A Simple Home Recipe For Making Tasty Sounds

A SIMPLE �HOME RECIPE’ FOR MAKING

�TASTY’ SOUNDS

By Yvonne C.J. Wotulo

English has truly proven itself to be the most internationally used language вЂ" particularly in speaking вЂ" by non-native speakers. In this case, there’re two kinds of non-native English speakers: the speakers who have English as a second or additional language, and the growing number of speakers, which have reached 750 million (Graddol, The Future of English?, 1997), learning English as a foreign language (EFL).

The number of EFL learners has in years grown rapidly especially because of the globalization era, that requires the use of English. Since these learners are spread in various kinds of areas which have their own unique local languages, it has become difficult for the learners to speak English fluently. They may have certain accents. These accents, as well as the patterns of error that the learners repeatedly make, reflect the characteristics of their mother tongue. For example, according to Phonology Yearbook 4 (1987), in Kimatuumbi (a language in Tanzania), there’re phrasal tone insertions; and in modern Greek and modern Italian, there’re fast speech rules, involving elision of vowels. Moreover, as many of us have probably known that in Japanese, there’s a tendency of inserting vowels into consonants (which is why it’s apparently troublesome for the Japanese to say the English words that contain double to triple consonants, such as вЂ?snack bar’, which is pronounced as вЂ?su - nÐ"¦-ku - b^: - ru’). In our mother tongue, Bahasa Indonesia, it’s not common to have s sounds at the end of words ended by consonants (of course other than вЂ?s’ itself), especially such consonants which have КÑ", К¤, К§, endings. Or, to have consonants (sounds) between s sounds (eg. tests ). These problems have become a вЂ?pain in the neck’ for English teachers when teaching speaking skills. Then, how can we overcome such problems, particularly when teaching Indonesian EFL learners ? As you would probably agree with me that pronunciation is the second (if not the first) most difficult skill to teach (for teachers), as well as to learn (for students).

Thinking English as a вЂ?crazy language’ is one of the techniques of teaching English to EFL learners that has been quite successfully applied lately. In China, where the dialects hamper the learners to learn to speak English clearly, the вЂ?Crazy English’ method has been used and it seems to be serving quite well so far (as was seen on TVRI’s 9 PM news last April). One of the tricks is to bravely shout in English. Confidence is the key. English is a вЂ?crazy’ language anyway. Why be embarrassed ? According to the method, shyness or embarrassment is one of the greatest obstacles for learners to produce the target language orally. And, as Richard Lederer (1996) has once mentioned:“Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.”

Another method that can be, and has always been, and will always be, used is drilling. Well, aren’t we already so familiar with this one! So, I don’t think I should say much about it. We all just love using this method when teaching pronunciation.

The two previous methods have served perfectly okay in my classes вЂ" especially in conversation classes. Still, there are a few English sounds that have dominantly been falsely pronounced by my students over and over again : sks as in asks; sts as in tests; bed as in grabbed; ped as in stopped; ged as in dragged; ked as in talked; and ched as in watched. *

My experience has shown me that it wasn’t enough to drill or to ask students to speak confidently and courageously loudly. I had to come up with something else. There was this student who had difficulty in pronouncing asks even after being personally drilled. So I came up with kesemsem (meaning: to like or have a crush on) for the sound. But then, a student of mine) came up with a far, better idea -- the word ksatria (meaning: knight or a gentleman). Later on, I ended up using kesemsem for basic drilling and devising ksatria for perfection. The troubled student, eventually, could obtain the correct pronunciation, even, of course, not so perfectly. **

I learned that some similar sounds in our own language, Bahasa Indonesia, can be used as analogies to the difficult English sounds. So, instead of getting in our way, our mother tongue can somehow come in handy after all!

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* There’re more examples available in appendix-2

** For further explanation (and examples), please refer to appendix-3

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The combination of the three methods вЂ" вЂ?Crazy English’ , drilling and utilizing mother tongue’s sounds as analogies вЂ" has been able to produce a whole new вЂ?recipe’ for me in helping my students turn their вЂ?tasteless’ sounds into (relatively) вЂ?tasty’ ones. The way to handle the combination relies completely on your own вЂ?taste’ since you may have different kinds of students, class atmosphere, and even different kinds of pronunciation problem(s). However, allow me to present you my way of handling it:

1. Create a relaxing atmosphere to boost students’ confidence.

2. Prepare the analogies to the sounds you want to drill and make the students (in groups of two to three) practice them. Please feel free to find more mother-tongue sounds of your own as analogies to the sounds.

3. When checking, tell them not to hesitate, just shout (but not too loud of course) the words (which can also be put into phrases or sentences).

4. Listen carefully to each group. Listen for the false sounds that may still be made by certain members of each group. Drill these students individually until they can get