Re: Speaking without a foreign accent

From: Mxsmanic (mxsmanic_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/11/04 

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:13:49 +0100

LEE Sau Dan writes:

> Especially when a Latin-scripted language is taught to people who
> write their own languages in a Latin-based script. The teacher often
> takes it for granted that the students can pronounce the new language
> because they already know all the letters!!!

Possbily. I know that many students never seem to learn to speak
English simply because they've rarely heard it and almost never spoken
it in class.

Here in France, students in state schools learn grammar almost
exclusively, with little or no practice in listening, speaking, or
pronunciation. Needless to say, after years of student they still
cannot speak or understand spoken English. Which is why teachers like
myself have jobs.

> I agree. They should be encouraged to learn new words/expressions and
> start to talk in the language as soon as possible. This makes the
> course more interesting. But later (perhaps before going to the
> intermediate level), they should be taught to correct their
> pronunciations. The foreign accent would be best corrected, IMO, when
> the student has got enough expressions/words to practise with, but not
> after he has already developed the bad pronunciations as a habit.

Yes. A lot of students don't seem to be interested in correcting their
accents, though, so very often not much can be done. 

-- 
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

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