Page 18 - ELG1804 Apr Issue 456

IATEFL special .
SPECIAL FEATURE
Let’s make pron teachers, especially native-speakers, use as a Myth: Adults acquire L2 phonemes in exactly the same way as young children
passport to launch themselves on unsuspecting
learners as qualified professionals.
These courses are so short they can’t provide
more than an add-on much of anything, so it’s a little unfair to lambast Despite the popularity of natural of Helsinki recruited 22 Finnish The Finnish researchers repeated
them for undercooking pronunciation. After a
four-week course, a teacher would be doing well
subjects to focus on the L1 and
monolingual nor natural bilinguals.
to write a transcription of their own name. acquisition theory in the field native speakers who were neither the experiment, this time asking
of English language teaching,
Pronunciation is regarded by many as a ‘frill’ in language The real problem is what happens after the neuroscientists have found that not all Two had acquired some of their L2 sounds. Once again, the fewer
learning, but teachers owe it to students to make it a course: nothing. Institutions that have the adult learners acquire L2 phonemes second language before the age of languages a subject spoke and the
resources and will to train new teachers properly
naturally.
seven, and on average the subjects
later they had started learning, the
core part of their lessons, writes Wayne Rimmer are thin on the ground and at best probably offer The number of languages they knew two foreign languages. less well they could do the task.
support that helps teachers just to survive in speak already and the average age During the experiments, subjects None of the subjects in the study
the jungle of the classroom. These survival tips they were when they started to learn were played familiar native words and were monolingual adults, but the
was sitting in the teachers’ room one a double-paged spread, but you can be sure that wouldn’t include pronunciation because, again, them predicts whether they will pick two kinds of novel word forms, one research suggests that they would
afternoon when my colleague Dan wandered this is the one part of the book that teachers are pronunciation is seen as a fancy add-on rather up new foreign words from speech with native phonemes and the other struggle to pick up L2 phonemes
in and asked, ‘Where do they keep that most likely to ignore. than a core competence. going on around them, research from with non-native phonemes. naturally.
I pronunciation stuff?’ Teachers might get round to pronunciation And not that much is being done Finland suggests. The research found that, the more
I pointed out a clutch of books stranded in if they run out of other things to do, but most professionally to encourage best practice. The Neuroscientists have already languages a subject spoke and the
beautiful isolation on a particularly inaccessible see this material as a distraction. Given that ‘experts’ are hopelessly at odds and confused shown that adults acquire new words lower the average age they started
shelf and watched as Dan flicked through a few the pronunciation supplied is often related about pronunciation models. For example, in their first language quickly and learning them, the higher they scored
titles randomly, scratching his head. only marginally to the topic and main language standards like Received Pronunciation are automatically when exposed to them on rapid learning for word forms with
‘I didn’t know pron was your thing,’ I said a bit point, teachers can be forgiven for seeing it as attacked as elitist and unrealistic, and an in speech. non-native phonemes.
cheekily. ‘It’s not,’ said Dan, ‘I’m being observed redundant. extreme reaction has developed along the lines This rapid-learning effect can be However, this multilingual group
tomorrow and I need something to make the of ‘it doesn’t matter how you sound as long as measured by using an EEG to record struggled to acquire new words in
lesson look good.’ Everyone needs people understand you.’ greater neural responses in the their first language.
I don’t know how Dan’s observation went Really? People in the real world, i.e. not an perisylvian area of the brain. Some other subjects, who started
but he was sure to get the brownie points he the present perfect ELT classroom, pay a great deal of attention Does this process also occur when language learning later, did not show
craved by including a bit of IPA. Everyone says but the same can’t to your pronunciation. Teaching learners that we learn a foreign language? To find any signs of rapid learning L2 sounds
that pronunciation is important, we should anything goes when it comes to pronunciation is out, researchers from the Institute of but did well with the ‘new words’ in
teach more, we shouldn’t neglect it, blah, blah, be said for bilabial patronising and does them a massive disservice. Behavioural Sciences at the University L1.
blah… But the reality is that for most teachers And when it comes to methodology, for all
pronunciation is an optional extra which fricatives those glossy books and nice-looking apps out
comes very far down the list of other classroom there, we haven’t moved on from the ‘listen
priorities. Also, international course books have to cater and repeat’ drilling that teachers used to torture
Pronunciation sounds nice and academic, for everyone, everywhere, so the pronunciation learners with in language laboratories. The
though, so it’s great for wheeling out in observed area selected in the course book may be only difference is that mobile devices make the
and demonstration lessons just to show the boss irrelevant or very low priority for their particular instruments of torture more portable.
that you’re a real teacher. Then after your party learners. Everyone needs the present perfect but The reality is that the communicative era and
trick of pronunciation, you can get back to the the same can’t be said for bilabial fricatives. decades of prioritising meaning over form have
usual fare of ploughing through a course book Far easier to stick to the grammar. squeezed pronunciation out of the curriculum
and a grammar syllabus. If this sounds a bit of a mess, it is. Most and turned it into a luxury item rather than an
Hang on, that’s not fair, course books do teachers don’t have a clue what pronunciation essential. Learners have never bought into this –
include pronunciation, you might point out. to teach and how to teach it. but who asks them?
True, there is usually the obligatory A soft target for criticism would be the short n Wayne Rimmer is the co-ordinator of the Iatefl
pronunciation splotch squeezed into a corner of initial training courses, like Celta, which many pronunciation special interest group at Iatefl.

18 April 2018 editorial@elgazette.com 19