The methodology of teaching different types of pronunciation to b2 level students

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THE MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

UZBEKISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY OF WORLD LANGUAGES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE THE FIRST FACULTY

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

the methodology of teaching different types of pronunciation to b2 level students

5111400- Foreign language and literature (English language) for granting bachelor`s degree

QUALIFICATION PAPER

Sergienko Ekaterina Andreevna

QUALIFICATION PAPER SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR:

IS ADMITTED TO DEFENCE _____ G. Radjabova

The Head of the Department of

English Phonetics and Phonology

____________ H. Paluanova

Tashkent- 2017



Table of contents

Abstract

I. Statement of intent

II. Literature review

II.1 The notion “B1 level student”

II.2 Traditional attitude to the teaching pronunciation.

II.3 Jeremy Harmer and his applied book: “How to teach English”.

II.4 J. Jalolov and his methodological course book: “The methodology of teaching English”.

II.5 Roger Gower, Stewe Walters and Diane Philliphs and the applied book “Teaching practice book”.

II.6 Douglas Brown and the book: “Principles of English learning and teaching”.

III. Procedures and process.

III.1 Statement of purpose.

III.2 Method

III.3 Methods and techniques, used during the lessons.

IV. Data analysis and discussion.

IV.1 Comparison of the while-test quiz results with the final quiz results.

IV.2 Working with data on individuals and groups.

IV.3 Answers to the research questions.

V. Final reflection.



CHAPTER I. STATEMENT OF INTENT

english pronunciation teaching techniques

The last investigation in the sphere of the language usage and the popularity of one or another language around the world, has shown that nowadays English remains steadily the position of the second World language, spoken by 560 million people in the World after the Chinese, that`s spoken by 1213 million people: that is not surprising in accordance with their population explosion. Nowadays as an official language it is spoken in 59 countries and 85 countries spoke it not officially before 2013. Exactly this year (2014) the Republic of Uzbekistan joined the mentioned quantity and now there are 86 countries that use English language as the key.

New political, sociocultural and economical reality of the World, the impact of the technological innovation of civilization demand the functional expansion of the foreign language as a subject.

According to the decree 19.71, signed by the first President of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the 10 of December 2013 and named “Measures for the further language development”, the past academic year for the centres of education, whatever they are: school, lyceums, colleges, universities, commemorated the change in the methodical plans - the affirmation of the English language as the first foreign language that lead to the necessity of teaching and learning it from the 1st grade and till the graduating from a university, where the English language also remains the preference in all the fields of study.

The spread of the English language has already conquered the World and, basing on the native language of one or another country that admitted it, worked out dozens of accents that lead to the irony: the language, which role was to unite people and help all the people in the World connect with each other easily, became so various in different country that it could be interpreted as unfamiliar and disconnecting.So, in order to overcome such a widely-spread problem, we should understand that teaching of pronunciation of the chosen language must be of the great importance for not to create a new language and maintain the ability to connect with other nationalities in the learned language, fairly called for the World expansion “Globbish”. To fulfill such an aim we should remember, that the basic aim of the foreign language teaching is the formation of the ability to use the foreign language as a tool for communication in the dialog of culture and civilizations of the modern World. This aim suppose the interconnected communicative and socio-cultural students` development by the English language that can also be fruitful during the self-development in the interested spheres of education, where the English language plays the role of the individual integration into different cultures, that can`t be provided without the teaching of correct pronunciation, as it plays a great role in the ability to understand people and as the result to build the successful communication. That is why the choice of the diploma`s work sphere of dedication has fall on this topic: enough arguable for its importance and not enough developed. Being the sub-skill of the speaking skill, it is omitted in most cases and given to students only in phonology`s capacity and only as a theory, omitting the important practice of pronunciation. Basing on all the mentioned above, I see my first aim in revealing the importance of the sub-skill, so unfairly omitted.

In order to fulfill the task, I`m going to use the widely-spread in all the sciences (if they are humanitarian or exact), the method of observation and experiment, by usage of the techniques of different prominent teachers, that also glared their attention on the problem of correct pronunciation in fruitful contact, and whose applied works on the methodology I`m going to use further during the experiment.

The problem of investigation lies in the the forming of pronunciation during the process of forming and development



CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW

II.1 THE NOTION “B2 LEVEL STUDENT”

In this chapter will be revealed the position of outstanding teachers, that devoted their professional career to the working out of the problems, that every learner can face during the study the English language. Furthermore there will be the results of the prominent teachers, which were taken from a long-period research work on the process of teaching, that will shed the light on the possible resolution of the problems, that can be met by quite experienced student, during the studying the pronunciation sub-skill.

