Aspects of Teaching and Learning Phonetic Symbols

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The teaching of pronunciation is described as "the Cinderella of language
teaching", i.e. she has never got to go to the ball. That tells the truth.
In contrast to those "princesses" — vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing
and speaking people usually think much of, this "humble lady" has long
been out of favour. But as a matter of fact, one's linguistic competence
depends in a certain measure on his pronunciation which, if is too bad to
communicate with other people, he will only be regarded as a failed
language learner. On the other hand, for an adult, it is not difficult to
enlarge the amount of vocabulary or enhance the knowledge of grammar. But
without a solid foundation of pronunciation at the early stage, it will be
beyond repair in case of fossilization. By this token, Teaching of
pronunciation deserves much more attention than we paid before.
This article ventures some personal ideas on the teaching of phonetic
symbols — the most basic element of pronunciation

I. Why do we have to learn phonetic symbols?
To learn or not to learn, that is not the question. The majority of
Chinese and foreign teachers think it is quite necessary.
In terms of teaching rules, learning phonetic symbols as early as possible
is a good way of reducing down the repetition as well as raising up the
memory of words . Those teachers are not baseless by saying that a large
number of students lag behind in Grade Two owing to their failure of
learning phonetic symbols in Grade One thus unable to expand their
vocabulary and improve their reading ability.
In aspect of teaching strategy, mastery of phonetic symbols at the initial
stage usually makes the students feel successful and confident because, in
a sense, they are already independent learners. As a result, tremendous
interest has

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been kindled. An obvious profit is that, when phonetic
symbols have been taught, most students would preview a lot of new words
of the text. Their speed of learning new words sometimes could make the
teacher greatly surprised.
From a long-term view, pronunciation plays an important role in the
formation of some other language skills, like listening, speaking and
reading. There are many people who have learned English for a long time
yet the language capability remains unimproved because of their poor
pronunciation, known as "fossilization". So, Learning phonetic symbols at
the very beginning should become a required course for students.

II. When to start learning?
It is a topic worthy of discussion.
Some teachers claim that early introduction of phonetic symbols to the
students makes the latter study smoother. They even suggest that the
phonetic symbols be taught at the same time with the alphabet letters.
Their method is to put phonetic transcription on each letter and classify
them by vowels. But I don't think this method conform with teaching rules.
Firstly, Pinyin letters they have learned in primary schools are
inveterate in their mind, but the pronunciations of Pinyi and English
letters are actually different. At this time, teacher's task is to free
students from the molestation of Pinyin letters and have them follow the
correct pronunciation of English letters. If we introduce phonetic symbols
to them here, they will be puzzled and confused with different concepts.
The result is, as we often see, many students write "mai" for "my" and
"tu" for "too" in the dictation. Next, learning letters through phonetic
symbols is not as good an effect as learning phonetic symbols through
letters. There are 26 English letters mostly read as syllables while 48
phonetic symbols all read as phonemes. Research shows that language
learners are more sensible to holist

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ic syllables than to individual
phonemes. Therefore, we can achieve twice the result with half the effort
by learning phonetic symbols through letters so long as we can read these
letters correctly.
Some others declare the teaching of phonetic symbols should be conducted
later. They hold that students' main task in the first term is to get in
touch with more language materials and strengthen the linguistic sense.
Systematic learning of phonetic symbols is to be carried out in the second
term. Without doubt, the more language materials the students get, the
easier for them to learn phonetic symbols. But there are still two
shortcomings in doing so. In the first place, in the mother tongue
environment, forgetfulness is the archenemy if we learn a foreign language
through mere imitation. As time passes, students might be fed up with
endless repetition and weary of further study. In addition, under the
circumstance of big-class teaching, students don't have many chances to
practise and the particular instructions from the teacher are limited.
Without instant remedy, it is possible that the more language materials
they received, the more serious their pronunciation errors turned out to
be. Earlier study of phonetic symbols is not expected to put an end to the
problem, but at least better than none.
What is the proper time to start teaching phonetic symbols, then? By the
current situation and the textbook in use, in my opinion, the best time is
right after the fourth or fifth unit of JEFC. At this moment, students are
supposed to have a relatively good command of alphabet letters.
Introduction of phonetic symbols now would not be likely to bring about
any trouble. Also, nearly all the phonetic symbols have already appeared
in the words of Unit 4 & 5 once or more and the students have had more or
less sensibility of pronunciation. By having words and phonetic symbo

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ls be
complementary to each other, we can get a better result.

