1

Mário José Duarte

Francisco Virgilio
Edilson
Paulo Muimbo
Francisco

Teaching Pronunciation

Universidade Rovuma
Instituto Superior de Recursos Naturais e Ambiente
2025
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Mário José Duarte

Francisco Virgilio
Edilson
Paulo Muimbo
Francisco

Teaching Pronunciation
Licenciatura em Ensino da Língua Inglesa com Habilitações em Português

Presented to the department of Letters and

Social Sciences in partial fulfillment of
Didactic of English II subject.

Lecturer: Eduardo Lino

Universidade Rovuma
Instituto Superior de Recursos Naturais e Ambiente
2025
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Content
Introduction.................................................................................................................................4

1.Pronunciation...........................................................................................................................5

1.1.Teaching Pronunciation........................................................................................................5

1.2. Importance of Pronunciation................................................................................................6

1.3. Types of Pronunciation........................................................................................................6

1.4. Reasons to Teach Pronunciation..........................................................................................7

1.5. The Techniques of Teaching Pronunciation.........................................................................7

1.6. Visual aids............................................................................................................................8

2.Individual Sounds....................................................................................................................9

3. Focusing on a Difficult Sound..............................................................................................10

4.1. Factor that Affect in Pronunciation....................................................................................12

4.2. The Elements of Pronunciation..........................................................................................13

Conclusion................................................................................................................................16

Bibliographic Reference...........................................................................................................17
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Introduction

In this present essay, we going to talk about teaching pronunciation, what is a crucial aspect of
language learning that affects intelligibility, fluency, and communication effectiveness. Many
learners struggle with pronunciation due to differences in phonetic systems between their first
language (L1) and the target language (L2). This assignment explores effective strategies for
teaching pronunciation, including phoneme awareness, stress and intonation, individual
sound; focus on difficult sound, practicing sounds and the use of technology in language
instruction.

We also consider the goal of pronunciation teaching and the roles of teacher and learner. The
notion of intelligibility is crucial to pronunciation teaching, this notion will be explored in this
essay, in order to identify the reason of this pronunciation problem and try to solve it.

In addition, pronunciation is central to language use in social, interactive context because

pronunciation embodies the way that the speaker and the hearer work together to establish and
maintain common ground for producing and understanding each other‘s utterances.
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1. Pronunciation

According to Cook (1996) in Abbas (2012), pronunciation is a set of habits of producing

sound. The habit of producing a sound is acquired by repeating it over and over again and by
being corrected when it is pronounced wrongly. Also, learning how to pronounce a second
language means building up new pronunciation habits overcoming the bias of the first
language.

Pronunciation is the production of sound that we use to make meaning. It

includes attention to the particular sounds of language, aspect of speech
beyond the level of individual sound, such as intonation, phrasing, stress,
timing and rhythm. (Astina, 2020, p.6)

In addition, pronunciation is central to language use in social, interactive context because

pronunciation embodies the way that the speaker and the hearer work together to establish and
maintain common ground for producing and understanding each other‘s utterances.

1.1. Teaching Pronunciation

According to Swan, M. and Smith (2001) announce that Learning pronunciation is a very
complex task. The process of learning pronunciation can be facilitated if the task is structured.
In this process, teacher’s role and leaner’s role is important, both of them is involved.

The teacher‘s roles are helping learners hear and make sounds. The
pronunciation teacher should be a good model to the students. Teacher should
produce the accurate sounds and their productions of speech to the students in
order to make the students really understand about how correct pronunciation
is produced, and teacher need to check what the sounds that learners get and
hear. (Astina, 2020, p.18)

Learners are able to imitate new sounds. But, if they cannot, teachers help them to giving
some sign that can help them to make the new sound. In teaching learning process, learners
only respond what the teacher asks.

Different perspective language from other language skill has always been related with the
teaching of pronunciation The effect of first language in relation to pronunciation is bigger in
contrast with acquisition of morphology and syntax.
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In teaching pronunciation to young learner, the teacher does not directly teach about
pronunciation specifically. However, the teacher enters pronunciation learning in the
mindset of learning, such as when the teacher teaches a text or story. (Astina, 2020,p.20).

1.2. Importance of Pronunciation

Pronunciation is crucial for effective communication, as it ensures clarity and reduces
misunderstandings.

