Teaching pronunciation in speaking by Amella Almah Liana

Name: Amella Almah Liana

Reg. number: 1610117120004

Academic writing

Teaching pronunciation in speaking

Abstract:   

In this paper examines teaching in speaking, pronunciation is needed in English, teaching pronunciation is not easy, requires extraordinary patience. and there are several factors that influence students' pronunciation skills in speaking, such as native language, age exposure, innate phonetic abilities, identity and agency, motivation and concern for good pronunciation. From the six factors, it can be seen the students' abilities in the pronunciation. the study of the six factors is very useful for teachers in understanding students in speaking skills.

Key words: Teaching, Pronunciation, Speaking

Introduction

Speaking is very important in this global era.  Teaching pronunciation should be in line with speaking as Broughton (2003) states that pronunciation teaching should always be set in a context of genuine language use in order to become proficient in understanding and speaking. Therefore, it is crucial to teach pronunciation to the students. According to Kelly (2001), the inaccurate production of a phoneme can lead to misunderstanding even if the students may have good grammar and vocabularies. The students’ good pronunciation would lead to good speaking as well. The language learners must be able to speak to communicate their ideas and thought. There are some parts in speaking that should be taught to the students so they could have good speaking skill. One of the most important parts in speaking is pronunciation. Pronunciation is a part of speaking skill which is truly important to make the communication runs well.

Unfortunately, in reality, there are still a lot of students who are not able to pronounce English words well. Those students are not aware that sometimes words do not sound alike despite their similar spellings. Gebhardt (2011) states that The problem in pronunciation may be different from one student to the other, but generally all students should know that it is essential that learners attend to both those aspects of pronunciation which relate to larger units of speech such as stress, rhythm, intonation and voice quality which Yates (2009) describes as suprasegmental aspects and to how the various sounds of English are pronounced which are also known as segmental aspects. The students may also make some errors in their pronunciation when they speak. According to H. Douglas Brown (2015) states that there are several factors that influence pronunciation, namely native language, age, exposure, innate phonetic abilities, identity and agency, motivation and concern for good pronunciation. All six of the above factors suggest that any learner who really wants can learn to pronounce English clearly and comprehensibly. We can assess the process by gearing planned and unplanned instruction toward the six factors.

Body:

The first one is native language; the native language is the most influential factor affecting a learner’s pronunciation. According to Brown (2015) says that Students from different nationalities have varying degrees of difficulty learning proper pronunciation, the difficulty depends on how different their native language is from English. Students may have difficulty articulating some sounds because they simply do not exist in their native language, sounds like the “th”, we need to assess students’ difficulties and formulate a plan to overcome them. Whatever their difficulties are be sure to tailor your pronunciation exercises to help your students overcome them.

The second one is age, generally, students under the age of puberty stand an excellent change for learning pronunciation properly and correctly because students will absorb the lessons more easily. Brown (2015) state that the younger students are, the easier it is for them to acquire an accurate pronunciation – and it becomes increasingly difficult as they age as the brain’s original plasticity diminishes, and it becomes more rigid. 

The third one is exposure, based on Brown (2015) it is difficult to define exposure, one can actually live in a foreign country for some time but not take advantage of being with people. 
If students who don’t have enough exposure to the English language, encourage them to increase it, either by listening to authentic audio or hanging out with English-speaking locals.

The fourth one is innate phonetic ability, based on Brown (2015) stated that often referred to as having an “ear” for language, some people manifest a phonetic coding ability that others do not. If pronunciation seem to be naturally difficult for some students, they should not despair with some effort and concentration, they can improve their pronunciation.

The fifth one is identity and agency, students need to become aware of and not afraid of the second identity that may be emerging within them. According to Brown (2015) stated that learners need to be reminded of the importance of positive attitudes toward the people who speak the language but more important.

The sixth one is motivation and concern for good pronunciation, in addition to focusing on pronunciation and accent in class, teachers should encourage learners to speak English outside the classroom and provide them with assignments that structure those interactions in order to motivating the learners. Ahmadi (2011). We can help the students to perceive or develop that motivation by showing among other things how clarity of speech is significant in shaping their self-image and ultimately.

Conclusion:

There are several factors that are very influential on students in pronunciation, namely the first is native language, age, exposure, innate phonetic abilities, identity and agency, motivation and concern for good pronunciation. From the factors that have been explained above, it can be concluded that the students' pronunciation skills can be seen from two things, namely from within and from external factors.

Pronunciation and speaking are two things that are interrelated in terms of learning English, if speaking students are good then the pronunciation will be good and vice versa. in teaching pronunciation in speaking there are many things that must be learned both for students and for teachers who teach, just a little mistake of pronunciation spoken by students can be meaningful different from the actual meaning of the word. so, teacher teaching must be very careful for a teacher.

References:

Brown Doughlas H. (2015). Teaching principles, an interactive approach to language pedagogy. United stated of America. Pearson education.

Silfiani. (2017). Teaching pronunciation in speaking using prosody pyramid. Pontianak. Tanjungpura university

Broughton, G. e. (2003). Teaching English as a foreign language (Adobe eReader Format ed.). USA: Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Kelly, G. (2001). How to teach pronunciation (2nd ed.). Malaysia: Longman.

Gebhardt, F. (2011). English pronunciation (1st ed.). Storia: Corsi di Laurea in Filosofia.

Yates, L. (2009). Give it a go: Teaching pronunciation to adults (1st ed.). Australia: AMEP Research Centre.

Ahmadi. 2011. Strategi Pembelajaran Sekolah Terpadu. Jakarta: PrestasiPustaka Publiaher.