Re: Task 4 -- EnglishtextsM

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Date Posted: 10:54:26 06/17/07 Sun
Author: Aline Lucian
Subject: Re: Task 4
In reply to: Fabio Vione 's message, "Task 4" on 04:45:51 06/14/07 Thu

>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.

Fabio, your text is pretty good and I didn't really find anything to point out as a mistake. Your thesis statment "a consistent formation in phonology is crucial for people who teach English as a foreign language" is debatable and well structured and you've supported your arguments. The only thing I'd write in a different way is fastly instead of fast in the following sentence: "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."
Anyway you've done a great job!
Cheers,
Aline Lucian

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Replies:

Peer Editing - TASK 4 -- Fabio Vione, 17:56:55 06/18/07 Mon