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Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / December 2004Re: pron. before meaning
After reading your posts, here's what comes to mind (please forgive my mind is a messy place) regarding pronounciation: Illiterates can speak and listen fine but not read or write words; for them meaning is in pronounciation. Some students seem to give words a stronger association to meaning rather than to pronounciation. Meaning in mathematics isn't in pronounciation; equations are manipulated, transformed, converted without sounding out. Is there pronounciation associated with Chinese symbols, or do the symbols visually elicit meaning? (American) babies learn to speak first, then read (if lucky by listening to their mom or dad read to them). Teachers expect ESL students to do both right away. Computer programs can read to students (much faster than students can listen). The pronounciation-word drill is another teaching tool, especially early on after which reading practice becomes more important. To get an idea of the time involved, in a pronounciation-word drill, it takes about 3 hours to listen to 1000 words at 10 seconds per word (17 minutes per 100 words), a word pronounced three times. In a drill item, the word can clarify the pronounciation when the student has difficulty hearing the pronounciation (process of elimination, those other words can't possibly sound like that). Repetition, learning, and passwords: I only remember passwords after using them many times over a week or two. I know very well what the password means. I just don't remember the pass"word" easily. Watching tv doesn't seem to help teach pronounciation or meaning. Students do love their speaking dictionaries, even if they have no chance of understanding the spoken or written definitions (maybe they secretly delight in the idea there might be a living soul in there). Don Myers wrote on 25 Nov 2004: > After reading your posts, here's what comes to mind (please > forgive my mind is a messy place) regarding pronounciation: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > (American) babies learn to speak first, All babies learn to speak before they read --- unless, of course, they don't, but that has to be rare. > then read (if lucky bylistening to their mom or dad read to > them). Teachers expect ESL > students to do both right away. [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Watching tv doesn't seem to help teach pronounciation or meaning. It does if one's target language listening and pronunciation skills are high-level enough or if the TV is where one learns how to speak the target language. > Students do love their speaking dictionaries, even if they have no > chance of understanding the spoken or written definitions (maybe > they secretly delight in the idea there might be a living soul in > there). Interesting idea here.  SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor For email, replace numbers with English alphabet. >Don Myers wrote on 25 Nov 2004: > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >> >> (American) babies learn to speak first, Don, I intrude only because nobody else seems to have had the kindness to mention it, and I would just hate a possible teacher to go all his life curling folks' toes. But in English your oft-repeated 'pronounciation' should really be 'pronunciation', and even though your nice and very expensive dictionary will spell it 'mispronounciation' just because their free source of the database mistakenly spells it so, it doesn't make it any more right, does it, all of you? >>Don Myers wrote on 25 Nov 2004: >> [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > mistakenly spells it so, it doesn't make it any more right, does it, > all of you? Pronuncialion and meaning together works the best for me with reading as an option. If the student also wants to read it follows after communication elements rather than before. The student may not want to read or may be able to decode writing and sharpen it up. As a commercial English teacher (TESOL) I was interested in the results the students desired and only "taught" written words and sentences if asked. As a student, a little in classes and mostly from mates in stand bars, my requirememt was spoken communication for social reasons. My mates didn't speak English, only Japanese. It's a looong thread, isn't it! John in Sydney. > After reading your posts, here's what comes to mind (please > forgive my mind is a messy place) regarding pronounciation: Then I'll reply in equally rambling style. > Illiterates can speak and listen fine but not read or write > words; for them meaning is in pronounciation. > > Some students seem to give words a stronger association to > meaning rather than to pronounciation. This seems confused - some students may remember the meaning of a word better by associating it with the sound of the word, rather than with its orthography. Is that what you mean? I really don't know if that's true or not. I'd be inclined to think it true of *all* students. > Meaning in mathematics isn't in pronounciation; equations are > manipulated, transformed, converted