Opdyke, Texas TESOL Online & Teaching English Jobs

I have learned about teaching pronunciation and phonology. I find this topic interesting and significant to learn. I didn’t learn phonology, nor the phonetic charts at school. I merely relied on listening to a lot of CDs or pronunciation materials and familiarizing myself with how to produce the correct pronunciation. Having an in-depth knowledge about the mechanisms of speech production is essential in teaching English. If we can describe how the sounds are properly formed, we can direct our students and help them pronounce words accurately. This would facilitate improvement in their listening and help them sound more natural in speaking. In this lesson, I have learned about Phonology, which is the study the sounds and meaning of a specific language. I have understood how the physical elements within our body, specifically the airstream, oral and nasal tracts, the larynx, and the vocal cords all work together to articulate sounds. It is important to know these points of articulation and the manner of how they work together to produce a variety of sounds. By this, we can understand better the kind of problems our students have with pronunciation, and thus, effectively teach them. I have also learned how stress, intonation, rhythm plays a significant role on how to appropriately convey the meaning of our actual statement. We use intonation to signify when we are asking a question or to indicate a personal attitude or feelings. It is an integral part of communicating clearly in English. Moreover, I have learned a lot from the lesson demonstration video on this lesson. I still have difficulties producing the correct sounds on the IPA chart but I want to continue practicing on these areas and use the teaching ideas I have learned in this lesson.