According to Kenworthy (1987), pronunciation plays key role in comprehensibility and

intelligibility in language learning. Poor pronunciation can hinder communication, even if
grammar and vocabulary are correct.

Additionally, proper pronunciation boosts confidence, enhances listening skills, and aids in
professional and academic success.

1.3. Types of Pronunciation

Phonetic studies classify pronunciation into several types:
 Standard Pronunciation – A widely accepted form, such as Received Pronunciation
(RP) in British English (Roach, 2009).
Example: British Received Pronunciation (RP) vs. General American (GA)

RP: /ˈbɑːθ/ ("bath")

GA: /ˈbæθ/ ("bath")

In RP, "bath" has a long /ɑː/ sound, while in GA, it has a short /æ/ sound.

 Regional Pronunciation – Variations based on geography, such as American vs.

British English (Crystal, 2003).
Example: Variations within English-speaking regions

British English (London): "water" → /ˈwɔːtə/

American English (New York): "water" → /ˈwɑːɾɚ/ (flapping of "t" as a soft "d")

Australian English: "water" → /ˈwoːtə/ (more open vowel sound).

 Accented Pronunciation – Influences from a speaker’s first language (L1) affecting

second-language pronunciation (Kenworthy, 1987).
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Example: A Spanish speaker pronouncing English words

"School" → /esˈkuːl/ instead of /skuːl/ (adding an extra "e" sound at the beginning)"Ship" vs.
"Sheep" → /ʃɪp/ vs. /ʃiːp/ (Spanish speakers may confuse short and long vowels)

 Connected Speech Pronunciation – Features like linking, assimilation, and elision

that affect fluency (Roach, 2009).
Example: Natural English speech processes
Linking: "go on" → /ɡəʊ wɒn/ (the "o" and "w" are linked)
Assimilation: "good boy" → /ɡʊb bɔɪ/ (the "d" in "good" changes to "b" for smoother
pronunciation)
Elision: "next day" → /nekst deɪ/ → /nek deɪ/ (the "t" sound is dropped)

 Phonetic Pronunciation – The use of phonetic transcriptions, such as the

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), to guide pronunciation (Wells, 2008).
Example: Phonetic transcription of words

"Thought" → /θɔːt/
"Enough" → /ɪˈnʌf/
"Psychology" → /saɪˈkɒlədʒi/ (silent "p" represented in IPA)

1.4. Reasons to Teach Pronunciation

Teaching pronunciation is essential in language learning for several reasons:
 To Improve Comprehensibility – Good pronunciation helps speakers be
understood easily (Kenworthy, 1987).
 To Reduce Miscommunication – Correct pronunciation minimizes confusion
(Kenworthy, 1987).
 To Enhance Listening Skills – Pronunciation training improves a learner’s ability
to recognize spoken words (Roach, 2009).
 To Develop Fluency – Mastery of pronunciation patterns helps learners sound
more natural and fluent (Crystal, 2003).
 To Boost Confidence – Clear pronunciation allows speakers to engage effectively
in conversations (Kenworthy, 1987).

1.5. The Techniques of Teaching Pronunciation.

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There are many techniques of teaching pronunciation. According to Celce Murcia, et al (1996,
p. 8), there are ten techniques of teaching pronunciation as follows:

 Listen and imitate:

A technique used in the Direct Method in which students listen to a teacher-provided model
and repeat or imitate it. Learners first listen to a model such as a teacher or an audio recording
and then attempt to reproduce the sounds as accurately as possible. E.g.:

 Teacher: pronounces a word or phrase clearly, such as "confortable",

 Students: listen carefully to the pronunciation and imitate the teacher's pronunciation.

 Phonetic Training
Phonetic technique for teaching pronunciation Focus on the physical aspect of speech such as
articulatory placement, phonetic transcriptions and minimal pairs. E.g.:

 Teacher: presents pairs of words that differ by only one sound (sheep vs. ship)
 Students: listen to the teacher pronounce both words and identify the differences

 Minimal pair drills

A technique to help students distinguish between similar and problematic sounds in the target
language through listening discrimination and spoken practice. On other hand, learners
distinguish and correctly pronounce similar sounds that often cause confusing. Eg:
 Teacher: says a word from a minimal pair (bit vs. beat)
 Students: listen carefully and indicate which word they heard by rising a hand,
pointing to writing version.