without sounding out. Hmm. When I was in primary school, we learned our multiplication tables by rote - chanting them aloud. I don't know if that's relevant - you might not count that as mathematics. How about: x = (-b +/- (b^2 - 4ac)^(1/2))/2a, the general solution formula for quadratic equations? I have to say that to myself to remember it. > Is there pronounciation associated with Chinese symbols, or do > the symbols visually elicit meaning? > > (American) babies learn to speak first, then read (if lucky by > listening to their mom or dad read to them). Teachers expect ESL > students to do both right away. As Franke says in his reply, *all* babies learn to speak first (and they don't have to be taught). ESL students, though, are neither being taught to speak, nor to read. They already have these skills. Acquiring a second language is not the same process as acquiring the first. > Computer programs can read to students (much faster than > students can listen). Not usefully. A computer program cannot duplicate the varying stresses, rhythms and intonations of natural speech. I've never heard of anyone trying to use a speech processor as a learning aid, but I don't imagine it would be successful. > The pronounciation-word drill is another teaching tool, > especially early on after which reading practice becomes more > important. Speaking practice is probably the most important exercise, unless you only want to read in the target language. > To get an idea of the time involved, in a pronounciation-word > drill, it takes about 3 hours to listen to 1000 words at 10 > seconds per word (17 minutes per 100 words), a word pronounced > three times. Ten seconds is a long time for one word! > In a drill item, the word can clarify the pronounciation when > the student has difficulty hearing the pronounciation (process > of elimination, those other words can't possibly sound like > that). Do you mean "...the teacher can..."? Even then, I'm not sure what you mean. > Repetition, learning, and passwords: I only remember passwords > after using them many times over a week or two. I know very > well what the password means. I just don't remember the > pass"word" easily. That's because there's no obvious association between the password and its context - or if there is, then the password isn't very secure! "password", for example, would make a very poor password from a security viewpoint, but you wouldn't have any trouble remembering it. Real words are remembered by being associated with meanings in context. I find (I'm learning Hungarian) that coming across a word in three different contexts usually commits it to memory. > Watching tv doesn't seem to help teach pronounciation or > meaning. Why do you say this? It's often recommended, though I have no evidence that it works. I once knew a man who claimed to have taught himself English by watching the in-flight movies on transatlantic trips, but I don't think he was being serious. > Students do love their speaking dictionaries, even if they have > no chance of understanding the spoken or written definitions > (maybe they secretly delight in the idea there might be a > living soul in there). My experience of students with electronic dictionaries is limited, but all of the ones I've seen either didn't have the "speaking" feature, or the student had turned it off - that's understandable, I think. I'd feel pretty silly using such a thing in public. P.S. The word 'pronunciation' is spelled thus. SignatureMark Barratt Budapest www.geocities.com/nyelvmark >> Is there pronounciation associated with Chinese symbols, or do >> the symbols visually elicit meaning? My understanding is that all Chinese speakers can read the symbols, whatever their dialect, and they all have the same meaning. *However*, across Chinese languages and dialects, words with entirely different sounds are attached to the various symbols. >> (American) babies learn to speak first, then read (if lucky by >> listening to their mom or dad read to them). Teachers expect ESL [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >neither being taught to speak, nor to read. They already have >these skills. Not necessarily Mark (as far as reading goes, anyway). Working in community ESL in the UK you often come across students who aren't literate in L1 and/or may not know the Western alphabet. Makes life interesting... [snip] >> Watching tv doesn't seem to help teach pronounciation or >> meaning. Oh yes it does! >Why do you say this? It's often recommended, though I have no >evidence that it works. I once knew a man who claimed to have >taught himself English by watching the in-flight movies on >transatlantic trips, but I don't think he was being serious. I once had a colleague who said he had a Czech student who learnt English by watching Monty Python videos. I don't even want to think about that any more... >> Students do love their speaking dictionaries, even if they have >> no chance of understanding the spoken or written definitions >> (maybe they secretly delight in the idea there might be a >> living soul in there). Thanks Don, that's my dissertation sorted then. >My experience