Assessing pronunciation

By: Valentina Espinosa Camila Martínez

Concepción-June-2017

Introduction

In this presentation, we will show you someways of how to assess pronunciation andaspects that must be considered during this

process.

The first one, and most important is that“pronunciation” is a subcategory of speaking.

Assessing speaking

❖ Personal impression.

❖ Expectations of hearer.

❖ Purpose of hearer.

Cycle of assessing speaking

Luoma, 2004 (p.5)

Speaking task

Highly

structured

tasks

Luoma (2004) defines this

concept as: “structured

speaking tasks are called

´structured´ because they

control quite closely what

the examinees are going

to say”. (p.158)

Aspect of examinees’ Knowledge of grammar pointslanguage control

Pronunciation skill

-Sentence repetition.

-Sentence completion.

-Reading aloud.

-Short-answer questions.

-Reacting to phrases tasks.

Before assessing pronunciation

Before assessing pronunciation we must consider the following:

Pronunciation teaching

must focus on issues of

oral fluency and ss’

accuracy

Teaching should extend

beyond isolated word

level to discourse level

Teacher needs to

consider learners

styles

The practice and

feedback need to

involve ICT’s

Roach,P. 2009

Sources to consider in assessing pronunciation

Age Social

Class Style

-Differences between young and old generations

-Young people tend to present more elisions than older people

-Input

-Expansion

of domains of

linguistic

competence.

-Speaker and

hearer

relationship

-Background

knowledge

-Foreign

learners-

careful and

formal

-Foreign with

native- rapid,

casual.

-Context

Exposure to

the target

language

Assessing pronunciation

The main goal of pronunciation activities is that “learner’s pronunciation sufficiently to permit effective communication with native speakers.”

Roach,P. 2009 (p.6)

Ways of assessing pronunciation

• Intonation• stress: word stress / sentence stress• Vowels: short /long• Consonants: voiced / voiceless• Rhythm • Intelligibility

Techniques used to assess pronunciation

Pronunciation testing and evaluation

Consonant-vowel discrimination

Example:

Underline the word you hear. a.Don’t (slip/sleep) on the

floor. b. He’s gone to (back up/pack up) the car.

Example:

Pronunciation testing and evaluation

Recognition of English words stress patterns.

Word stress

Direction: Circle the alternative that shows the syllable receiving the

main stress (capital=stress)

(on cassette) 1. Photography in one of my favorite activities.

a. PHOtography d.ACtivities

b.phoTOGraphy e.acTIVities

c.photoGRAPHY f.actiVITies

Pronunciation testing and evaluation

Prominence Example:Directions: listen to the following

utterances and choose the alternative that best represent the proper stress pattern (capital=stress)

1. Joe: Hi, I’m Joe Miller. What’s your name?

a.HI, I’m JOE Miller. WHAT’S your name?b. HI, I’M Joe MILLER. What’s YOUR name? c. Hi, I’M Joe Miller. What’s your NAME?

Ability to perceive the most prominent element used for word stress.

Pronunciation testing and evaluation

Intonation

Example

Discrimination of

intonation patterns

using rising or falling

intonation.

• This test principally focus on production rather than perception.

• There are oral proficiency tests usually rated globally in which pronunciation is evaluated:

Proficiency test

Basic English

Skills Test

(BEST)

Test of Spoken

English

(TSE)

Methodological variation

Communicative approach

Fluency obligatory;

accuracy optional

Method- learner

engagement in

authentic listening

and speaking

tasks

Celce-Murcia, Brinton, Goodwin, 1996 (p.327)

Pronunciation Communicative

task

If the focus is pronunciation, the taskdoes not develop communicativecompetence.

Conclusion

To sum up, it is important to say that to assess pronunciation, we, as teachers, must teach it during our classes; and prepare specific tasks and rubrics that assess what we really want to assess taking into consideration all the aspects we mentioned in this presentation.

References

• Celce-Murcia, M; Brinton, D & Goodwin, J (1996) “Teaching pronunciation:

a reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages”.

Cambridge University Press.

• Correa, R (2016) “Assessing Pronunciation”. Recuperado de la base de

datos Intranet Corporativo UCSC.

• Correa, R; Bórquez, P (2016) “Assessing Pronunciation”. Recuperada de

la base de datos Intranet Corporativo UCSC.

• Roach, P (2009) “English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical course".

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Luoma, S (2004) “Assessing Speaking”. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.