Phonological Awareness for Developing Language Abilities
Phonology involves studying how sounds are organized in a language to create meaning. It differs in every language as sounds are organized to create words, which are then organized in sentences.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jane M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Phonetics involves understanding how sounds are physically made, what part of the vocal tract is used, and how air is used to produce sounds.
Understanding both phonology and phonetics is important when teaching language to others.
It enables teachers to analyze how sounds are made which helps teachers to assist students in grasping new and or difficult sounds and help students with the production of these sounds. Specifically, when teaching English as a foreign language, a teacher can identify and explain differences in sounds. This is particularly useful when a student is mispronouncing a word – a teacher can identify what is happening to cause the mispronunciation and what needs to change to correct the sound and pronunciation. This ultimately enables students to better understand and speak English.
As well as helping to improve speech or language production, understanding phonology and phonetics is also helpful for teachers to assist students with listening skills, or reception ultimately making sure students can hear what different sounds are.
Also Read: Comparing Foreign Language Learning in Japan and Canada
The English IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) utilizes symbols to represent single sounds.
This is a very powerful and helpful chart to utilize as a TEFL teacher. Once students recognize and associate each symbol with a sound it can be used as a very effective tool to demonstrate to students what sound they should produce or hear.
As it relates to phonology, understanding the place and manner in which a sound is produced is important for a teacher to be able to identify and explain how and where a student needs to produce a sound. About the place of articulation, these details where a sound is made in the vocal tract. If a teacher can identify where a student is making a sound and perhaps subsequently making the wrong sound, they are more effectively able to show to a student where a sound needs to come from to correct it (e.g. explaining to a student that their tongue needs to be between both sets of teeth to produce certain sounds). The manner of articulation, this helps a teacher to understand how air needs to flow through the vocal tract to produce a sound and again helps to more effectively demonstrate and correct sounds.
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By utilizing their understanding of phonology and phonetics a teacher can use many different teaching ideas in class that focus on listening (reception) or speaking (production) skills or both. Teaching ideas can be in the form of visually showing where and how sounds need to be made in the vocal tract or using the IPA and symbol recognition to receive and/or produce the desired sound. This not only improves pronunciation for students but also ensures a deeper understanding and recognition of the English language. Students undergoing a Business English course will benefit from this in their day to day working environment and confidence in their language production.
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