Taking the lead over the notion and the great importance of teaching pronunciation,it is essential to point out who are the gainers of the B2 level. So, according to the State Educational statement, that is based on the international education standard CEFR (a widely-spread guideline composed to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe and, increasingly, in other countries. It was put together by the Council of Europe as the main part of the project "Language Learning for European Citizenship" between 1989 and 1996) which was modernized concerning the context of language, as the CEFR describes the language learners` ability through the skills like speaking, listening, reading and writing according to the 6 levels named from the bottom to the top: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, which corresponds to the traditionally adopted levels: beginning, elementary, intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced, native speaker. D.T. Jalalov has devoted the whole work to the specification and deep explanation of the State Educational norms, based on the Common European Framework of references (CEFR), where he admitted:

“For national educational system the illustrated descriptors in CEFR are adapted or created with fitting the learned language, cultural context and a certain set of competences. Under the CEFR the result of LT is shown through a performance of a certain level of communicative competence (proficiency). The ways how to use a language for communication and what knowledge and skills should be developed are stated thoroughly in this framework.”

The modernization of the CEFR into the State language program was done according to the decree of the first President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, that was adopted on December 10.2010 “On measures for further improvement of foreign languages learning”, that became the key point for the further development of teaching foreign languages at all the stages taking into consideration not only the skill and aspects of the chosen language, but learning the language through the country studying. Another feature of the State educational statement is the complete absence of the C2 level, that doesn`t lack the logic as, like it was mentioned, C2 level corresponds to the native speakers. According to Jalaov the the main aim of the State Educational Standard is the next: “The basic feature of this approach is orientation to results of FLT/L proposed in the State Educational Standard. For this purpose descriptors what the learners should know and can be put on the curriculum in the result are worked out.” For example, in respect to the following table, the b2 level students should obtain the skills like: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

B2	Vantageorupperintermediate	· Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field of specialization. · Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. · Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

Here we see and can analyze deeply the degree of neglect toward to correct pronunciation, irrespectively to the high importance of the wishful pronunciation in interaction.



II.2 TRADITIONAL ATTITUDE TO THE TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

First of all, what with do we face, when we talk about “pronunciation” as the phenomenon, so pronunciation is the way in which we give the sound form to the words we speak. To speak words, we push air from our lungs up through our throat and vocal chords, through our mouth, past our tongue and out between our teeth and lips.

In order to change the sound that we create, we mostly use the muscles of our mouth, tongue and lips, we also control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air; and it makes the correct pronunciation to be one of the most difficult and important skills in any language, because speakers of different languages tend to develop different muscles of the mouth for pronunciation, in accordance with their native language.

Traditionally the absolute amount of teachers start to pour the English pronunciation practice much later the digesting of all the grammar rules and aspects, although the importance of correct pronunciation can`t be exaggerated. The reason of it is stipulated for the difficulty to digest the huge layer of information, lying in the diversity of points, to face. For instance:

1) First of all, voicing: when sounds make the throat vibrate. For example, /g/ is a voiced sound while /k/ is not, even though the mouth is in the same position for both sounds.

2) Secondly, it is aspiration that refers to a stream of air when a sound is produced. The English /p/, /t/, /k/, and /ch/ are some of the more commonly aspirated sounds.

3) Thirdly, it is the difficulty of mouth position.

4) The 4th component, according to the general appeal to the pronunciations is linking speech (that mostly represented by intrusive “R”, elision and accomodation).

5) Vowel Length. It is one of the most important constitutient part of correct pronunciation among general rules, that is based on the peculiarities of vowels` pronunciation, as there are two types of vowels: short and long.

6) Syllables.

7) Specific sounds. Contrary the expectation, specific sounds are not those, which exist only in the English language like [?] and [è], but those, which differ almost alike words, which differ only by one sound. For instance: play/pray, curl/girl, bit/bat.

II.3 JEREMY HARMER AND HIS APPLIED BOOK: “HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH”

The problem of the correct pronunciation teaching neglecting was identified by Jeremy Harmer in the applied work, devoted to the methodology of the English language teaching, named with simplicity “How to teach English”, where abreast the traditional practice of teaching listening, reading, writing and speaking, he applied to the problem of the methodology of the teaching pronunciation. He sees the problem of the teaching pronunciation in the variety of the skills essential in aiming on that. According to his experience, a teacher should take into consideration such parts of the pronunciation as: sounds, stress, pitch and intonation, and not any more, that during the process of teaching should be interconnected and taught in linkage. So, according to Jeremy Harmer, the teaching of sound is inevitable, because by changing one sound we can change the whole meaning of a word. As an example he took the words-homophones “bit” and “beat”, where if to change /i:/ to /i/, the meaning will change and the sense can be lost. Jeremy Harmer gave the leading role in his theory to the sound digest, as he believed that by changing one sound we can change the meaning of the whole word and that`s the problem, that such an innocent sound play can lead to misunderstanding and losing the sense. E.G. if we replace the sound /b/ with the sound /m/, we get “meat” instead of “beat”. And if we change /I:/ to /i/ we get “bit” instead of “beat”.

