TESL 120 - Unit 2 reflection - Pronunciation

My ‘Aha’ moments about the instruction of pronunciation

I found the Harmer chapter, Teaching Pronunciation, quite interesting as I teach 4th grade English in a French school and that is their first year of English class. While many students either speak English at home or have listened to it on tv or the radio, I always find teaching pronunciation a difficult and tricky task. The Harmer article gave me some insight and ideas of how to approach teaching it in my classroom. I found the section on ‘how to teach pronunciation’ very thought provoking (Harmer, 2001, p.186). Separating pronunciation into different types of learning experiences is a great way to see the different possibilities for teaching it.  The differences between ‘whole class’, ‘discrete slots’, ‘integrated phases’, and ‘opportunistic teaching’ can all play a role and be switched up to offer a change of pace for the students (Harmer, 2001, p. 186-187). The different activities offered also gave me ideas of how to approach stress and intonation as those are harder to teach than the pronunciation of words and letters themselves.

References:

Harmer, J. (2001). Chapter 13: Teaching Pronunciation. In Harmer, J. (Ed.). The practice of English
language teaching (pp. 34-51). Essex, England: Longman

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