III. On what issues should we lay stress in the teaching?
Actually, the teaching approaches of phonetic symbols are largely
identical but with minor differences. Popular process is probably:
individual phonemes — monosyllables (fixed syllables) — disyllables
(polysyllables) — words. But there are several issues should be taken into
special consideration.
● Never teach individual phonemes much in depth. Phonemes themselves
make no sense. Syllables and words are our ultimate goal. Don't spend too
much time on phonemes or still worse, impose terminologies like plosives,
fricatives, affricates or theories like the movement of pronunciation
organs upon the students in hope of helping them master phonetic symbols
quickly. These things will by no means do anything helpful. On the
contrary, they are too abstract and scholastic to be understood by
students and will be taking the edge off their interest. In fact, children
have strong aptitude to imitation. What the teacher need to do is telling
them necessary tips of pronunciation and they can handle these tips
automatically.
● Syllables and words for practice ought to be carefully chosen. It is
quite a long process from phonemes to syllables. Statistic made by Jerry
Coker demonstrates that even a learner can read out all the phonemes
precisely, when it comes to random syllables, the correctness is no more
than 44% on an average. Thereby, syllables ought to be chosen mainly from
the learned words that are familiar to the students instead of those long
and complicated ones for drill before turning to whole words that should
also be well known to the students. The teacher writes down the phonetic
symbols and let students recognise what the word is. By combining
pronunciation, shape and meaning together, the memory of this word
intensified.
● Chines

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e-character-transcription on English words should be treated
rightly. As the case stands, the phenomenon is ubiquitous and dies hard
among Chinese students. It is generally thought as a devil in language
learning which does nothing good but all harm. But I think, it should be
looked on from another point of view. As we all know, the greatest
interference for a foreign language learner is his mother tongue because
all the knowledge he got — including pronunciation, of course — are from
his own language. David Dalton noticed that beginners of a target language
are inclined to convert almost every sound — especially when it is not
clearly received — into the closest sound in the source language and
follow it unconsciously. Rod Ellis thought that the L1 could be viewed as
a contributing factor to the development of SLA (Second Language
Acquisition). As the learner's proficiency of L2 grows, the influence of
L1 will become less powerful. At this angle, labelling Chinese characters
on English words shouldn't be totally denied because it indicates that the
students are willing to acquire English with the help of Chinese. As a
teacher, we should first of all explain to them how dangerous and
unscientific of doing so, and at the meantime, have some prior expectation
of what elements of English phonetics are likely to cause problems in
order to prevent these problems from happening or solve them at once.
The writer gathered some frequent errors of students for reference only.
(See the appendix: List of Common Phonetic Errors from Students)

IV. How long will the learning of phonetic symbols last?
According to the second level of syllabus of English for junior high
school, students are demanded to be able to pronounce monosyllables and
disyllables proficiently with the help of IPA (International Phonetic
Alphabet). This is the lowest request for those who have learned all

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the
phonetic symbols. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean the end of study. Students
should also be capable of breaking any comparatively complex polysyllable
into units, an extreme example as "antidisestablishmentarianism". And the
process keeps going on until students can pronounce regular words at the
sight of them and irregular words with the help of phonetic symbols.
Johanna Rubba advocates that sufficient "chunk" drills be done, meaning
the phonograms are treated as a whole rather than divided letters. For
example,(name, fame, tame, dame, game, lame, came, hame, same,
flame)；(bill, pill, till, fill, mill, kill, will, still, skill,
shill)；(back, pack, Jack, lack, sack, hack, knack, flack, smack, snack).
Luckily, the summing-up exercise of pronunciation at the end of each unit
in JEFC makes the teaching more or less convenient. But by Jerry Coker,
one's phonetic level, ultimately, relies on his vocabulary. In his
opinion, never will a person be able to pronounce any stochastic word
unless he has a vocabulary of about 2,500 in store. In this sense, the
continuity of teaching phonetic symbols would go through the whole period
of junior high school.
By the way, individual word is not the only criterion of pronunciation.
Rhythm, stress and intonation are sometimes more important in real
communication. That is to say, phonetic symbols are only half the story.
The development of pronunciation proportionates to the linguistic ability
in the end.

V. How to test the students' level of phonetic symbols?
Two matters should be taken into consideration. Firstly, as it is
mentioned just now, single phonemes are actually meaningless. In the test,
syllables and words should be used mostly. Secondly, make sure that the
testing measures are suitable for the current situation, namely, slight
discrimination of environment and devices, accessibility of
mass-examination. Th

