. A Puerto Rican would pronounce the Spanish word for a shoe “zapato” (IPA: /θaˈpato/ ) as it was written as “sapato” (IPA: / saˈpato[KSC9] /).
Other problematic consonants are the /j/ as in “yes” / jɛs / and the / ʤ / as in “jet” / dʒɛt / sounds, which, although completely different sounds for English speakers, many ESL learners perceive as two versions of the same sound. Minimal pair activities— pronunciation drills with two words in which a single sound creates a difference in meaning: “yes” and “jet,” for example—are recommended classroom activities to help learners distinguish between similar-sounding sounds. (Baker, 2006).
The transfer of the tapped or trilled Spanish /r/ sound to the English /ɹ/ sound also generates difficulties for ESL learners. The difference between the two “r” sounds is that in Spanish the tip of the tongue contacts the tooth ridge on the top of the mouth, while in English, it does not. Animated videos are very helpful in illustrating this difference to learners. The English /s/ plus consonant combination also poses problems for many learners. No words in Spanish start that way. Therefore, there is a tendency for many learners to insert a vowel at the beginning of words with this combination (Mansur, 2020).
Consonant clusters can also pose problems. Mansur (2020) stated that in English there are no words that start with /s/ plus another consonant. Therefore, Spanish speakers will tend to add an initial vowel when pronouncing such words. They would say “estreet” instead of “street”, for example. He advised that teachers drill these words in sentences so that learners become used to the /s/ plus consonant combination when used in combination with other words.
According to Mansur (2020), another handicap that ESL learners experience when learning English pronunciation is their urge to pronounce every single letter they see written in a word. This is the result of the phonetic nature of Spanish, where virtually every word is pronounced the way written. Particularly confusing to learners is that a single vowel sound in English is often represented with two letters (fruit), while a diphthong is often represented with one letter (boy). He, therefore, advises teachers to pair pronunciation instruction with attention to spelling in English.
Using the IPA to teach pronunciation to ESL Learners
The IPA phonetic notation system uses universally agreed-upon distinctive written symbols to refer to the sound features of the world’s languages; it provides a symbol for each sound (phoneme) so that correct pronunciation can be written or printed. A unique mix of those symbols can transcribe any of the world’s languages. There are approximately 160 IPA symbols, each representing one distinctive phoneme. Phonemes are the basic sound units in a language that can communicate meaning. The American variety of English has approximately 43 phonemes. Therefore, to understand English and be understood when speaking it, learners must master only 43 of the IPA symbols (Atkielski, 2005).
The main advantage of the IPA over English spelling is the unambiguous association between sound and symbol. English is only an approximate representation of how words are pronounced—a source of great confusion, particularly for those whose first language is Spanish. Spanish has intuitive and phonetic spelling and vowels that generally always make the same sounds, while English has multiple vowels and is replete with homonyms and irregular spelling rules. For instance, below is the English letter a representing five different sounds in English, transcribed in IPA notation underneath. A learner who has never seen these words before would need to guess how they are pronounced (Dale & Poms, 2004).
| / heｴt / | / ˈfɑ ðər / | / hæv / | / ˈɛn i / | / sɔ / |
| hate | father | have | any | saw |
Once an ESL learner learns to pronounce the phonemes associated with the English IPA symbols, pronouncing any word—even one they have never heard pronounced before—entails only looking up it up on any of the many reputable online dictionaries that show words transcribed in IPA notation. These dictionaries also usually include audio recordings enabling the learner to look at the written transcription, while listening to the word’s pronunciation. This allows the learner to focus on pronunciation details often missed when relying only on audio recordings or the teacher in class, to learn how to pronounce a word. For example, looking at a word written in IPA notation enables learners to notice differences or identify difficulties in pronunciation that their ears may not necessarily hear.
Although there is unanimous agreement in the literature that using IPA notation provides numerous pronunciation teaching and learning advantages for first-language learning, there is no consensus regarding its suitability for second-language learning. However, its detractors often rely on the assumption that learning the symbols will be too difficult for the average learner because it would require the learning of phonetic theory (Mompean & Fouz-González, 2021).
However, my proposed course is a relatively short course of 43 lessons [KSC10] that do not require learners to learn phonology or intricate phonics. Furthermore, my course targets high school learners and adults, not younger learners, who are more likely to be intimated by the appearance of some of the symbols and the thought of having to learn what they mean.