-The second main part of correct pronunciation, according to the same Jeremy Harmer, is stress, which role is the emphasis in words and sentences. Jeremy Harmer said about the function of stress that it is a part of sentence, phrase or word that takes the whole volume of impression of a speaker like in such examples as the following: “confronting”, “explain”, “middle” etc. In case of long (complain) words there are first and secondary stress , such as in the examples: “confrontation”, where “con” and “ta” are under the stress. Moreover, variety of stressing in English can show the peculiar accent. For example, British English speakers usually say “advertisement”, while American say “advertisement”. Another function of stress in correct pronunciation is the ability to identify the part of speech, e.g. expert (verb), expert (noun), object (noun), object (verb). Jeremy Harmer also see the success of teaching stress using the visual aids during the introducing of new vocabulary, that makes it more memorable in all the levels of knowledge because the absolute amount of students are visual learners. For example, in contemporary time we can find more and more neologisms that makes hesitating about the correct stressing even those people for whom this language is native, because the stress putting depends on the language the word was derived from. So solve the problem Jeremy Harmer propose the usage of variety symbols to show the stress:

`teacher performance rapport engagement

-The third component of the correct pronunciation are pitch and intonation. Jeremy Harmer claims that pitch also plays role in correct pronunciation, as pitch reflects the level at which a speaker pronounce his speech. People use different levels of speech that identifies their emotions: the higher level is used when a speaker is excited or terrified, but lower when he is calm or bored. If to speak about the role of intonation that was also mentioned as the third component, it is the music of speech. In order to understand the entire meaning of such a phenomenon, it is important to take his citation: “Intonation encompasses the moments at which we change that pitch of our voices in order to give certain messages. It is absolutely crucial for getting our meaning across”. The word “yes”, for example, can be said with a falling voice, a rising voice or a combination of the two. By changing the direction of the voice we can make from “yes” - “sure”, “of course”, “I agree”, “may be you are right” or something else.

During the teaching of pronunciation and in this case exactly to show the intonation (pitch change):

You love me, don`t you? You do know the rules, don`t you?

So, here we see that in the first question is a request for information, while in the second we see the question with the feature of hope of confirmation. We see this because the meaning is conveyed by intonation, that proves the importance of intonation (or pitch), claimed by Jeremy Harmer.

II.4 J.JALALOV AND HIS METHODOLOGICAL COURSE BOOK: “THE METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING ENGLISH”

-If to speak about the Uzbek teachers that applied to the problem of pronunciation and made a contribution into its investigation is J. Jalalov, the doctor of the methodological sciences and the author of the applied material for teachers “The methodology”, composed basing on the mentioned decree, devoted to the further development of the English language in Uzbekistan “On measures for further improvement of foreign languages learning”. Generally, his work, as it is clear from the name “The methodology” is devoted to the pedagogics as a whole, but I would like to mention his name as the first Uzbek teacher that revealed the importance of pronunciation and proposed some suggestion to the teachers of the English language.

He refers “pronunciation” to the sub-skill, just like vocabulary and grammar, as one of the basic constituent part of teaching and practicing listening, as instruction can`t help students to pronounce a sound which is strange to their mother-tongue if they don't hear how it is pronounced by a teacher or by the speaker. By pronunciation sub-skill J. Jalalov meant correct articulation of sounds and join to them in words, wîrd-cîmbinàtiîn and so on. Speech sound articulation is important for both recognition of words and their spelling.

Just like the major number of the linguists and teachers that will be mentioned further, J. Jalalov considered the sounds, stress, rhyme, rhythm, intonation to be the constituent part of the correct pronunciation, because:

1) Sound identifies the meaning and the same time it can harm the meaning in case it is produced incorrectly. Therefore, the teaching of correct sound producing is essential part of the pronunciation teaching

2) As a teacher and the author of the methodological material for teachers, J.Jalolov saw importance of stress in interconnection with listening , because it helps us define the part of speech of the pronounced word; that can keep us from making mistake in the listening test.

3) Rhythm and intonation in his book are taken as one field: “Intonationally and rhythmically correct speech and comprehension of the received speech”.

Without any doubts J.J. Jalalov treated seriously to the correct pronunciation teaching, but the powerfulness of this deal he saw not only in the counted subdivision of the pronunciation, but mainly in teaching phonetics first of all. So, in his book he pointed out: “The main goal of Teaching Pronunciation is developing phonological competence, that means pronunciation and intonation sub¬skills.”

According to his work, teaching of pronunciation vary on the basis of the level of the student, if it is a secondary school is centered on the idea of dedetalization , which means the omitting the information the students will not need and it must be done as following:

- Reducing the amount of phonetic material (4 types of English intonation are studied);

- Admittance of some deterioration of pronouncing particular sounds (t,d, l, n, th, r), which doesn`t distrupt the communication between speakers.

- In its syntactical function intonation serves:

1) The difference between the communicative types of sentences;

2) In its emotional function - it contributes to conveying the speaker's conversation, to the interlocutor;

3) In the function of separation, it can promote differentiation of essential into from insignificant one.

- In differ of other linguists, that claim that the problematic sounds as: /?/, /è/, /ç/ and /?/ must be digested by students and well pronounced, J. J. Jalalov claim that teachers should admit the pronunciation of these sounds by students as they are, as they don`t corrupt the understanding. The criteria to the selection of minimum pronunciation for a secondary school:

J. Jalalov also proposed to teach:

- The styles of speech, recommending the usage of exactly neutral style;

- Standard pronunciation with the complete excluding of jargonisms, elliptical forms (`cause, gimme, it aintgonna happen, wanna).

