How to Improve Your English Pronunciation

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How to Improve Your English Pronunciation

• Tu Pei
• Beijing Foreign Studies University

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Five Questions
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What is good English pronunciation?
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Why is good pronunciation so important?
What impede or enhance the acquisition of a
reasonable pronunciation?
3
4
What are the priorities for Chinese learners?
What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
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3
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What is good English pronunciation?
A lofty goal
sound like native speakers
A modest, realistic goal
to develop a clear, understandable pronunciation
with appropriate intonation and stress
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Why is good pronunciation so important?
Intelligibility
is the most sensible goal.
Intelligibility
is being understood by a listener in a given
situation
Poor, unintelligible speech will make your
attempts at conversing frustrating and unpleasant
both for yourself and for your listeners.
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What impede or enhance the acquisition of a
reasonable pronunciation?
1. The learners native language
2. The learners age
3. The learners exposure
4. The learners innate phonetic ability
5. The learners attitude and motivation.
6. The learners speech habit.

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4
What are the priorities for Chinese learners?
Priority aspects for Chinese learners
weak forms
stress
rhythm
intonation
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What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.1
Be aware of the major differences between Chinese
and English pronunciations
5.25.8
Be aware of the special features of English that
are most difficult for the Chinese learners
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What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
Chinese is a tone language while English is a
highly stressed language.
5.1
Apart from the vowel qualities and consonant
qualities, stresses play a very important role in
conveying the meaning of a sentence in English.
Example The girl gave the money to her father.
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5
What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.2 Word Stress
Example coming letter
beautiful report myself
forget remember explosion modernization
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What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.3 Sentence stress
In a normal English sentence certain words are
stressed and certain words are unstressed. Normall
y stressed are content words. Normally unstressed
are form words.
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• Examples
• 1. Janet has gone to the Bakers.
• 2. I saw your brother yesterday.
• 3. Would you like a glass of beer?
• 4. I must be going. My wifes waiting
• for me at the corner of the street.

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Stress gives a natural rhythm to spoken English.
Rhythm
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Rhythm

• The rhythm of spoken English is determined by
  the occurrence of stressed syllables. Stressed
  syllables occur at more or less equal intervals
  in English. The other syllables in a sentence are
  reduced or blended to accommodate the regular
  beat of the stressed syllables.

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1.As a general rule English tries to avoid having
stresses too close together.2. English stresses
tend to recur at regular intervals.
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What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.4 Stress patterns
Example

• Sing a song.

2. Id love to.
3. Ive heard of it.
4. I want to know.
5. She asked me to go.
6. I think it will be fine.
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5
What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.5 Stress timed language
Example Go
home Going home Going
back home Going straight back
home
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What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.6 Weak forms
Example A cup of tea Johns at
home. A glass of water I can speak
English. A block of flats Id like
some potatoes. The book that I want Ive
been to France. Bread and butter We
were leaving the house.
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Weak Forms

• The weak form or forms of a word are used only in
  unstressed positions.
• The weak forms of the words are of much more
  frequent occurrence than their strong forms.

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The average foreigner uses far too many
strong forms it is impossible to speak English
fluently unless the phenomenon of weak forms is
properly understood and their use acquired,
preferably from the earliest stage.
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What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.7 Intonation
Function 1 It indicates grammatical
meaning, in much the same way as punctuation does
in the written language.
1. He lives in London. 3. He lives in London.
Where?2. He lives in London. 4. He lives in
London. Where?
Function 2 It can also indicate the speakers
attitude.
1. Really?2. Whats your name?
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What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5.8 Four basic tune movements
Fall Rise Fall-rise Rise-fall
Example 1.His name is Peter. (a
straightforward statement)2.His name is Peter.
(a polite question)3.His name is Peter. (I dont
believe you.)4.His name is Peter. (to convey
certainty)
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Speech-flowStress,rhythm and
intonation should really be considered as a
whole, for they are very closely connected
elements of a single aspect of the language that
we might call Speech-flow.
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Speech-flow

• Broadly speaking, a reasonably correct
  speech-flow is more important for intelligibility
  than correct sounds.

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My last but best tip
Practice, practice and practice
Practice 1 Rain The rain is raining all
around, It falls in field and tree. It rains on
the umbrellas here, And on the ships at sea.
--Robert Louis
Stevenson
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My last but best tip
Practice, practice and practice
Practice 2 Bed in Summer In winter I
get up at night,And dress by yellow
candle-light.In summer quite the other way,I
have to go to bed by day. I have to go to
bed and see,The birds still hopping on the
tree,Or hear the grown-up peoples feet,Still
going past me in the street. And does it
not seem hard to you,When all the sky is clear
and blue,And I should like so much to play,To
have to go to bed by day?
--Robert Louis Stevenson
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My last but best tip
Practice, practice and practice
Practice 2 Bed in Summer In winter I
get up at night,And dress by yellow
candle-light.In summer quite the other way,I
have to go to bed by day. I have to go to
bed and see,The birds still hopping on the
tree,Or hear the grown-up peoples feet,Still
going past me in the street. And does it
not seem hard to you,When all the sky is clear
and blue,And I should like so much to play,To
have to go to bed by day?
--Robert Louis Stevenson
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Practice 3 Learning a foreign
language was one of the most difficult yet most
rewarding experiences of my life. Although at
times, learning a language was frustrating, it
was well worth the effect. My
experience with a foreign language began in
junior middle school, when I took my first
English class. I had a kind and patient teacher
who often praised all of the students. Because of
this positive method, I eagerly answered all the
questions I could, never worrying much about
making mistakes. I was at the top of my class for
two years.

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Review
1
What is good English pronunciation?
2
Why is good pronunciation so important?
What impede or enhance the acquisition of a
reasonable pronunciation?
3
4
What are the priorities for Chinese learners?
What are the tips on good English pronunciation?
5
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Thank you!