Although teachers may be reluctant at first to use phonetic transcription because it looks complicated and consider that it would take a long time for learners and themselves to learn, the fact is that there are only 43 symbols to master to facilitate the teaching and learning of English pronunciation. Learners surveyed in other countries regarding using IPA notation to teach English pronunciation agreed with the presupposition that knowing phonetic symbols helped them discern how words were pronounced even if they had not listened to them before. They were also optimistic about phonetic notation’s potential for autonomous learning (Mompean & Fouz-González, 2021).
Project inception
What inspired me to develop this course proposal was that I was able to remedy many of the pronunciation problems cited in the research literature as characteristic of Spanish speakers learning English for most of the first-year college students I taught at a local university in Puerto Rico—two Conversational English courses with 25 students each—by setting aside class time to for them to view three-minute YouTube instructional videos on the different American English phonemes. After every video, I summarized for the students in Spanish the instructions offered in the video for the phoneme that was presented and had them individually practice saying words that contained the targeted sound aloud. As each student practiced, I provided appropriate pronunciation feedback when necessary. I also had the students practice their pronunciation with minimal pair exercises.
Many students expressed amazement that they had never been exposed to these teaching techniques and how quickly they learned to master English pronunciation after watching the videos, practicing the sounds aloud, and receiving appropriate feedback. Some claimed they had never realized that English had so many vowel sounds.
Watching the YouTube videos, many students became curious about the IPA symbols they saw on screen and expressed interest in learning how to decipher their meanings. In response, I set aside some lesson time for them to get acquainted with the symbol of the phoneme being studied. I directed students to access Dictionary.com online to check the meaning and the IPA transcription of each new, unfamiliar English word they might encounter. After a few lessons, I noticed that students could recognize and produce the sounds associated with the previously studied IPA symbols. Inspired by the progress the students were making in their pronunciation with the videos and IPA symbols and the positive feedback I was receiving regarding the benefits they derived from these educational strategies, I decided to pursue the creation of a course and online resource to help all Puerto Rican teachers teach English pronunciation.
Organization of the Proposed Course
Steps to complete the project.
- I devised the idea for a centralized online repository for pronunciation lessons modeled after my experiences teaching English at a local college in Puerto Rico.
- I conducted a literature review to understand the main issues underlying teaching English pronunciation.
- I viewed online videos on the different American English phonemes, summarized the instructions on physically producing each phoneme, and translated the instructions into Spanish.
- I searched Dictionary.com for practice words containing the American English words phonemes covered in the course for use in listen and repeat drills. I also noted how they were IPA transcriptions.
- I searched the Internet for examples of minimal pair exercises on difficult-to-pronounce American English phonemes for listening and repeat drills.
- I recorded in audio the practice words learners will use to practice saying the different phonemes.
- I created a lesson for each phoneme consisting of the following elements: An image of the target IPA symbol and the practice words containing the phoneme (created with Canva or Pixelmator Pro software), an audio recording in my own voice of the practice words, written instructions to produce the target phoneme, and minimal pairs exercise if applicable.
- I purchased a domain name (sonidosdelingles.com) reflective of the course’s content.
- I designed and coded the website (sonidosdelingles.com) to store the lessons.
- I stored the lessons on the website.
Learning objectives
After the course, students should be able to do the following:
- Accurately articulate words containing the American Phonemes covered during the course.
- Associate with its corresponding sound each IPA notation symbol used to transcribe American English.
Course contents
Forty-seven lessons, each covering one American English phoneme. All lessons will be available on sonidosdelingles.com.
Course duration
The expectation is that by covering at least two phonemes per week, all 47 English phonemes will be covered in 15-minute lessons, during regular English classes, in five months. However, it should take considerably less time to complete the course because it is expected that many teachers will elect to skip or shorten the time spent covering the less troublesome phonemes. Ultimately, it is up to teachers to decide what phonemes to teach, considering their students’ English pronunciation proficiency levels.
Teachers, however, are encouraged to initially cover the phonemes regarded as the most difficult for Spanish speakers to pronounce.
Classroom equipment
Since it cannot be assumed that all students can bring laptops to class, the classroom should have an Internet-connected computer available so all students can view the instructional videos. All students should have a notebook to practice drawing the applicable IPA symbols for the day.
Lesson contents
Each lesson covers one American English phoneme and will be available online on the website sonidosdelingles.com and is comprised of the following:
- An illustration of the IPA notation symbol and the practice words containing the targeted phoneme.
- An audio recording of the words containing the targeted phoneme for classroom and independent study listening and repeat drills.