1.6. Visual aids

Enhancement of the teacher’s description of how sounds are produced by audiovisual aids
such as sound-color charts, Fidel wall charts, rods, pictures, mirrors, props, regalia, etc. these
devices are also used to cue production of the target sounds. Eg:

 Teacher: demonstrates the mouth position for each sound using a mirror or a diagram
 Students: practice pronouncing words with these sounds while referring to the chart
for guidance.
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 Tongue twister
Tongue twisters are fun and affective technique for teaching pronunciation by improving
articulation, fluency, and control over difficult sounds. E.g.:

 Teacher: introduces the tongue twitters (she sells, seashells by the seashore)
 Students: repeat it slowly, focusing on clear pronunciation

 Practice of vowel shift and stress shift related by affixation

A technique based on rules of generative phonology used with intermediate or advanced
learners. It helps students develop better pronunciation and words stress awareness. Eg:

 Teacher: introduces a set of words with vowels sifts due to suffixes

 Students: repeat each pair focusing on the vowel shift.

2. Individual Sounds
According to Avery & Ehrlich (1992) Phonemes, or individual speech sounds, form the
foundation of pronunciation. Learners must distinguish between phonemes that may not exist
in their native language. Teachers can use minimal pairs (e.g., ship vs. sheep) to help students
recognize and produce sounds accurately.

The most crucial thing in teaching individual sounds is to weight up whether it

is really necessary to teach sound differences. The fact is that many words are
difficult to be misunderstood solely on the basis of mispronounced sounds as
they can be easily clarified by the context. On the other hand, this fact does not
want to proclaim the idea that individual sounds should be obeyed. (Tennant,
2007.p.2).

Students may be asked to deal with particular sound(s) in order to realize how this/these
sound(s) is/are made in their mouth and how it/they can be spelled. There are many ways how
the individual sound(s) can be trained. (Harmer 2005, 187) Here are at least some of them:

 Identifying the particular sound in the words

Choosing out such words which contain the /Ǭ:/ sound. (Harmer 2005, 187)

 Contrasting two sounds that are very similar

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Concentrating on two different aspects of pronunciation usually starts with a listening activity
followed by practicing the difference between the sounds.(Harmer,2005.p.188)
For example ship. chip
sherry cherry
washing. Watching

 Finding out which sound students hear

Students may be asked to listen to a recording and to distinguish which word they hear.
(Harmer 2005, 188).

E.g.: Small shops/chops are often expensive (Derwing & Munro, 2015).

3. Focusing on a Difficult Sound

Difficult sounds are speech sounds that a person struggles to produce or perceive, often due to
motor, perceptual, or phonologically difficulties.

According to Nunan (as cited in Jahan, n.d), teaching pronunciation is dealt from different
perspective because impact of the first language seems prominent in case of pronunciation
and only exceptional learners can achieve the mastery over pronunciation. It does not matter
that they start learning language after their puberty (p. 1). According to Khan (2007, p. 7), due
to various phonological differences in L1, pronunciation patterns of learners’ L2 often get
influenced.

On the other hand, Sultana and Arif have pointed out a number of reasons of learners’
mispronunciation, such as lack of their knowledge about the difference between the letters
and sounds of a word. Moreover, they do not emphasize on the pronunciation when a word is
spelt and as a result these learners are unable to follow either syllabic or phonological
divisions of words properly (p. 3). Besides, the use of different local dialects with different
pronunciation influences the English language of non-native English speakers.

Some English words have a ‘silent h’ (e.g. hour, honest, heir). Note that some Londoners
(Cockney accent) do not pronounce the ‘h’ at the beginning of many words.

Sometimes, natives don’t say the ‘h’, as it’s easier. Listen to the teacher say these sentences:

 Is he there?
 Have you seen him?
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 Has he got a car?

 Do you know her?
 He likes to visit his mum.
 Can you give her a ride?

