Step two – Practicing phonemes Once students have grasped the concept of and can identify phonemes, they will need to practice making the sounds accurately. This is where pronunciation diagrams can be helpful. Many sounds like ‘r’ and soft ‘g’ are articulated inside the mouth and they can be frustrating for students to try and duplicate. Diagrams of the correct positioning of the mouth and tongue for these sounds can be found in many books, and blown up for larger classrooms.
By now you have probably realized that teaching pronunciation to ESL learners is going to take time. Learning a second language requires, to an extent, a reprogramming of the brain; new neural paths must be created to process the new information. It is like a baby learning to talk at an accelerated pace – new facial expressions and sounds have to be learned and applied.
Step three – Word pronunciation When teaching on the phoneme level, we take noises and make them significant. When we work on pronunciation at the level of conversational dialogue, a new set of barriers appears.
Anxiety is a common enough symptom among ESL students. Fear of failure makes them stiff and nervous, and this is often readily apparent in their demeanor. Repetitive verbal games such as Jazz Chants, handclap rhymes and other structured activities can relieve much of this pressure and allow the students to concentrate on the pronunciation and intonation Classroom rituals, like learning a short greeting to use at the beginning of each class will help boost self confidence.
Learned helplessness is a less easily spotted hindrance. This refers to our psychological tendency to ‘give up’ after a few failed attempts, especially if there is negative feedback from the teacher or classmates. The solution is simple – keep it positive! Praise each advancement, no matter how small, tape the students progress so he/she can hear their improvement on a regular basis, and don’t forget to award the slow learners as much recognition as the rapid ones!