Teaching American English Pronunciation. Susan Ehrlich

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      © Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich 1992

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      First published 1992

      2008 2007 2006

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      PREFACE

      This book is intended as both a textbook and a reference manual for teachers of English as a Second Language. While there are many other introductory phonetics textbooks on the market, none has been written specifically for the ESL teacher. This book attempts to fill this gap by providing an accessible introduction to the fields of phonetics and phonology as they relate to second language learning.

      Part One is an introduction to the English sound system, with many of the descriptions and concepts exemplified through typical errors made by ESL students. Part Two describes pronunciation problems common to most ESL students in addition to the specific pronunciation problems of fourteen different language groups. Part Three, a set of articles written by practitioners in the field, considers practical issues in the teaching of pronunciation.

      This book is based, to a large extent, on a book previously published by the Ministry of Citizenship, Government of Ontario. We acknowledge the Queen’s Printer for Ontario for permission to reprint portions of our previous book. In preparing this book for Oxford University Press, we have substantially revised Chapters 1 to 4 and Chapters 7 and 8 for a wider international audience. Chapters 11, 12, and 16 in Part Three have been substantially revised and rewritten for the present volume. The other chapters in Part Three have undergone minor revisions.

      Numerous individuals have contributed to the preparation of this book and our previous Ministry of Citizenship publication. First, we acknowledge our many ESL students whose enthusiasm for pronunciation made us understand the importance of a book such as this. We thank Jack Chambers and Keren Rice for material and moral support over the last decade. Ed Burstynsky, Rob Fink, Jila Ghomeshi, Bill Idsardi, Michael Kay, Ruth King, Fouad Krichel, Maureen McNerney, Younghee Na, Jura Seskus, Ian Smith, and Mark Webber provided us with insights and information regarding pronunciation problems of specific language groups. John Archibald and Ilsa Mendelson Burns assisted in the original research for Chapter 8 and Doug Jull and John Archibald did much of the research for the Annotated Bibliography. We would also like to acknowledge the detailed and helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers for Oxford University Press. Their comments have allowed us to make many needed improvements to the volume.

      We are most grateful to Esther Podoliak of the Ministry of Citizenship, Government of Ontario, who was involved in every stage of the original project. Esther’s insistence on clarity and accessibility played a large role in making this book as readable as it is. We would also like to thank Sandy Feldman who did the original artwork. Finally, we acknowledge our enormous debt to Carlos Yorio, whose commitment to the application of linguistics to second language teaching made us both better linguists and better second language practitioners. Without Carlos, we probably would never have embarked upon this project. Peter Avery would like to express special thanks to Mary Ann Neary for her continuing support and patience.

      INTRODUCTION

      Preliminary considerations in the teaching of pronunciation

      Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich

      Let us begin by considering two opposing views on the teaching of pronunciation in the ESL classroom. One view holds that the purpose of teaching pronunciation is to eradicate all traces of a ‘foreign’ accent through pronunciation drills. The other view holds that the teaching of pronunciation is futile after a certain age due to a decreasing ability among learners to develop native-like pronunciation in a second language. In this section, we will point out that neither of these views is completely accurate by considering biological, socio-cultural, personality, and linguistic factors which are known to affect the acquisition of the sound system of a second language. This will lead to the understanding that while practice in pronunciation may not make perfect, ignoring pronunciation totally can be