‘W’

This sound is written as ‘w’ (e.g. will) or ‘wh’ (e.g. when) or ‘o’ (e.g. one) or ‘u’ (e.g. quite).
The letter ‘w’ is not common in Brazilian Portuguese Eg.:
vest / west air/where good/wood in / win
Sometimes, the ‘w’ is not pronounced. For example: answer, two, who, whole, write, wrong
and lawyer.
‘SH’
This sound is written as ‘sh’ (e.g. shoe) or ‘s’ (e.g. sugar) or ‘c’ (e.g. ocean) or ‘ss’ (e.g.
Russia) or ‘ti’ (e.g. nation). Practise these words, making the correct ‘sh’ sound in each
second word:
 Sort / short
 Suit / shoot
 Puss / push

Sue/Shoe
This sound is written as ‘ch’ (e.g. chair, teacher) or ‘t’ (e.g. future) or ‘tch’ e.g.:
 sheep / cheap
 Share / chair
 ship / chip
 what / watch

According to Swan & Smith, 2001) states that certain phonemes pose challenges for learners
depending on their native language. For some instance, Japanese learners often struggle with
/r/ and /l/, while Arabic speakers may have difficulty with /p/ and /b/.

Effective teaching strategies include visual aids, articulatory descriptions, and

phonetic drills. Teachers can also use computer-assisted pronunciation
training (CAPT), which has been shown to improve accuracy in difficult
sounds (Levis, 2018).
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4. Practicing Sounds

According to (Gilbert, 2008) Pronunciation practice should be interactive and contextualized.

Activities such as tongue twisters, shadowing, and repetition drills improve articulation).

Using phonetic transcription and spectrogram analysis can help learners

visualize sound production (Munro & Derwing, 2020).

In addition, communicative practice, such as role-plays and dialogues, reinforces

pronunciation in natural speech settings. If there is a monolingual class to be taught it is
advisable to focus on practicing sounds which are difficult for speakers of this language. If
there is a multilingual class, however, it is important to find out which sounds predominate as
troublemakers in this particular teaching group

4.1. Factor that Affect in Pronunciation

The native language has an important factor to pronounce English. Foreign accents have some
characteristic of sound for the native language learners. There are four factors that affect in
pronunciation: interference of mother tongue, learner‘s age, learner‘s attitude and
psychological and prior pronunciation instruction.

 Interference of Mother Tongue

Stress and intonation is become course errors in the target language. It is interference from the
first language. Learners have difficulty to produce a particular sound which does not exist in
the native language.

 Learner‘s Age
Someone who was learning second language from the child, they can pronounce like a native
commonly. Its differ with person who does not begin learning second language until adult,
they will never have a native like accent even though they have the same aspect of language
such as vocabulary or syntax. Adult learners have limited to distinguish and produce native-
like sounds.

 Learner‘s Attitude And Psychological

Something that can influence achievement in pronunciation is attitude of target language
learning. A good attitude can support learners to develop pronunciation skill. A person has
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strong determiners of the acquisition of accurate pronunciation of a foreign language if they

have sense of identity and feeling group affiliation.

Some learners focus on their pronunciation, they often statements about how bad their
pronunciation. Sometimes, they request to correct their pronunciation if make mistakes. A
kind of achievement motivation is when the learners want to do it well.

 Prior Pronunciation Instruction

Learners should have good habit of learning correct pronunciation at the beginning. It will
influence learner‘s success with current effort. When learners failed to pronounce some words
in the beginning, they will become accustomed to their own version of pronunciation and
would be more likely to miss-comprehend when these words are not correctly pronounced.

4.2. The Elements of Pronunciation

 Stress
According to Dale Paulette (2000, p. 91) stress is the first vocal feature we deal with.
Speakers must stress certain syllables in words; otherwise the words would be misunderstood
or sound strange
According to Harmer (2005, p. 191) Practicing stress in words, phrases and sentences is a
prominent part of teaching pronunciation as mispronunciations can lead to a change of
meaning. Some of the ways for practicing stress are as follows:

a. Marking the stress in words

As noted by Astina (2020, p. 191) one way of signing the stress in new words is to write
these words on the board and to show students which syllable is the stressed one.

b. Marking the stress in phrases and sentences

Students are asked to listen to the minimal pair sentences and notice the stress included in
them. Afterwards, they are tasked to mark the stress in the sentences they listen to. (Munro &
Derwing, 2020,P.16)