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ree feasible measures are given below.
1 Choral reading
The teacher will select a group of syllables or words and let the students
read them aloud together. Its defect is obvious. The tester may not have a
good control of the procedure, and it's very hard to sift out the testees'
specific errors. The advantage of this measure is its easy operation and
the possibility of finding out universal errors. It remains to be a useful
method when the tester just wants to know an overall situation instead of
detailed information of any individuality.
2. Dictation
An old exercise, remains one of the most common ways of testing learners'
pronunciation. This method is based on the assumption that, most often,
listening and speaking are interrelated. If the learner has a deviant
pronunciation of a word, he will not understand it when it is read
appropriately. For instance, the person who reads "sword" as /swCd/ or
"island" as /'izl[nd/ will not understand the two words if they are read
as /sC:d/ and /'ail[nd/.
Dictation may appear in different forms on the basis of testees' levels.
Following designs can be used for students of a lower grade.
● Same or different?
Listen to pairs of syllables or words and judge whether they are same or
different.
A. /sIt/ — /sIt/ B. /bQt/ — /bU:t/
C. hut — hat D. six — sex
● A or B or C
Choose the syllable or word you hear
1. A. /sCk/ B. /sAk/ C. /sQk/
2. A. cat B. cut C. cart
3. A. foot B. food C. fat
● Find odd members
Choose the syllable or word which is different from the other two.
1. A. /pCt/ B./pCt/ C. /pC:t/
2. A. bid B. bit C. bid
3. A. ship B. ship C. sheep
A cloze test may be given to students of a higher grade. The words to be
filled are replaced with blanks or initial letters. One precaution to take
here is that the context should not be too supportive. A context that is
too supportive will leak out the correct

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word.
3. Written test
There is no essential difference between dictation and written exam. As
for the latter, it has nothing to do with outside factors. The testee is
requested to fulfill the paper by virtue of his own knowledge of phonic
symbols.
● Find out the odd members.
Find out the word whose underlined part read differently from the other
two.
1. A name B what C Kate
2. A hello B meet C Green
3. A this B fine C nice
● Classification of pronunciation
Classify the following words by vowels.
car, bus, cup,four, name, door, bar, play,
「ei」____________________ 「Q 」 ____________________
「a:」____________________ 「 C:」 ____________________
Besides the models referred to, there are numerous other forms to be
adopted.
Above methods are mainly designated for mass-examination. If possible,
individual test is apparently more satisfactory. Specific levels can be
given by the performance of the testee. e.g.
Level A: appropriate pronunciation, articulate speech, excellent stress
and intonation
Level B: generally appropriate pronunciation, petty mistakes but tolerable
Level C: not very appropriate pronunciation, occasional mistakes
Level D: poor pronunciation, frequent mistakes
If condition permits, another choice is to record all the students' speech
and make a full assessment of their pronunciation after audition. But it
should be done under the domination of the teacher, not by themselves.
This may produce unreal or unnatural results.

Here the writer presents a few superficial views of teaching phonetic
symbols which are far from complete. Comments and suggestions devoutly to
be wished.

Appendix: Common Phonetic Errors From Students
PHONETIC SYMBOLS KNACKS SAMPLE WORDS
READ AS
/T/ Voiced. Friction. Tongue between teeth "they" /dei/
/T/ Voiced. Friction. Tongue between teeth.
"clothe" /kl[Uz/
/A/ Move tongue to a lower front pos

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ition.
"fan" /fen/
/A/ Keep tongue front and jaws apart.
"cat" /kB:t/
/A/ Keep tongue front & low and jaws apart. "ran"
/rQn/
/C/ Keep mouth round and sound short.
"not" /nC:t/
/C/ Keep mouth round and tongue back.
"god" /gUd/
/Q/ Tongue low central. Lips relaxed.
"bus" /bAs/
/v/ Voiced. Friction with top teeth & bottom lip.
"van" /fAn/
/v/ Voiced. Friction with top teeth & bottom lip.
"very" /'werI/
/I:/ Spread lips more and keep tongue high. "seat"
/sIt/
/W/ Voiceless. Friction. Tongue between teeth.
"think" /sINk/
/h/ Quickly push air from throat out of mouth.
"hot" /hUt/
/z/ Voiced. Tip of tongue behind top teeth.
"rise" /rais/
/F/ Voiceless. Friction. Front of tongue to palate.
"push" /pUs/
/r/ Unvoiced: Tip to alveolar. Front to palate. "merry"
/'melI/
/r/ Sides of tongue to back teeth. Tip points up.
"right" /lait/
/n/ Tongue touches alveolar ridge. Nasal.
"soon" /sU:l/
/dV/ Voiced: Tip to alveolar. Front to palate.
"page" /peitF/

Bibliography
David Dalton, Some Techniques for Teaching Pronunciation
Dwight Bolinger & Donald A. Sears, Aspects of Language
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching
Jerry Coker, Traditional Phonics
Johanna Rubba, Phonics
Kenji Kitao, Difficulties of Testing Speaking
Rod Ellis, Understanding Second Language Acquisition.
时迈，《中学英语如何落实素质教育思路的探讨之一、之二、之三》
王新华，《音标教学 — 英语入门的一把金钥匙》
杨绍周，《问题、思考、改进 — 使每个学生学好英语》

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