- Groups and amount of English phonemes: vowels (long and short; palatal, nasal, fronted, etc.), consonants (glottal, plosive, etc.), double vowels, or diphthongs (which brings the problem of misunderstanding to the Uzbek students, for whom such a phenomenon is quite new).

II.V ROGER GOWER, STEWE WALTERS AND DIANE PHILLIPS WITH THE BOOK “TEACHING PRACTICE BOOK”

- Other prominent teachers that took active part in the working out of the successful teaching of pronunciation Roger Gower, Stewe Walters and Diane Phillips in their book “Teaching practice book” (Macmillan books for teachers) went to the conclusion that work on the pronunciation is essential for two reasons: to help students understand the spoken language they hear, and to make them build their own speech more comprehensible and meaningful to others. According to the hand book the constituents of the correct pronunciation are:

1) Individual sounds. One of the most important thing according to the mentioned teachers is the knowledge of the sound system. Each language has its own selection of sounds and phonemes. In English language there are 44 phonemes. There are differences in the phonemes` types that depend on the way they are formed in the nose, mouth and throat cavity; are they “voiced” (vocalized) or “voiceless” (when the vocal chords are not used or even whispered). The most widely-spread phonemes in the English language is /?/- the “schwa” or “weak” sound.

2) Word stress. Another prominent factor of the successful pronunciation digesting is the word stress that was also mentioned by Jeremy Harmer. Roger Gower and Stewe Walters are sure that the students must know that in words of two or more syllables, one syllable is normally stressed more than another; it is called “primary stress”. For example in the word “claustrophobia”, the letter “o”, the third syllable is stressed. Also student must stick in the mind, that sounds (exactly vowels) that aren`t under the stress are pronounced normally with the / ?/ sound: the “o” in the second syllable in the word “claustrophobia” is pronounced as / ?/.

3) Sound in connected speech

The third constituent part of the Roger Gower`s and Stewe Walters` theory of correct pronunciation is “sound in connected speech”, that makes difference with the Jeremy Harmer`s theory. So, according to the mentioned hand book in spoken language changes occur to some of the sounds, when words are said in normal speed and linked together to make connected speech:

-Several sounds often not pronounced, for instance: “Saturday”, where the syllable “ur” is not pronounced; the letter “d” in the word “handkerchief” ;the letter “t” in the word “first”, especially in case of elision, when two words come into one mass: “ first thing” becomes /f?èiç/. Another type of mispronunciation is “contraction”, when a phoneme is changed by apostrophe: not “I will”, but “I`ll” with the demanding pronunciation.

-Sometimes, in order to male our speech easier and fluent we use the intrusive sounds: /r/, /w/, /j/ (but mostly exactly /r/). Intrusive sounds are those sounds that are not presented in the spelling, but appear during the speech: a banana /r/ and two /w/ apples and three /j/ oranges.

- The weak forms of words are in usage : “was” becomes /w?z/, not /was/; “oh” becomes /?u/, not /ou/.

- When words are linked we can also see how one sound changes for another one: good morning, as an example becomes “gubmorning”, because “m” in the morning in nasal and it demands the closed sound; in “Great Britain” “great' becomes “grape” in phoneme transcription, so we get “grapebritain”. This phenomenon in phonetics is called “assimilation”.

4) Rhythm and stress. The forth component of the correct pronunciation according to the authors of the mentioned hand book for teachers is rhythm with stress in utterances. Generally English language is considered to be stress-limited: the words that carry information (main parts of speech) - are under the stress, and others are not. For example: “Throw the apple to Mary”. But at the same time, there can be stressed non-informative words, like here: “I said: throw the apple to Mary, not at her. Word stress in all the languages, according to Roger Gower and his co-authors performs three functions.

1. Constitutive - it organizes the syllables a word into a language unit having a definiteaccentual structure, function.

2. Identificatory (or recognitive) - it helps to identify a different combinations of sounds into meaningful linguistic units.

3. Distinctive - differentiate the meaninging of words or their forms. import -- imp'ort; `billow -- be''low.

In English we always keep the steady rhythm, when we have to get from one stressed syllable to another. To maintain this we use so-called, “squashing-up” with the unstressed syllables.

5) Intonation. Roger Gower with his co-authors also thought just like previously mentioned Jeremy Harmer, that intonation also plays its role in the teaching of the correct pronunciation in any language.

So, intonation, according to the hand book, is an element of rise and fall of the voice, which adds the extra meaning, for example: when we ask anything or exclaim we rise the intonation.

Change of intonation occurs in the most strongly stressed words. The words, that contain strongly stressed word appear in the end of sentences, but speakers may shift the stress to make the wanted effect. Another useful feature of pitch is that we can understand the meaning of the sentence even in the languages we don`t know.

If to speak about the useful tips that the hand- book gives as an advice for the teachers is the type of class, where all the mentioned contains of the correct pronunciation would be more successful in monolingual groups, where it is easy to pick out the English sounds, which are difficult for the students in the class in the same way. A focus on sounds is more problematical in multilingual classes, where the representatives of different mother tongues have different problematic issues; so, in this case it will be difficult for teacher to help all the students. Mostly, in English language all the students face the same problem: pronunciation of the sounds: /è/,/?/,/i/,/??/,/?/.

