Focus On Learner Pronunciation Problems Essay Example for Free

Focus On Learner Pronunciation Problems Es assertIn Portuguese, R at the beginning of words, at the check of words, or before a consonant is pronounced like H. Many Brazilian students carry this habit into slope words, pronouncing restaurant as hestaurant and far as fah. Its especially common when the side word and the Portuguese word are similar, such as in restaurant and regular. dissolvent First, I sire my students scat on pronouncing the English R sound by itself. I demonstrate the correct mouth lieu and they imitate me. Then, we work on each word while exaggerating the R sound so we say rrrrememberrrr, for example. last-placely, we practice reservation that exaggerated R sound shorter and shorter until the student gets used to axiom remember with an English R. It feels a little ridiculous, but it works PROBLEM Similar wordsFortunately, Portuguese and English have a lot of true cognates words that are similar in both languages, such as area, animal, culture, famou s, music, romantic, hamburger, and sports. This makes it easier to remember the vocabulary but more troublesome to remember to pronounce the words the English way. resolving To show the difference in the sounds, I make comparisons with words that they already know and pronounce comfortably in English The a in animal is like the a in and, for example. I alike draw attention to syllable stress popular in English vs. popular in Portuguese. PROBLEM Final consonantsPortuguese doesnt have letters like D, T, G, P, and K at the end of words, so its common for Brazilian students to accidentally add a little vowel sound at the end of English words so big sounds like bigg-ee and stop becomes stopp-ee. One of the most famous is difficult turning into difficulty which is also an English word, but the first is an adjective and the second is a noun. SOLUTION I start with words ending in P because theyre the easiest to practice we practice saying stop, help, and others, and I tell them to keep their lips together for a second at the end, then release them without making an extra sound. Then we move on to rock, get, thing, good, and so on, again, holding the final consonant for a piece before releasing it soundlessly.