Task 4 -- EnglishtextsM

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Date Posted: 04:45:51 06/14/07 Thu
Author: Fabio Vione
Subject: Task 4

Teachers and phonetics

It is usually believed that English teachers only need to know how to speak the language well, not needing a specific formation on the subject. However, it can be seen across language schools that many teachers, mainly those who haven�t studied languages at university, have strong difficulties in teaching pronunciation, since they don�t have the required knowledge. Thus, a consistent formation in phonology is crucial for people who teach English as a foreign language.
It is easy to see, while studying at or visiting a language school, that the vast majority of teachers have various academic backgrounds, from a law degree to an engineering one, being the ones who have graduated from a Letters course by far the minority. Usually it can also be seen through the difficulties such teachers have to teach pronunciation, and how they just skip or pass fast through some phonetics exercises which can be found on the books they utilize. Besides, such teachers may also make some bizarre pronunciation �mistakes� themselves, given that if you are not completely aware of English specificities it would be reasonably hard, if not impossible, to recognize and address them. That could be avoided almost completely if those language professionals had had a consistent formation in such topics while studying at university.
Firstly, good didactic books make use of IPA alphabet to teach pronunciation, not relying exclusively on audio. Therefore, teachers must know how to use them and especially in which specific sounds Portuguese-speaking people have difficulties and why. Secondly, they must be able to recognize students� mistakes, and explain for them exactly how he could improve this point. However, what is usually seen at language courses are teachers repeating a difficult word to exhaustion and the student simply repeating it wrongly, since he cannot hear the difference and for that reason is not able to change what he is saying. If a given teacher, for instance, knows exactly why his pronunciation for the word �love� is different from his student�s in terms of position of the tongue, and not merely explaining that difference through the clich� sentence �It just sounds different, I cannot explain how�, his student could easily reposition his tongue and correct his mistake.
In conclusion, an essential attribute for language teachers is a solid knowledge in phonetics, since they cannot teach something they do not know and a good pronunciation is crucial for a person to be understood and respected in his/her living environment.

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Replies:

Re: Task 4 -- Aline Lucian, 10:54:26 06/17/07 Sun
- Peer Editing - TASK 4 -- Fabio Vione, 17:56:55 06/18/07 Mon