The same time every teacher should remember that all the aspect of correct pronunciation should be covered: stress in new words, contraction and weak forms, the intonation used for a particular function. When providing a model, it is sometimes useful to contrast some features of sounds, stress and intonation.

II.5. WALTER GRAUBERG: “THE VARIABLES OF TEACHING ENGISH”

Going further to the studying of the prominent teachers` opinion and role, considering the teaching of pronunciation, it becomes more and more evident, that all of them have their own viewpoint on the importance of pronunciation, the hierarchy of constituents of the correct pronunciation according to their primary and secondary importance and ways of teaching it. So, in connection with it, it is absolutely impartially to mention another, this time German, teacher Walter Grauberg, who saw the primary importance in the imitation of sounds, pronounced by a teacher, supposed to be close to a native speaker considering the pronunciation. He saw the successful work on pronunciation in the initial presentation of new words, that are modelled by the teacher and imitated by the pupils. According to Walter Grauberg it is supposed that during the regular short sessions in the first few months the pronunciation of selected words and phrases is practiced and, where necessary, corrected, with guidance on lip, tongue and jaw movement. After the done work revision of pronunciation based on a larger stock of examples, deals with features of pronunciation that are continuing to give trouble.

In differ of other teachers, mentioned previously, Walter Grauberg stood up on the further supporting and development of his theory, that the only possible and the most successful way of teaching the correct pronunciation is imitation of sounds, which he further broke down in next constituent parts:

1) Teaching vowels (to show the difference with consonants).

According to Walter Grauberg it is essential to present students information not only about the quantity of vowel letters and sounds, but also the peculiarities of their pronunciation in different positions, which frequently occurs. For example a letter “a” is pronounced differently in different positions:

/æ/ sound in such cases as:

-If it goes before consonant, e.g.: hand, stand, plant, sand

-Before doubled consonant or the diphthong “ck”: gallery, happy, grammar, jacket, attack

-Before single consonant, e.g.: value, natural, have, balance

/a:/ sound in the following cases:

-Before “f”, “s” and the diphthong “th”:

It can be before final consonants: ask, path, staff

Also before double consonant: giraffe, staffer

-Before “l” - palm, balm, calm

/?:/ sound in such cases:

-Before final “ll”: all, ball, call

-Before just “l”: also, salt, alter

-After “w”: water, warm, wall.

As such cases are frequent in English language, Walter Grauberg advice all the teachers to concentrate on this feature of the language during the teaching of pronunciation. W. Grauberg himself, being German, considered this peculiarity to be the most difficult, as his native language (German) is deprived this and all the words are pronounced in the way they are spelled.

2) Teaching consonants (as there are several difficultly-pronounced consonant phonemes /r/, /è/, /??/)

It is another component of the Walter Grauberg`s theory. The teaching of consonants also is not deprived with difficulty, e.g:

-Some consonant letters, for example, c, g, s, can represent two different consonant sounds.

-The letter Y can function as a vowel or as a consonant. As a vowel, Y has the vowel sounds [i], [ai]. As a consonant, Y has the consonant sound [y] (i.e., a semivowel sound), usually at the beginning of the word and only in the syllable before a vowel.

- The letter W represents the vowel sound [u:] in the diphthongs [au] and [ou]: now, how, owl, brown;

-The final problematic issue that should be taken into consideration by a teacher, who teaches the foreign students, that W. Grauberg mentioned in his work, is doubled consonants, given in the following table:

GROUPED CONSONANTS	PHONEMES	SAMPLE WORDS
cc	[k]	Accommodation, account, accuse, occur, acclaim.
ch tch	[ch]	Butcher,chain, check, chief, choose, teacher, much.
ch (derived from Latin, Greek) ch (French)	[k] [sh]	Technical, chemical, Chris, archive. Cliché, champagne, charlatan, chef,
ck	[k]	Package, pick, black, pack, deck, cracker.
dge	[j]	Budget, edge, judge, knowledge.
gh	[g] [f] [-]	Ghost, ghastly, ghetto; Cough, enough, rough, tough, laugh; Through, weigh, bought, daughter, throw
gu	[g] [gw]	Guess, guest, gift; Language, linguistics, Guatemala;
ng	[?] [?]+[g]	Tongue, sing, singer, bang, long; Finger, anger, single, longer, longest.
ph	[f]	Phone, photograph, phrase, phenomenon, biography.
qu	[kw] [k]	Quality, question, quite, equal. Antique, unique, technique.
sc	[s] [sk]	Science, scent, scissors, scene; Scandal, scare, score, Scotch, scuba
sch	[sk] [sh]	School, scholar, scheme, schedule; Schnauzer.
sh	[sh]	She, shine, share, Shwarscopf, shoe, fish.
th	[è] [ð]	Thick, think, thunder, bath author, breath; Those, then, though, mother, brother, breathe.
wh	[w] [h]	Which, while, why, whale, wheel, white; Who, whose, whole, whom.
xh	[ks] [ks]+[h] [g]+[z]	Exhibition; Exhale; Exhausted, excel, exhibit.

