Hi everyone,

This is, I believe, a really pressing issue in TESOL pronunciation.
Intelligibility, comprehensibility, native speaker competence... none of these
have clear definitions, and none really seem to be meaningful or useful in
practice. As Anna points out, who is listening is just as important as who is
speaking.

Concerning an international syllabus for pronunciation...

For segmentals, it might be possible if we considered categories as a system
rather than a list of sounds. That is, of course, what phonology is, but when it
gets to course books it tends to be presented as lists of sounds. ....

For suprasegmentals, I think there is a need to categorize according to
complexity of situation - i.e. the intonation of citation forms, read speech and
simple transactions is simple and predictable; the intonation of multi-person
phatic communication is far more complex. I believe that it is possible to
define and categorize between these but it's a large area of work and little
ground has been covered so far. (And actually an area I'm really keen to get
stuck into!).

... an aside...
I was teaching some of the tougher modal verbs today (to an upper int oral
communication group) and used the song "You could be happy" by Snow Patrol. The
students were fairly consistent in their inability to hear negatives. They were
listening for a /t/ sound, yet in native speech /t,d,s,z,n,/ etc. are frequently
dropped. (forgive the lack of script) "you wern happy" is a clear example. A
ubiquitous one is BrE "can / can't", where the vowel change is the indicator,
rather than the /t/.
Given that students are told from the beginning that "not" is used to make
negatives in English, any suggestions for helping my students with the "What the
*%*$?!" feeling when confronted with the way that native speakers speak (and
sing)?!

Alex.








--- In iatefl_pronsig@..., BERNARD Anna <anna.bernard@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Everyone
>
> Long time no write...
>
> Nearing the end of 2 months of oral entrance examining into the school,
> evaluation is very much in the forefront of my thoughts at the moment. I'm
> not familiar with the IELTS scale (we use a specialist Aeronautic English
> Scale or the Common European Framework here) but on scales everywhere for
> pronunciation I find there is a real practical problem with evaluating
> people on "intelligibility" as denoted in a scale. After all, my
> colleagues who may not be as versed as I with pronunciation matters, all
> find it very easy to "understand" even a very strong French accent because
> they are living in France, are familiarised with a multitude of different
> levels of pronunciation and some have been here over 30 years. They could
> even understand the more pronuciation challenged sibling of Inspecteur
> Clouseau!!! So based on the IELTS scale they might put someone who has
> problems with vowel length, pronunciation of dipthongs, intonation,
> misplaced word stress in the top box because "they can understand them"
> and who am I to challenge that? Examiners follow a scale. Does
> research exist into levels of pronunciation features in terms of what may
> be easiest to work on first to what would be hardest to correct? Is this
> relevant and should it be included in scales or is this too difficult with
> internationally used documents? Your thoughts please.
>
> Anna
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Anna Bernard
> EFL Lecturer
> Ecole Nationale de L'Aviation Civile
> 7, avenue Edouard Belin
> BP 4005
> 31055 Toulouse CEDEX
> Tel: 00 33 5 62 17 41 15
>
>
>
>
> "Chris P. Bluetree" <japaneasynow@...>
> Envoyé par : iatefl_pronsig@...
> 19/06/2009 05:39
> Veuillez répondre à
> iatefl_pronsig@...
>
>
> A
> iatefl_pronsig@...
> cc
>
> Objet
> Re: [iatefl_pronsig] Re: "There's no agreement..."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Steph, Alex et al.
> I read the IELTS rubric, and it does seem pretty detailed and likely to be
> useful to scoring test takers. However, i noticed that there was no
> mention of prosody or suprasegmental features. I liked the part about "L1
> accent has minimal effect on intelligibility." This alludes to native-like
> pronunciation, and we can infer, prosody.
>
> Well, i must get back to my sylable-adding and phonetically challenged
> Japanese university students. Today is presentation day...
>
> Cheers,
> c.
>
>
>
> --- On Fri, 19/6/09, stephanie gilkes <stephaniegilkes@...>
> wrote:
>
> From: stephanie gilkes <stephaniegilkes@...>
> Subject: [iatefl_pronsig] Re: "There's no agreement..."
> To: iatefl_pronsig@...
> Date: Friday, 19 June, 2009, 12:28 PM
>
> Hi Alex,
>
> that's a very good point, the descriptors are quite vague and, at least by
> default, they are native-speaker referenced. I can't quote them exactly
> (for confidentiality reasons, although also due to a poor memory!), but
> the description of prosody (in the higher bands) is mainly in terms of
> discourse 'chunking' and only talks about it being 'acceptable' . I'm sure
> you are right that examiners would interpret 'acceptable' to mean 'the way
> native speakers do it.'
>
> Although fairly vague, the 'revised pronunciation scale' (2007) is a vast
> improvement on the old scale, which was extremely vague. It's available
> here for anyone who is interested: http://www.ielts. org/PDF/UOBDs_
> SpeakingFinal. pdf
>
> Steph
>
> --- In iatefl_pronsig@ yahoogroups. co.uk, "pronsig_mod" <pronsig_mod@
> ...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Steph,
> >
> > I think the fact that prosodic features are 'tested' in oral exams is an
> important point. The problem is deciding which aspects of prosody should
> be measured. The definitions used in international exams and in the Common
> European framework are incredibly vague - generally they just say that
> intonation must be correct!
> > Oral examiners are experienced teachers and are given training, but
> intonation seems to be judged subjectively with little indication of what
> counts as a significant error. If intonation patterns are just about
> 'sounding like a native' then surely we should drop them completely from
> tests that are supposed to be measuring communicative competence.
> >
> > Alex.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In iatefl_pronsig@ yahoogroups. co.uk, "stephanie gilkes"
> <stephaniegilkes@ > wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi everyone,
> > >
> > > I just wanted to add a minor point to this discussion. Regarding item
> 5 'intonation doesn't really matter': on a practical note, it does matter
> for people intending to take the IELTS exam. In the new pronunciation
> scale, prosodic features are essential criteria for bands 7 to 9.
> > >
> > > Steph
> > >
> > > --- In iatefl_pronsig@ yahoogroups. co.uk, jmtiziani@ wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
>
>
> New Email names for you!
> Get the Email name you've always wanted on the new @ymail and @rocketmail.
> Hurry before someone else does!
>