English Language Acquisition – The Pronunciation.

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We talk and speak and utter words, yet, scarcely put an effort to do it correctly. Often, though, the intonation pattern and stress are neglected. The pronunciation is a core of every language one may come along in the world. The pronunciation errors may lead to miscommunication; e.g soup may be mispronounced as soap. A constant mispronunciation of phonemes may cause a severe difficulties to be understood by native speakers of a particular country, English tends to be a bit difficult if it occurs.

The wrong and inaccurate usage of suprasegmental elements which are the intonation and stress causes problems with language acquisition sometimes makes the language impossible to learn.

Language has got its own pattern, it is an irreversible structure which is not altered, it might be modified, but the core structure reminds the same. e.g. /əʊ/ in a world 'open' and 'window' the stress syllable varies and intonation pattern changes. Inaccurate intonation may sometimes appear as rude.


How long have you been in London?

The listener would expect the fall of voice on the first syllable of 'London'

Why don't You to the party?

The question spoken in that pattern is no longer an invitation, it indicates an irritation, namely, someone has refused to go to the party and now the listener tries to inquiry why it happened.


Why don't You to the party?


The proper intonation indicated it is a suggestion or an invitation, the first syllable of the party is stressed.

The provided examples illustrated the common pronunciation errors, all of them might cause a problem with the reception of the message, the comprehension of the meaning.

Each pronunciation error differently influences the meaning of the message, for example, if the speaker mispronounce a world window in the following way - /'vindəʊ/ - he or she still will be understood. During the whole process of learning, the grammatical and lexical errors are unavoidable and pronounced as natural. To teach the pronunciation correctly and effectively, the teacher should focus on integrated lessons during which the pronunciation plays and essential part of language acquisition and analysis. Implement remedial or reactive lessons, their aim is to facilitate the successful achievement of classroom tasks. Practice lessons focus on pronunciation problem as separate issues, isolated tasks which have to solved and mastered.

To start with a successful lesson a teachers and his or her students have to work on production and reception independently. There are some activities which enable students to overcome the pronunciation difficulties. Chaining provides sentences which tends to difficult to pronounce by students. To make the whole process easier, the teacher separates some parts of the sentence and teaches it individually. Back chain is based on drill e.g:
  1. ...told him …
  2. ...would've...
  3. ...would've told...
  4. ...I would've told him
  5. ...if I'd seen her …
  6. ...If I'd seen her, I would've told him...

Drilling is a very repetitive activity, thus done on the lower lever of English acquisition. The phonemic principle is taken into account:
  • Rat /ræt/ which stands for a rodent, a mammal.
  • Rot /rɒt/ which stands for decay, putrefy, moulder.


To make the process easy and quick, the best is to encourage learners to learn the words in a following pattern:

/^/
cap ; hat ; bug ; cup ; hut ; bag


Homographs and homophones enhances the spelling activities.

Homographs are the words which have the same spelling; but, different pronunciation e.g.

  • Wind /wind/ stands for weather phenomena.
  • Wind / waind/ stands to what you do to a clock.

Homophones are words which have the same pronunciation but different spelling e.g.
Write ; right ; there ; their and they're ; fair ; fare


Bibliography:

Brown, H.D. (2000): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Gass, S.M. I L. Selinker (2008): Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. New York: Routledge. VanPatten, B. i J. Williams (red.) 2007: Theories in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
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