TEMA 9. Descripcin del sistema fonolgico de la lengua inglesa.

Modelos y
tcnicas de aprendizaje. Percepcin, discriminacin y emisin de sonidos,
entonaciones, ritmos y acentos. La correccin fontica.
TOPIC 9.

Description of the phonologial system of English. Models and

techniques of

learning. Perception, discrimination and production of

sounds, intonation, rhythm and stress. Phonemic correction.

1. INTRODUCTION
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF ENGLISH
3. PERCEPTION, DISCRIMINATION AND PRODUCTION OF SOUNDS,
INTONATION, RHYTHM AND STRESS.
4. MODELS AND TECHNIQUES OF LEARNING
5. PHONEMIC CORRECTION
6. CONCLUSION
1. INTRODUCTION
From early years, we should develop in our students the four basic language
skills (oral comprehension, oral expression, written comprehension and written
expression) that make the communicative competence, which according to RD
126/2014* is stage objective f for the Primary Stage aiming that students are
competent when understanding and producing the foreign language in everyday
situations.
It is widely known that the area of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is
closely linked to the key competence developed in the Order ECD/65/2015* and
which states, following Canale and Swain (1980), that the communicative
competence has five components, being of them the linguistic subcometence
and which results in several dimensions:

lexis, grammar, semantics,

phonological, ortographic and orthoepic. It is obvious that all these aspects

must be taught, along with the four language skills and the rest of competences,
in an integrated way but along this unit, we will briefly focus on the phonological
and orthoepic components, affecting directly the oral skills, due to the scope of
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it and the time constraint but highlighting the need of teachers to have a deeper
understantind about phonetics and phonology for their teaching practice as well
as methods and techniques, within an eclectic approach (Finocciaro), to apply
them.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF ENGLISH
When we speak, we use the air from our lungs. First, we breathe it in and then,
almost instantly and unconsciously we breathe it out slowly so the air, due to the
fact that the air flow passes through different speech organs (vocal cords, jaws,
mouth, palate, tongue and lips) and, we can encounter different sounds, either
when listening (encoding and decoding sounds from word of mouth in a shared
context within the same linguistic code) or speaking (encoding sounds orally
from a shared linguistic code), that is to say, through the oral medium.
Thus, from the moment we speak about sounds in a language, we are referring
to phonemes (regularly used units of sounds: vowels and consonants) which
are encompassed within the field of phonetics (the study and classification of
speech sounds without considering the relation they have to their linguistic
meaning) and the phonology discipline (the contrastive study of relationships
among the speech sounds when working in the language) but we be careful not
to confuse phonemes with graphemes (graphic representation of speech).

Likewise, the pronunciation system consists of two big categories: segmental

and suprasegmental (also called prosodic) features.
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Within the segmental features, we can distinguish vowels (voiced sounds which
are produced when a stream of air is exhaled with no obstruction nor occlusion)
and consonants (voiced or unvoiced sounds which are produced when a stream
of air is exhaled with either some obstruction or occlusion) that will be analysed
below:
Concerning vowels, we can distinguish 12 different vowels and although, there
are many ways of classifying vowels, we will just focus on two of them,
depending on:

Lip-rounding:
-

Rounded/closed vowels. The corners of the lips get close and the lips
are pushed forwards.

Spread/open vowels. The corners of the lips move away.

Neutral/middle vowels. Lips are not rounded or spread.

Length:
-

Long vowels: /a:/ // /i:/ // /u:/

Short vowels: / / / / / / / / / / //

As regards as diphthongs (sounds consisting of a glide from one vowel to

anther and in which the first of them is pronounced more clearly than the
second), we can distinguish two types:
Centring (they end in the middle vowel //): /e/ (chair, dare) / / (ear,
here, beer, fear)

/ / (tour, poor, moor)

Closing (they end the closed vowels: / / or //)

/ a / (hi, fly, nice)

/e / (face, grey, make)

/ / (boy, toy,

voice)

/au/ (house, loud, how)

/u/ (grow, go, soap)