3) Glottal stop.

It exist in all the languages Walter Graunberg worked with. It is a frequent phenomenon in English language just like in the native language of W. Grauberg. According to him glottal stops are made quite frequently in English, although we rarely notice them because they do not add the extra meaning to words, but it has another feature that makes it important for Walter Grauberg, because glottal tops make differ in different accents, for example British English have glottal stops at the ends of words such as cap, cat, and back, so it can even show the location of the speaker. In Standard English glottal stop takes place before a forcefully articulated vowel, as in the example:

“I'm absolutely certain. Are you?”, or between adjacent vowels, as in:

“co-author”.

In America early everybody use a glottal stop in such words as “button” and “bitten” English speakers usually insert a glottal stop before word initial vowels, like in the words: “it”, “ate”, and “ouch”.

II.6 DOUGLAS BROWN AND HIS BOOK: “PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH LEARNING AND TEACHING”

Douglas Brown in the work “Principles of English Learning and Teaching. The fourth edition” proposed quite another set of problems and aims to keep in attention, that make difference with all the mentioned linguists. He thought that before dealing with articulatory and acoustic aspects of pronunciation, a teacher should help students to overcome a psychological barrier, which without all the further attempts will be fruitless. Psychological barrier is a common reaction of most people towards something new, non-developed in their mind. So, to have successful teaching of pronunciation a teacher should construct a basis for the further development.

Another problem is anxiety, as students in most cases are self-aware and reluctant to experiment with sounds for fear of do anything wrong and to be laugh at having lack of fluency.

The last and the rarest problem, that can occur during the teaching pronunciation to deal with, according to Douglas Brown, is cultural identity. A teacher should remember about the cultural frames of the students he works with. Sometimes students do not want to get rid of their accent as it is a strong indicator of their culture and heritage. In this case the teacher`s goal is to remember, that an accent is not a real barrier to the correct English pronunciation.

In general, all the described authors and their works plays a significant role in the teaching process development. Although all he activities, proposed by the previously mentioned authors, are quite effective and aimed at different levels of students, all the techniques demand the modification and the correct performance to students, which can be supplied by the mastery of teachers. Ere becomes evident, that in spite of the effectiveness of techniques, personal ability of teachers is one of the essential point of successful teaching English language.



Chapter III. PROCEDURES AND PROCESS

III.1 Statement of purpose

The goal.

* The main aim of the research is to extend learners` pronunciation sub-skill for the further communication development.

The objectives:

* Working out and modification of the effective techniques for the students` further development.

* To develop the ability to sound more naturally for the target language native speakers.

* To gain new information about the English language pronunciation peculiarity.

Research hypothesis.

The research hypothesis supposes the profitable use of the research result in further development of teaching pronunciation sub-skill to the B2 level students at schools, colleges and Universities of Uzbekistan.

The research question:

* How can be developed the pronunciation sub-skill, in case of different types of L1 gainers: the Russian learners and the Uzbek learners.

* How can be modified the traditional methods and techniques, which is demanded by the contemporary.

* How to motivate students practice the pronunciation sub-skill outside the classroom.

* How can we provide the integration with other skills, in order to make a learning process profitable.



III.2 Method

A. The subject.

As the theme of the current diploma paper is “Teaching pronunciation to the b2 level students”, for the scientific experiment and experience, I was given the chance to face the teaching of correct pronunciation to mix-ability students groups, whose levels were from A2 to B2 level s in both grades: 8 “a” and 8 “b” with the major quantity of the B2 level gainers; which necessity may be ride sometimes by the difficulty for the quite educated in the sphere English knowledge people to gain the correct pronunciation, as the absolute necessity for those, who pretend to nurture the growing generation. The whole process of the correct pronunciation teaching was based on not only the previously mentioned prominent teachers` experience and the given in the mentioned handbooks suggestions, made by them, but also on my private vision on the techniques, that may be motivated for the mentally adult students.

Before setting the goals of the future pronunciation development, firstly there was prepared a set of tests based on the frequently made mistakes in pronunciation: the pronunciation of “r” sound in different positions, intrusive “r” usage, such phenomenon of the fluent speech the sub-skill: pronunciation - elision, correct pronunciation of various sounds and setting stress in the unknown words.

Further, according to the got results, there was the necessity to create the plan of the correct pronunciation teaching that would respond to the students` weak points entirely and help students to overcome the problematic issues.

First of all, there was the necessity to reveal the cause of the incorrect pronunciation appearance, in order to find the absolute resolution of the problems and think through the strategies of dealing with them. The main aim of the problem turned to be the influence of the L1 on the studied language, exactly the sound stock difference between the L1 and L2.

In general, there are two L1 types in our country, that I could face during the active practice, which bearers, that contended the students in the given to me grade, face different problems.