- Instructions in Spanish on how the phoneme is produced.
- A link to an instructional video showing how the phoneme is produced.
Suggested lesson plan
A suggested lesson plan for each lesson is the following:
Before class, teachers will direct students to access the lesson training materials for the targeted [KSC11] phoneme on sonidosdelingles.com to view the instructional video, listen to the practice words audio, and practice saying the words themselves. The students will also look up the words online on dictionary.com to ascertain their meanings, listen to the corresponding audio, and corroborate their IPA transcription. If the lesson training materials for the phoneme contain a minimal pair exercise, it will be completed by the students with the teacher’s support. The teacher will also encourage learners to download to their mobile phones for additional pronunciation practice the Sounds of Speech from the University of Iowa, which is freely variable on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
During class, the teacher will introduce the targeted phoneme that the students studied independently. The teacher and students will view together the instructional video for the targeted phonemes, stopping the video when appropriate to answer student questions or to stress pronunciation points. After viewing the video, the teacher will illustrate to the class the physical mechanics of producing the phoneme. Afterward, the teacher and students will read the targeted phoneme practice words aloud. Then each student will have the opportunity to read the practice words individually. The teacher will encourage students and dispense appropriate corrective feedback when warranted. If the lesson training materials for the phoneme contain a minimal pair exercise, it will be completed by the students with the teacher’s support.
Instructor credentials
The course can be taught by any certified English teacher with a genuine desire to improve the English pronunciation of their students. Teachers are encouraged to use the course and online resources to improve their English pronunciation.
Student evaluations
Teachers will determine the degree of impact, if any, that student’s performance during the pronunciation instruction portion of the class will have on their class grade; however, at the start of the course, a test will be conducted for diagnostic purposes to ascertain each student’s English pronunciation proficiency level and to gauge the effectiveness of the course in improving student pronunciation. The test will consist of audio recordings of the student pronouncing a list of 20 words in English containing the sounds that are known to be problematic for Spanish speakers to enunciate. Before the recording, students will be given one hour (3 minutes per word) to look up the words on sonidosdelingles.com for meaning and to listen to an audio recording of the word. Based on the number of words pronounced correctly, the instructor will score the test of each student as excellent (18-20), highly satisfactory (16-17), satisfactory (14-15), and less than satisfactory (0-13).
After the course, a similar test will be administered to each student with another set of words. The instructor will score each student’s test in the same manner as the diagnostic test. The instructor will compare the overall performance of the students in the post-course test with the diagnostic test at the beginning of the course.
Conclusion
I do not believe learners should be left to fend for themselves when learning English pronunciation. Teachers should not expect all learners to be able to pick up good English pronunciation just by relying on their ears and trying to replicate in speech what they hear. Unfortunately, pronunciation is more than listening and repeating, and bad pronunciation habits are as easy to pick up from other people as good ones. I am convinced that if teachers take the time to teach their students how the English phonemes are produced, quick and noticeable improvements in pronunciation will ensue. Realistically, this enterprise should not take more than three or fewer months if one or one-half hours a week is allocated to teaching four or five phonemes. Many will take considerably less time to teach than others because they have Spanish equivalents or near-equivalents. Teachers can refer to www.sonidosdelingles.com as a centralized repository for pronunciation teaching materials.
Pronunciation problems start for some people when they want to learn a new language but cannot distinguish certain sounds because those differences are irrelevant in their native language. When we try to learn a new language, we tend to map new sounds to sounds we already know in our native language. Although we can still learn to hear and produce entirely new sounds with enough training, we may develop terrible pronunciation habits early on that are difficult to fix later (Thorin et al., 2018).
That is why I urge schools to incorporate articulatory descriptions of how sounds are produced in English in school curriculums and for students to familiarize themselves with the IPA notation system to become independent learners and learn the pronunciation of new words without the need for individualized instruction.
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Appendix
Sample Lesson
[KSC1]A citation here would be good
[KSC2]i agree with you here, 100%. This could also be evidenced by a cursory look at PRDE’s standards and expectations to see their use of IPA etc.
[KSC3]this is nice and clear
[KSC4]organs? oral articulators maybe?
[KSC5]great, and nice and clear! Way to go
[KSC6]no need for indent on Level 3. Italics, bold
[KSC7]interesting… really? “laboring”?
[KSC8]I’ve never heard this before
[KSC9]Excellent section! Good work!
[KSC10]make sure you are consistent throughout… i thought you mentioned 40 earlier
[KSC11]spelling – you use it later too.. please revise