These five closing diphthongs can be followed by the sound // to make

triphthongs:
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o / a / (fire, liar, hire)

o /e / (player, layer, conveyor)
o // (employer, loyal, royal)
o /au/ /hour, power, shower)
o /u/ (lower, slower, mower)

Consonants can be grouped in terms of the:

Phonation. As it has been already mentioned, we can classify them into:
-

voiced consonants (the vocal chords vibrate)

unvoiced (the vocal cords do not vibrate)

Manner of articulation. They have to do with how the air escapes through
the vocal tract when the consonant is made.
1. Approximants or semivowels. A voice gliding sound that starts as a
vowel and moves away to another vowel. /w/ /j/
2. Plosives. The air flow encounters a closure in the vocal tract but then it
is released explosively. /p/ /t/ /k/ /b/ /d/ /g/ (trick: petaca-bodega)
3. Affricates They occur like in plosives but the air is released less
explosively. /d/ /t/.
4. Fricatives. Two organs get so close that a friction is produced. /f/ /v/ /s/
// ///z/ /r/ /h/ //
5. Lateral. The air flows around the sides of the tongue /l/

6. Nasal. The air flows out through the nasal cavity /n/ /m/ // (trick: no
more singing)
7. Rolled. It is produced when a quick succession of taps takes place /r/
Place of articulation. It refers to the place in which the obstruction of the
vocal tract occurs and which organs are involved.
1. Labial. Lips are used and almost get closed: /b/ /p/ /m/
2. Dental. The tip of the tongue is against the upper teeth. // //
3. Alveolar. The tip of the tongue is against the alveolar ridge. /t/ /d/ /l/ /n/
/z/ /s/ /r/
4. Palato-alveolar. The tip of the tongue against the back part of the
alveolar ridge
5. Velar. The back of the tongue is against the soft palate. /k/ /g/ //
6. Palatal. The front of the tongue is against the hard palate. /j/
7. Glottal. The gap between the vocal cords make friction /h/
3.PERCEPTION, DISCRIMINATION AND PRODUCTION OF SOUNDS,
INTONATION, RHYTHM AND STRESS.

Suprasegmental (also called prosodic) features refers to stress, rhythm

and intonation. These elements are not limited to single sounds as segmental
elements do but they extend over syllables, words or phrases.
Stress is the intensity given to a syllable of speech by special effort
resulting in loudness to differentiate it from other syllables or words. It
is not marked in written English, unless we use phonetic transcriptions.
There are two types:
-

Primary stress. It is represented with a stroke on the upper part before

the stress syllable.*

Secondary stress. It is represented with a stroke on the lower part

before the stress syllable in very long words*
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It can refer to a syllable (word stress) or to a word (sentence stress), making

them stand out from the rest.
Teaching our students both word stress and sentence stress involve some
difficulty:
Words cannot be divided into syllables in accordance to their orthography,
but their pronunciation
There are not any visual hints to guess where the stress is and there are not
fixed rules but they depend on what we want to emphasise (noun or verb in
case of word stress or feelings we want to express concerning sentence
stress)
Stressed and unstressed syllables are much stronger than in Spanish and
that is the reason why Spanish sound flat to native speakers.
There is a lot of words which can be pronounced with a weak form or a full
form depending on the contexts. They can verbs, personal pronouns,
prepositions, conjunctions, articles, indefinite adjectives.

Rhythm. It is the combination of stressed and unstressed syllables that

enables us to slow down our speech or speed it up, be emphatic or make
our speech more aesthetic. It is of a vital importance in English (stress-timed
rhythm) but as it does not happen in Spanish (syllable-timed rhythm) . In
addition, to keep the English rhythm we must pronounced unstressed syllables
faster than stress syllables. For this reason, work on rhythm in the English class
is essential.
Intonation. It is the way of rising or falling the voice in speaking, so we can
encounter and produce different types depending on the context:
-Rising intonation utterances: requests, suggestions, yes/no questions
-Falling intonation utterances: statements, questions, commands
-Falling-rising intonation: expressing doubt
-Rising-falling intonation: expressing surprise or other genuine feelings.
There are two main problems when teaching pronunciation in the English
classroom:
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 Its teaching is neglected (descuidado) as it is overlooked or teachers

lack of self-confident to teach it properly because they need a good
grounding, theoretical knowledge or practical skills.
It is usually reactive. Only when a particular problem arises, children are
taught pronunciation but it is not strategically planned to make it
effective.