First of all, the Uzbek native speakers face much more ingrained difficulties with the English language, than the bearers of the Russian, that is the reason of why the students that try to learn a language from the Indo-European language family are advised to seize the Russian language. The reason of the problems` appearance is revealed long ago, as the Uzbek language belong to the differ from the English language family, which has not only the differ from the sound stock, but also with the word-structure, that is the calling card for the agglutinative types of language. The difficulties of the Uzbek language speakers are:

1) The first and the most difficult to get rid of, in this case, is the habit to pronounce the endings, that denote the regular verbs in the “third column”: “ed”. For instance: “worked”, “marked”, “tackled” while the correct transcriptions looks like /w?:kd/, /ma:kd/ and /tækld/, the Uzbek speakers tend to pronounce instead - /w?ked/, /ma:ked/ and /tækled/, which comes across in all the levels of English language master: from the A1 level and up to the C1. The extraction of the problem is quite clear and understandable, the fault is connected with the articulation peculiarity of the Uzbek language, that demands the balance between consonants and vowels border line to the harmony. So the Uzbek people never pronounce consonants without a break, made by vowels.

2) The second problematic issue concerns not only the English language, but also the Russian: The Uzbek speakers feel difficulty with the strong and rolling sounds, that exist in both mentioned languages. For example: the word “bold” or “crop”, the Uzbek speakers use to pronounce instead of the strong /l/ and rolling but at the same time hard consonant /r/, the soften variant of these consonants, which sounds like: /li/ and /ri/, which lead to invalid words, that are difficult to be understaded: “bolid” and “criop”. In analogy with the previously mentioned problematic issue, the problem of over-softening words also caused by the Uzbek language features, which lack of hard consonants.

3) The last, but not the least factor, that differ the Uzbek people`s way of pronunciation from the correct one is the most widely spread: the disability to pronounce such an extraneous for the Uzbek language sounds, as /è/ and /?/ in such words as: three, they, thrill, that are replaced automatically by more familiar sounds: /s/ and /z/. so, as a result we get invalid /sri:/, /zei/ and /sri:l/ instead of the quite understandable by the English native speakers - /èri:/, /?ei/ and /èri:l/.

If to speak about the Russian speakers, in spite of the moderate quantity of the problematic issues, which overcoming, nevertheless, can`t be caked the easiest ones. The modern Russian teachers point out the most spread among those, who already have quite a high degree of the language knowledge and can speak comparatively fluently, but incorrectly from the point of view of the preferred pronunciation. The problematic issues, that face the absolute majority of the Russian speakers are the clear ones:

1) The difficulty to pronounce and ever feel the difference between the “v” and the “w” sounds. For the Russian speakers it is difficult to vary so, for the first glance equal sounds in speech, for instance, it is within norm to hear the sound variation /u?ri/ instead of the original word “very”, where the sound /v/ is replaces by the sound that reflects the letter “w”. In this case, contrary to expectations, the reason of the difficulty appearance is not caused by the absence of such a sound in the Russian language sound raw, as there is also such a sound: “â”. The reason has the psychological motive: it is caused by the desire for the ability to sounds alike with the native speakers. In order to succeed in the correct pronunciation people try to sound contrary to the native language and start to search for extraordinary sounds that will help them, for their viewpoint, to get rid of the accent, resulting from the mother tongue.

2) The second problematic issue, according to the prominent Russian teacher Ludmila Mariner, that devoted her practice teaching to inculcation correct pronunciation to the Russian learners, concern the correct pronunciation is the most acceptable almost in all the languages in the World: the strong and rolling /r/ (like I Russian words “ðåäèñ”, “Ðîññèÿ”, “ðåøåòî”) instead of the hardly caught English /r/. In differ of the previously mentioned difficulty, that was linked with the sound /v/, this problematic issue is connected with the absence of the sound /r/ in the way the English native speakers use to pronounce. This difficulty is ride by the physical peculiarities of different nations, so in case with the Russian native speakers, to imitate the English /r/ the Russians have to burr and “break” the tongue, which need much practice.

3) The third problematic issue is the absence of correct intonation. Most of the foreigners point out that the Russian students that eager to master English, put attention on grammar, omitting the importance of correct intonation, while the English native speakers contend that correct intonation plays the greater role in the ability to understand each other, that the other factors: correct sound pronunciation, correct syntax and grammar rules usage.

4) The fourth problem, that concern the correct English pronunciation is the most expected one: the difficulty to pronounce the sound /è/, that doesn`t exist in any other language and is shifted into the most native one, the sounds: /s/, /t/ and /f/ in different positions, which both with the incorrect intonation can lead to the misunderstanding and the word-pun, as in this case the common phrase, such as “I think” can take a very tremendous meaning if to shift the sound /è/ into the sound /s/ and get “I sink”; so such a problematic issue is a norm throughout the whole World for the great variety of language speakers, that need much practice in order to work the perfect sound out.

Also there is a problem, that unify the both types of students: those, whose native language is Uzbek, and those, whose L1 is Russian as the experience has shown.

