Phonemics

[pumper]

phonemics are driving me bonkers

do all TESOL schools stress phonemics?

if not, please suggest a school.

I fully intend on teaching ESL & have contacted several schols this AM with the phonemics question at the top of my criteria.

are phonemics necessary to teach ESL?

cannot not get it .. I have never been one to play games & these are, IMHO, some sorta stupid game.

Edited November 1, 2005 by pumper

[kenkannif]

IMO and IME....no!

How do they do the tones in them mate???

[pumper]

I contacted other schools & they are in agreement that Americans caanot complete British Phonemics.

Beware of the school on Phuket that offers online classes followed by onsite.

They refuse a telephone call to clarify issues.

responses from other schools regarding Americans & Brit phonemics.:

we take into account your origin. Therefore, as an American you will focus on American phonemics, no British. All you need to do is let your Trainer know your nationality so that they can mark your work appropriately.

[email protected]

As an American, you cannot look at a British English chart without some modification.

[email protected]

[Sporting Dog]

I used to think phonmeics was a load of <deleted> but now I think they can be a useful tool if you can get the students to use and understand them. They certainly can help teaching pronunciation. Also it lets the better students do a bit of self-study with a dictionary and get a pretty good idea of how words are pronounced.

[PeaceBlondie]

In my amateur professional opinion as a teacher of EFL, I found that phonemics mean something different to everybody, with no real British standard that's agreed upon, no American standard phonemic alphabet that everybody swears by, etc. Further, it's another freakin' alphabet. Brit/Amer/Austr/NZ/etc. English already has four alphabets (upper and lower case, print and cursive), Thai is another - and then some teachers want to foist their favorite phonemic alphabet. Not worth the hassle.

I had to help a Brit teach phonemics to clueless prathom teachers. He and I agreed that the examples didn't make perfect sense in British pronunciation, and they were 40% wrong for Americans. Don't bother.

As Americans only say in Boston, "I have no idear where I pahked the cah."

Besides, getting pedantically perfect pronunciation (in any dialect of English) is only your goal when you're teaching advanced upperclass postgraduate English grammar fanatics. Beginners, intermediate, and most advanced students in Thailand need to get well beyond "I go shopping Bang-kock" before they're ready for phonetic perfection.

Edited November 3, 2005 by PeaceBlondie

[Sporting Dog]

OK granted - perfect pronunciation isn't needed.

But it can be a useful guide for the students to get the word sounding something like it should.

eg rose, lose

loose, choose

enough, cough, though, bough

Edited November 4, 2005 by Sporting Dog

[PeaceBlondie]

But, phonemics or phonetics are an alphabet to standardize pronunciation. It doesn't work. Go get three English dictionaries, being sure one is Brit, one is American; one is decent, the other's a cheap paperback. Look at the phonetic/phonemic guide. Look at the examples. The contradictions are obvious. The examples in the Brit dictionaries are words that are pronounced so differently in American English that the reader is misled, unless he's being led to Picadilly Circus to see the circus. It doesn't work. And it's a very roundabout way to teach English, like 'games' that require 40 minutes to teach before Somchai begins to learn English in the game.

And the word 'schwa' doesn't contain one schwa sound in it!

[Plus]

PB, you are overstretching it a bit. Those who are capable of learning phonemics should do so. What are the alterantives if the teacher is not around? Thai script for "wideo".

Of course these days you can go to m-w.com, find a word, and then listen to three different pronunciations online.

[mbkudu]

phonemics are driving me bonkers

do all TESOL schools stress phonemics?

if not, please suggest a school.

I fully intend on teaching ESL & have contacted several schols this AM with the phonemics question at the top of my criteria.

are phonemics necessary to teach ESL?

cannot not get it .. I have never been one to play games & these are, IMHO, some sorta stupid game.

When I took the CELTA a few months back there was a part of the course dedicated to the phonemic chart, but they didn't go overboard with it and stressed that it's not a big part of teaching. It should be used just when a pronunciation problem arises and if the students don't know the symbols themselves, forget it.

I found that about half of the practice students on the CELTA knew the chart and half didn't or knew only a few of the symbols. Before I took the course I memorised all the symbols beforehand (because I had never learned them).

Overall I would say the chart is not used much in teaching, but I guess every teacher should be at least a little familiar with it.

[PeaceBlondie]

Yes, I may be going overboard, but here's the best part of mbkudu's last post: "It should be used just when a pronunciation problem arises and if the students don't know the symbols themselves, forget it." 90-% of the students you'll probably teach don't know the phonemic alphabet to begin with, can't differentiate well between 'b' and 'p' sounds or 'f' and 'v' sounds, add sounds when they don't belong, as in pronouncing 'sport' like 'sa-port,' leave off final sounds like the 's' in plurals. If they saw the phonemic spelling for 'mouths' do you think they could say it, even if they knew the phonemic alphabet? No.

So, when you're teaching that post graduate uni course to English teaching majors, require the phonemic alphabet of some native country other than your own, and see what happens. Otherwise, forget it.

But maybe I'm wrong. If you could teach them the phonemic alphabet perfectly, then it would be easier to teach those very things like 'mouths.' I'll bet you'll never have time to teach them the other alphabet, though. How fah is that cah from heah?

Edited November 7, 2005 by PeaceBlondie

[Sporting Dog]

But just because something isn't 100% perfect doesn't mean it can't be of some use to some students.

Sure the v, f, th sounds are a problem but as I said earlier it works for the easier to hear sounds (though difficult to distinguish WRITTEN sounds) like rose vs lose, tough vs cough etc....and there are plenty of them in the English language!!!

[kenkannif]

^ But how do you do the tones mate???

I don't think it works very well with Thai students personally, might be better for those with the same alphabet and no tones though.

[kenkannif]

Also unless they're top end students teaching them how to re-spell using the phonetic alphabet, will IMO confuse them more than help them?

Or have I got the wrong end of stick.

[Plus]

Very few people in Thailand have the patience to learn phonemic alphabet. Doesn't make it less necessary.

[kenkannif]

Well it kind of does if no one uses it and they still manage to communicate?