Nevertheless, it is mandatory for teachers to teach these contents as the

Decree 198/2014 states in the blocks of contents related to the oral skills in the
following way:
- To use extra linguistic sounds and conventional prosodic features.
- Sound, stress, rhythmic and intonation patterns.

In the same way, we provide our students with listening comprehension

exercises; we should do the same with pronunciation, either in an integrated
way or not. Thus, we will able to distinguish three different levels in the
mastery of phonetics:
-

Perception. Students identify segmental or suprasegmental features of

language.

Discrimination. They can differentiate them.

Production. They can produce them in their oral productions with little
difference in comparison to native speakers.

4.MODELS AND TECHNIQUES OF LEARNING

English long ago outgrew its limits of land and this is why we can find so many
English-speaking countries with so many English varieties in the UK, the USA,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other African and Caribbean countries
which were once ruled by the British.
Having said that, we as teachers ask ourselves: what model should we teach?
First of all, we can describe a model as pronunciation characteristics of the
language that a teacher presents to their learners in the classroom.
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We must admit that RP (Received Pronunciation), also called The Queen

English or BBC English has been the imposed or the most implemented model
both in Britain and British teachers teaching overseas but this is not really
happening nowadays taking into account that only 3% of the British population
speak this English variety.
As a consequence, there is no easy nor clear answer to this question but it all
depends on the students we have in our class, their needs, characteristics,
background, bearing in mind that our Royal Decree 126/2014* which states that
a student-centred approach must be carried out; but particularly, the nationality
of those native people our students may get in touch in the short or long term,
being this the main reason we opt for teaching Standard British English in our
English lessons in Spain but Standard American English in Mexico although it is
widely accepted that we must make our students aware that lots of varieties
exist among countries and even regions.
It now more clear that pronunciation teaching must be an integral part of our
teaching plan and that it is a must for teacher nowadays making students aware
of the different sounds and features they can encounter to improve their
speaking and listening proficiency. Nevertheless, we must highlight that we do
not aim at making them sound like a native speaker but at making themselves
be understood and understand other people.

Thus, we can opt for different alternatives to teach pronunciation in Primary

Education according to Harmer:
whole lessons. They can be integrated, remedial or practice lessons and the
teacher devotes a whole session to focus on a specific aspect of the
phonological system.
discrete slots. The teacher plans short and separable bits of pronunciation
over lessons.

 integrated phases. During certain moments of a lesson, depending on the

skill students are working on, some specific aspects are explained or
practised.
opportunistic/reactive teaching. Teachers stray from their original plan to
work on a problem or doubt concerning pronunciation but it was not planned
at all.
As regards as the techniques, strategies or activities we can use in the
English classroom, we can highlight that in the past, the most common
techniques sere drills, detailed descriptions, tongue twisters or even
transcription practice. Now things have changed for the better and we must
bear in mind what Gilbert claims in relation to it so that students are willing to
learn improve their pronunciation but effectively:
o Avoid mechanical drills
o Emphasise the musical aspects at a discourse level
o Teach real speech patterns

In any case, it does not mean that we cannot use drills or transcriptions but we
must vary the materials and activities we use as Decree 198/2014 states, so
depending on our aims, we can implement the following techniques and
activities from very different fields taking into account that within the
Communicative Approach, we must work on both fluency and accuracy unlike in
other methods (TPR, audio-lingual method, the Silent Way):
Minimal pairs
Odd one out

