Pronunciation

Introduction

Part of learning English is learning to pronounce the words clearly and correctly, since the student’s first contact with this second language.   Of course, when adults learn a new language, they often bring their own “accent”; for example, people whose mother tongue is Spanish pronounce every syllable of the words and they also roll the “r”.   This can not only sound “funny” --in fact, research has shown that a heavy accent can trigger a negative impression from native speakers-- , but, most important, it can   interfere with intelligibility.   Therefore, teaching pronunciation should be practiced in the classroom, not just with “listen and repeat” drills, but in a fun and interesting way, with informative topics, various activities including games and audio and, of course, a lot of pair work and group work, as part of the communicative approach.

Having chosen Option B for this assignment, the two books that I will analyze will be Pronunciation Pairs, by Ann Baker and Sharon Goldstein, and Focus on Pronunciation, by Linda Lane.

Both books are a comprehensive pronunciation course, Pronunciation Pairs focuses on upper basic and intermediate students and Focus on Pronunciation on intermediate and advanced students of English as a second or foreign language.   They advocate distinct approaches in the classroom --although both were first published in the early 90s.

General approach

Pronunciation Pairs is divided in two sections, Section A explains the pronunciation of Vowels and Section B, Consonants.   Section A is divided in 20 units and Section B, 46.   Each unit is subdivided in 6 activities: Practice 1, Practice 2, Dialogue, Intonation/Word Stress, Conversation and Spelling. It also includes a mini introduction explaining with the help of a picture the position of the mouth and tongue in a very simple way in order to get the sound right.

Practice 1 shows pictures of objects and their names, which students have to listen and repeat....