Phonemes are distinct sound units that distinguish one sound from another -- for example, the sounds of "p," "b," "d" and "t" in such English words as "pad," "pat," "bad" and "bat." Pairs of words that have one phonemic change between them are known as "minimal pairs." Such linguistic closeness is often confusing to students, as they try to distinguish sound differences to understand spoken words. Introduce minimal pairs by writing a short list of them on the board, such as "sit-set," "but-boot," "ring-rung."
Try this fun minimal-pairs game: Students listen as the teacher says one of two minimal pair words and shows which one they think they have heard by racing to touch the object the teacher or class decided would represent that item. Example: light for /l/ or right for /r/. A variation is students can just raise their right and left hands for specific sounds.
English is a stress-based language, and word stress is determined by syllables in a word. Word stress greatly affects meaning and helps listeners to understand what a speaker is saying. One word has only one stress although it is possible to have "secondary" stress in some words, but secondary stress is a much smaller stress and only occurs in longer words. Additionally, only vowels are stressed, never consonants.
Syllable stress means knowing which syllable in a word is spoken louder or longer than the others in the word. The rules about where to place syllable stress in words is complicated and compounded by the fact that there are many exceptions to every rule. "Feeling" the flow of the language becomes easier with time and practice, which helps students to use correct word stress.
Many two-syllable English words change meaning and form with a change in stress. For example, the word "record," a two-syllable word, is a noun if we stress the first syllable. Yet, if we stress the second syllable, it becomes a verb (to make a recording).
An enjoyable exercise for students is for the teacher to write a list of such two-syllable words on the board and model the stress differences for students. Students then "play" with the pronunciation changes in pairs, making appropriate sentences.
Sentence stress is the emphasis on specific words in a sentence, which conveys feeling or meaning. Most sentences have two types of words: content words and structure words. Content words are important to sentence meaning as they carry the meaning or intent. Content words include: verbs (sell, do), nouns (music, car), adjectives (small, interesting), adverbs (quickly, always) and negative auxiliaries (isn't, don't).
Structure words are not very important. They are small and simple words that function to make the sentence grammatically correct. Structure words include: pronouns (I, she, us), prepositions (in, at, by) and articles (a, an, the). If you remove content words from a sentence, you would not be able to understand the sentence. On the other hand, if you remove structure words from a sentence, you likely will still be able to understand its meaning.
Here is game for students to more fully understand how sentence meaning is changed through word stress. Students try giving as many different feelings and meanings to one word or sentence as they can by varying the stress and voice tone. The other students guess what feeling the other students were trying to communicate.
According to "Teaching English Games," there are three main obstacles to good English pronunciation:
Anxiety is a clear problem since fear of failure makes students nervous. Students are aware of their problem, which may get in the way of their progress. A highly structured environment with low-pressure practice is the best solution. Games are perfect here, along with classroom routines such as practicing greetings, which can help build up student confidence.
Learned helplessness is not easy for a teacher to recognize. This is a term originating from psychology that refers to people or animals in an impossible situation. After trying something out a few times with little or no success, we just stop trying. This happens with students who get negative feedback on their English skills, especially pronunciation.
Cultural identity may be the most sensitive and important issue to deal with. Learners who need English for business or educational purposes are not going to relinquish the things that identify them as different. A person's accent is a clear sign of being from someplace else, with different roots or history, and some people do not want to give it up. Teachers should let the class know that an accent is not a problem. We are not aiming for a supposedly perfect Standard English pronunciation; teachers just need to be sure that other people can easily understand students.
Have the class try some fun activities to become more sensitive to the topic of accents. Doing impressions of famous people whose speaking manner is widely recognized, such as Marilyn Monroe, Nicolas Cage or George W. Bush, can allow students to take on new personalities through playing with accents and speaking styles as they try out the pronunciations that go with it. They may even want to impersonate their teachers. Teachers can also hear a phrase in a student's native language and repeat it back so students can hear the teacher's accent. Students may then get a better sense of how a person's native language can affect the target language.