Rhymes,

chants,

nursery

rhymes, jolly songs

Pronunciation notebook

Jokes

Wall charts

Collaborative writing

Meaningful drills

Poetry such as limericks

Tongue-twisters

Role-plays,

simulations

or

dramatisations
Dictionary work
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 Games (sound bingo, running dictations, hangman, the feather game,

hands up, noughts and crosses, snap, chaining, sticky sounds, phonemic
crosswords). There is no doubt that games are a valuable and useful
resource that we must make the most of as Vernon (2009) states because
they make learning fun, purposeful, they foster interaction (competition,
cooperation) and they create a relaxing or lively atmosphere, which will
lower the students affective filter according to Krashen so input will enter
easily.
But we should also make meaningful use of ICTs (198/2014), integrating
computer-based activities and, depending on the possibilities, mobile learning
as there are lots of apps and websites that offer our students working on
pronunciation in a fun way:
Merriam-Webster Learners Dictionary
Soundsofenglish.org
Sound-o-matic.com or
Howjsay.com, among others, by making use of a blended learning
approach
It would be highly advisable too that we could make different activities for
different leaning styles (visual, hearing, tactile, kinaesthetic) so as to cater for
diversity and we could use authentic material as the aforementioned decree
states (nursery rhyme books, jokes, comic strips, advertisements, slogans).
We can also use the phonetic chart so that they can recognise the different
phonemes in the English language in a progressive way.
There is no denying that we must make them aware of those features that are
different to the Spanish system

5. PHONEMIC CORRECTION
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Mistakes may produce difficulties in understanding a word or sentence, and as

a result, producing a breakdown in a conversation. This is the main reason why
mistakes must be corrected from early stages so that they do not become
fossilised errors.
Nevertheless, we should not discourage students overcorrecting them but it is
necessary that we model problematic or tricky words from the first time we
present them so as to make learners aware of possible mistakes they can make
and a good resource would be the black list of mispronounced words.
We should also create a supportive atmosphere in which instilling students,
within a communicative approach, that errors are a natural part of the learning
process and we can definitely learn from them. This way, we can make them
feel less scared or embarrassed at the same time their self-confidence and
motivation increases, which is vital according to Krashens Affective Filter
Hypothesis
It is true that we must correct mistakes but depending on the activity or aim in
the lesson, we must focus on accuracy or fluency and, related to this, we should
progressively develop in them the monitor device described by Krashen so that
they can correct themselves when they notice they have mispronounced or
misspelled a word. Following Dickenson we must carry out the so-called covert
rehearsal which means that we must encourage them to:
-

Talk to themselves in English

Predict pronunciation by making use of the rules they own.

Listen extensively and intensively

Foster peer-correction

Set themselves objectives

We as teachers must take into account that particularly Spanish students have
some problems with English due to the fact that the Spanish language has a

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more phonetic script system (direct correlation grapheme-phoneme). Some of

these difficulties are shown below:
Concerning vowels:

-The liquid s at the beginning of a

They found difficult to differentiate

word

long from short vowels

-The glottal h

The schwa sound in comparison

-Silent letters

with // or /e/

-/v/ and /b/

The difference between // and //

-Final consonants
- -ed pronunciation in past tense
- - s pronunciation in present simple
and plurals

Regarding consonants:
In terms of suprasegmental features, we can highlight problems in:
-Stressing syllables or words
-Differentiating weak and strong forms
-Keeping a rhythm and a proper intonation depending on the situation, among
others.

6. CONCLUSION
Pronunciation is probably the most neglected aspect of English teaching and
most times it is due to the teachers lack of confidence, no strategic planning or
lack of opportunities provided to students. This the reason why teachers must
have a good command of pronunciation as well as theoretical principles and
teaching skills to deal with these contents so that their students can acquire the
communicative competence by the end of the Primary Stage.
As Charles Fries emphasises pupils should not be so impatient to learn and
widen their voculary but they must master the new phonological system
because from the moment a pupil confuses one phoneme with another,
constant confusions will be made as they progress and it is likely that these

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mistakes will produce breakdowns in conversation and add a difficulty to convey

meaning.
We must teach them both segmental and suprasegmental, up to the extent we
consider depending on the students level and age, in a motivating and varied
way in which error correction plays an important role providing it takes place in
a supportive environment at the same time we develop the rest of language
skills and subcompetences.
To finish, I would like to cite the most important books I have consulted for the
development of this unit:
Celce-Murcia, M.. Teaching Pronunciation. Cambridge. 2008
Kelly, G. How to Teach Pronunciation. Pearson Education Limited. 2000.
Harmer, J. How to Teach English. Longman. 2007

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