The problematic issue, that can face all the learners of variable levels, is the phenomenon of accommodation and elision, that is faced in the fluent speech. The cause of such a problem appearance is quite understandable: students, who are willing to sound like native speakers, perfect the skill of pronunciation by the sharpening of the correct pronunciation of particular words, as the result the distinct words are pronounced correctly, and at the same time the attempts to pronounce words in cue in the same manner, which leads to the lack of unification of words into a speech. So, to sum up, the problem appearance in the sphere of correct pronunciation, whatever it is paradoxical, is caused by the attempts to perfect the pronunciation sub-skill.

The first difficulty I faced, during the practice, was the correct set of methods and techniques of teaching that would be both motivating, interesting and effective for quite adult students, even though the students are quite old to take the lessons seriously, without the fleur of childish that is faced so frequently in the books of prominent teachers, previously mentioned.

B. Procedure.

Variables:

Dependent variable. The list of the depended variable were included both the methods of traditional and modern methods, directed to the development of the pronunciation sub-skill among learners of different levels.

Independent variable. As the independent variable are taken all the technical and non-technical equipment.

Moderator variables. This type of variables reflects the integration of the dependent and independent variables. Here we can include the interests of students, their age, gender, academic knowledge and cultural aspects of their education.

Intervening variable. Intervening variable is the reflection of the efficiency of taken steps and implemented methods.

III.3 Methods and techniques, used during the lessons

After the short analysis of the students` potential in the sphere of English pronunciation, there was the necessity to put the general approach of the following teaching process of teaching pronunciation, that would respond all the inquiries that are connected with the b 2 level students. Basing on the recommendation, done by the mentioned in the first chapter prominent teachers, concerning the necessity to roll the covered material into the speaking way of practice. Among all the offered variants, the most effective and responding to all the inquires turned to be the union of three wide-spread approaches, that can be used successfully during the teaching all the skills and aspects, as all of them were created to respond to the each-others` weak points, that could damage the successful teaching. Among them are:

1) Direct method.

As the group I was working with was well educated and adult, it was quite effective to use one of the tradition methods of teaching: the direct method, which is sometimes called the natural method. It is used in teaching foreign languages and only in the target language without any refer to the mother tongue, which was also possible in case of the group of students I had a chance to work with. Generaly, the teaching process during the method, focuses on the development of speaking skill (and, as the result, the pronunciation sub-skill) and one of the aspects of a language - grammar.

Characteristic features of the direct method are:

* Teaching through the real-life objects and other visual materials during a lesson in order to show the correct phonemes of words on the paper bearers to be easy to write down the necessary information.

* Although the teaching through the method supplies the conducting a lesson in the target language, it can also include the mother tongue usage. So, students during the lesson, which is possible in some cases, were asked after the reading of correct phoneme symbol, to find the equivalent of the sound in the mother tongue.

* centrality of spoken language (including a native-like pronunciation) focuses on question-answer patterns.

The choice of the method was based on the peculiarity of the diploma work topic and the given to me grades` character. As the students I was working with, were adult and quite educated, there was the necessity to aim the teaching process not only at the motivational part of the teaching process, as they were motivated with the ability to get new information, but also to provide students with hand-out and material to work with and get new information for the further learning directly.Sothe techniques of the method during the teaching pronunciation, may be the following:

* Dictation. In the broad meaning the technique is mostly used in the teaching writing by reading texts aloud, to follow and write down. The technique, as the experience has shown, can be also appropriate during the teaching pronunciation sub-skill. During lessons, students were listening to the rules of pronunciation of particular letters in different positions and were writing them down in diaries for the further learning by heart. E.g:

- Cases of “intrusive R” usage in the fluent speech.

- The positions of intonation in accordance with the length of sentences.

- The /id/ and /d/ sound pronunciation cases

* Question/answer technique

During the teaching practice in the direct method, students were asked questions to answer, and in this way, practice the digested information.

* Conversation practice.

The students during the lessons were given an opportunity to ask their own questions to the other students or to the teacher. It provides interaction between teacher and students and among students.

Although the method is considered to be one of traditional and seizing all the contend of the teaching English language, it is lack of active, engaging and playful activities, this method was mixed up with the followings to provide the cozy atmosphere of the teaching.

2) Audio-lingual approach

The audio-lingual approach, which choice was ride by the necessity to provide students with emotively abate techniques, that was created by an American behaviourist psychologists such B.F. Skinner, basing on the work of American linguists such as Leonard Bloomfield (who believed, that the usage of repetition can bring much benefit, that the mindless writing rules). This approach in some cases is alike with the direct method, as it also demands teaching the skill directly, without the students` native language usage, which is very important during the teaching pronunciation, as the first aim for a teacher is to help students perceive the new for them way of pronunciation and articulation, that is so alien for them. During the teaching in such a way, students are asked to repeat all the pronounced by a teacher words to perceive the pronunciation. Applied to language instruction, that sense of the modified approach means that the instructor would present the correct model of pronunciation of a particular word, which is difficult to pronounce and the students would have to repeat it. The teacher would then continue by presenting new words for the students to sample in the same structure and with the same problematic for the correct pronunciation parts. In case of the need to specify the technique from quite generalized teaching the whole words, there is also such a way to use the technique in the specific sounds drilling. Such a technique is called “Isolation”.

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