SKKN Improving the students’ English pronunciation through interesting phonic exercise

PART A.   INTRODUCTION

In curent time, Our beloved country, Viet Nam is carrying out much renovation in many fields. One of the most renovations which has been corncerned by people at all age from the city to the country is the renewably educational and training program from grade one to grade twelve. People believe that renovating the shooling program will take much advantages in other that we may train young generations to have ability to support the country later to the trend of modern thought basing on national soul and integrating international community. To make sure that the second purpose “integrating international community” can be successful, Viet Nam’s Ministry of Education and Training has taken more care of teaching foreign languages for its students and English is the most popular foreign language choosen in Vietnam’s educational program which can be seen in the project of foreign language during the period 2012 – 2020.

Facing the new requirements of the nation and date, I should think each of the teachers ought to make more efforts to get practical results in teaching career. Being a teacher of English I always wonder and find out how to teach my students to communicate in English successfully. In English, listening and speaking skills play an important role in creating speech and if learners want to listen and speak English well, the first and foremost thing they need is the right prounciation of English words. Why can I say so? We strongly notice that when one don’t pronounce words well, he or she may make the listeners laugh at him/her, moreover, he/she can not understand what the other is speaking because their sounds are not similar to his/hers. Another reason, it will be very difficult for him/ her to correct the pronunciation later.

The question which makes me corncern about most is how to teach the students to pronounce English words rightly and help them use English fluently and confidently. Is teaching pronunciation enough only in teaching new words? I think that it is not enough because in conversation we need more the words in textbook, and native speakers often speak more quickly and link the words in some ways which causes us much difficult in understanding and speaking as well as they do. However, it is not necessary for us to speak everything as we hear, we still understand them what they speak if we know how they link and we need to pronounce words exactly. Therefore, the first key of this problem is how to pronounce English words exactly because words are the smallest unit of a sentence. 

During a few years teaching and studying, I have collected, studied and taught students how to pronounce English in a variety of phonetic exercises. In this school year, I take a special duty on teaching the new English textbook for grade 6 in the project of foreign language during the period 2012 – 2020. This new English textbook has created many interesting things. It gives some phonic exercises in each unit. I am always fond of teaching this section and have supplied my students some more ones afterwards. The result is so good that I encourage me to write the creative experience called “Improving the students’ English pronunciation through interesting phonic exercises.” – (grade 6 -new English textbook)

PART B. SOLUTION

1. THEORITICAL BASIS

Speaking English as well as the native speakers is the strong hope of almost people who are learning English. However, it is not easy to do it in a few days. “ How can we use  English fluently  and confidently?  Do we do need a variety of words or Do we need a further understdanding of English structure and grammar ? Many people say that learners need all above: I believe in this idea; however,  I think it is not enough because pronuncing the words exactly plays an important role in orders to define a successful conversation .

        For young learners, the way they pronounce a word may last  forever and it is very difficult for them to correct it if they do it wrongly . Moreover, they are not possible to correct their pronunciation by themselves. 

      In fact, knowing the English phonetics symbols as vowel sounds, dipthongs and consonants is very useful because it helps learners not only specialize the pronunciation of a word easier, but also create a total knowledge of pronouncing a word by looking the letters, Apart from this, many dictionaries use the tanscription (the English phonetics symbols) to show the pronunciation of a word and it’s easier to remember a word if learners know both its meaning and its pronunciation . 

     Although new English textbook established by Viet Nam’s Ministry of Education and Training is more interested in teaching pronunciation for students, pronunciation is the biggest problem of English learners that’s why I always wonder how to help my students improve their English pronunciation, ease their nervous thing and use English fluently, accuracy and confidently.

      Therefore, I have collected, chosen and created some more exercises for students in grade 6 ( learning new English text books ) according to the pronunciation section in textbook, I elicit students to do some more exercises introducing the English phonetics symbols; practiceing exericises to specialize a pair of vowels, a vowel and a diphthong, two or three consonants, etc . 

1. THE RESULT OF THE REALITY

        In order to know how exactly my students pronounce the English word, I gave them the following exercises : class 6 A ( 34 students ) 

Exercise:  Choose a word which has the underlined part pronounced different  from the others

Steps of checking students’ pronunciation 

Step 1: Get student 5 minutes to choose and circle the answer .

Step 2: Check and correct the student’s work 

Step 3: Let Ss listen and repeat .

Step 4: Call each read aloud a group (4 groups) and 34 students read aloud one by one .