Practicing word stress is regarded more important than practicing individual

sounds as it may completely change desirable meaning. As English words do
not give the same stress to all the syllables they mention, a great number of
speakers suffers acquiring the stress pattern which is different than that one of
their mother tongue. (Levis, 2018).
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In addition to this, putting stress on the wrong syllable may cause a lot of trouble as well, as
the shifted word category can change the meaning of a word (e.g. the word present as a noun
or as a verb). Training stress in phrases and sentences meets a great importance as well.
Misused stress in a sentence can cause communication breakdowns, not only in terms of
productive skills (speaking) but also in terms of receptive skills listening

 Intonation
According to Dale and Paulette (2000, p.23) intonation is the final vocal feature you will learn
about. Intonation patterns involve pitch and are responsible for the melody of the language.
Speakers frequently depend more on intonation patterns to convey their meaning than the
pronunciation of the individual vowels and consonants. For example, in English, the same
words can be used to make a statement or ask a question.

Intonation makes words stand out by creating peaks and valley with pitch.
Intonation has functions to highlight certain information, because of its
newness, importance, in formativeness, or interest, and backgrounding other
information, because of its redundancy, lesser importance, or lack of interest
( Gilbert,2018, p. 55).

English has several basic intonation contours. However, there are many more possible
variations that change with a speaker intended meaning, attitude, and emotional state of mind.
The major changes of pitch take place on stressed syllables, particularly on the tonic syllable.
Five major patterns of tones can be identified: fall, rise, fall-rise, rise-fall and level:

a) Rising Intonation means the pitch of the voice rises over time [↗];
b) Falling Intonation means that the pitch falls with time [↘];
c) Dipping or Fall Rise Intonation falls and then rises [↘↗];
d) Peaking or Rise-fall Intonation rises and then falls [↗↘].
e) Level tone signals boredom, routine or triviality, and thus is the tone that teachers
use for routines such as the class roll.

 Rhythm
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According to Dale and Paulette (2000, p. 83), rhythm is created by the strong stresses or beats
in the sentence. Rhythm is the second feature which researcher will present. Rhythm is
created by strong stresses or beats in sentence. In many languages, the rhythm is syllable
timed. This means that all vowels in all syllables are pronounced almost equally. Syllables are
rarely lost or reduced as they are in English. For example, a three word phrase in your
language is not likely to become two words.
Rhythm is determined by the number of stresses, not by the number of
syllables. English speakers slow down and emphasize heavily stressed words
or syllables. They speed up and reduce unstressed ones. For example, the five
word phrase “I will see you tomorrow” may become “I‟ll seeyat‟morrow”.
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Conclusion

At the end of the essay, we conclude that teaching pronunciation is an essential part of
language instruction that requires a multifaceted approach. By focusing on phoneme
awareness, stress patterns, intonation, individual sounds, focus on a difficult sound and
practicing sound, teachers can help learners achieve greater intelligibility and confidence in
their spoken communication.

We also understand that someone who was learning second language from the child, they can
pronounce like a native commonly. It´s differ with person who does not begin learning second
language until adult.

They will never have an accent like native, even though they have the same aspect of
language such as vocabulary or syntax. Adult learners have limited to distinguish and produce
sounds like native speaker.
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Bibliographic Reference

Avery, & Ehrlich,S.( 1992). Teaching American English Pronunciation. Oxford University
Press

Derwing,T.M. & Munro,M:J. ( 2015). Pronunciation fundamentals: Evidence based

perspectives for L2 Teaching and Research. John Benjamin.

Levis, J. M. ( 2018 ). Intelligibility, Oral communication, And the Teaching of pronunciation.

Cambridge University Press.

Gilbert, J. B. ( 2018 ). Teaching pronunciation: Using the prosody Pyramid. Cambridge

University press.

Dale & Paulette.( 2000). Teaching Pronunciation. Oxford University Press

Celce Murcia, ( 1996). Teaching Pronunciation: A course Book and Reference Guide (2 nd
ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Swam,M. & Smith,B. ( 2001). Learners English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and Other
Problem ( 2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Astina.( 2020). The Analysis Of Teaching English Pronunciation At Young Learners . Niger.

Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge

University Press.

Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English Pronunciation. Longman.

Roach, P. (2009). English Phonetics and Phonology (4th ed.). Cambridge University Press.