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Article summary and reflection

It is very lucky for me that I have a chance to access to the article Pronunciation
matters: Sound reasons for teaching pronunciation written by Andrian Tennant and
published by Macmilan Publisher in 2007. Pronunciation is one of obstacles that the
English learners often get because the way learners produce sounds in their native
languages is far different from it in English. Therefore teaching pronunciation is really
neccessary and urgent.
First, summarizing will help me have an overview about the article. For the
introduction the author gives a number of reasons why pronunciation is a neglected
part in most English course book. They are the difficulties in teaching pronunciation; in
making lesson plan for a pronunciation point or in teacherspreparation. Tennant also
points out that presentation of pronunciation mainly focuses on differences between
individual sounds, a bit on word stress and sentence stress, which seems not to benefit
students in both l istening and speaking skills. He takes the ending sounds of regular verb
in past tense as an example. For the most part of the article, Tennant suggests many
asspects of pronunciation which should be covered. They are not only the right sounds
but also the wors stress, the sentence stress, intonation and connected speech. Moreover,
several techniques such as correct the teacher, its in your mouth or whos my
partner? are recommened for English teachers when teaching pronunciation. With the
series of articles on teaching pronunciation in general and this article in particular,
Tennants desire is to help English teachers fully understand teaching pronunciation; and
turn pronuciation from add-ons of a lesson into integral part.
After reading the article, I assume that it is very useful, espeacially for young
teachers as me. Normally when teaching pronunciation, the teachers mainly focus on
producing the right sounds, sometimes on word stress; but the sentence stress, intonation
and connected speech may not be paid proper attention to. I think the last three aspects
really help student in communicating in real life. In the very first part of the article,
Tennant also gives the idea that the pronunciation points that are taught are not extremely
benificial; they are only the easy- teaching points. I completely concur with this opinion
because I want my students to be able to communicate successfully, not with a received-
pronunciation accent. I am pursuaded by the authors exact example about ending
sounds /t/, /d/ and /s/, /z/. It shows that some pronunciation points are not unnecessary; it
means that the teacher must choose what to be taught carefully and truely. However, in
Vietnam, the exam always covers small points in pronunciation such as the ending sound
or distinguishing between sounds so it is very difficult for teachers because they cannot
choose or write teaching-programme.
To sum up, pronuciation plays an important role in both teaching and learning
English; and it needs proper attention because it is the basic of other skills especially
listening and speaking skills.

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