of students with electronic dictionaries is >limited, but all of the ones I've seen either didn't have the >"speaking" feature, or the student had turned it off - that's >understandable, I think. I'd feel pretty silly using such a thing >in public. Doesn't stop mine. I wouldn't mind but the pron model the thing produces is often wrong in terms of stress, possibly being chunked together syllable on syllable rather than recorded as a single sample. DC. Stephen Hawkins has left the building. <snip> > > ESL students, though, are neither being taught to speak, nor > > to read. They already have these skills. > Not necessarily Mark (as far as reading goes, anyway). Working > in community ESL in the UK you often come across students who > aren't literate in L1 Now there's a challenge! I'd be inclined (without evidence - I've not even read anything on this) to expect adults who are illiterate in their mother tongue to be mostly incapable of literacy in a second language. I'd like to hear more about this. > and/or may not know the Western alphabet. Yes, but that's a minor problem by comparison, provided that they are literate in an alphabetic language. Learning another alphabet is just like learning a simple cipher. I have a Croatian friend who pointed this out to me when we discussed Serbian (Serbian is the same language as Croatian but is generally written in the Cyrillic alphabet). Learning another language is a problem more difficult by orders of magnitude. <snip> > I once had a colleague who said he had a Czech student who > learnt English by watching Monty Python videos. I don't even > want to think about that any more... We are the knights who say "ski"? > >> Students do love their speaking dictionaries, even if they > have >> no chance of understanding the spoken or written [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > DC. Stephen Hawkins has left the building. So these gizmos actually produced synthesised pronunciation, not recordings? That is deeply suspicious. I've always wanted to play with one, but I've never managed to. I don't have any Japanese students here (although I heard talk of one the other day), so I haven't seen one of these devices for a while. I really must learn more about them. SignatureMark Barratt Budapest www.geocities.com/nyelvmark ><snip> >> > ESL students, though, are neither being taught to speak, nor [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >illiterate in their mother tongue to be mostly incapable of >literacy in a second language. I'd like to hear more about this. Well, lots of bright people miss out on education, and that's especially true in the developing world. These folk haven't failed to learn, they've just never been given the opportunity. But also many ESL students come from cultures where literacy just isn't a big deal. They may come from villages in Kurdistan where learning involves memorising the Koran, and a shrewd farmer may have a rat-trap memory for every detail of his stock, but just doesn't have any need to read or write. CELTA doesn't really cover ESL, but it's only a few years since it was offered in ESL and EFL flavours. Community ESL is the growing market in the UK, and should you be planning to come home, a secure income source. >> and/or may not know the Western alphabet. > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >Cyrillic alphabet). Learning another language is a problem more >difficult by orders of magnitude. Yes, but for users of Greek or Cyrillic it's different than for Arabic, Urdu or Farsi speakers. I'm not a linguist, but my understanding is that the Western idea of letters making up words tends to blur in Middle Eastern languages (and disappear altogether in Far Eastern ones). To be explicit, the students where one encounters L1 illiteracy are mostly from Kurdistan and Afghanistan - refugees from War Zones in peasant cultures where the education system broke down a generation or two back. ><snip> >> I once had a colleague who said he had a Czech student who >> learnt English by watching Monty Python videos. I don't even >> want to think about that any more... > >We are the knights who say "ski"? We are the knights who say "nyet"? >So these gizmos actually produced synthesised pronunciation, not >recordings? That is deeply suspicious. Well, my theory is that they work like those bloody irratating recorded info services that play numbers back; " "please call oh...one...four...four..three..." and always get the intonation wrong. I suspect that they might have a pool of consonants, and instead of having four seperate samples of:- - fourteen - fortnight - foretaste might make them as - sample 1 /for/ + sample 2 /teen/ - sample 1 /for/ + sample 3 /tnight/ - sample 1 /for/ + sample 4 /taste/ but I'm guessing here. >I've always wanted to play >with one, but I've never managed to. I don't have any Japanese >students here (although I heard talk of one the other day), so I >haven't seen one of these devices for a while. I really must >learn more about them. Everybody hates them. My dissertation is about finding out 'why'. Read your CV BTW. I started off in EFL, got out and also worked as a programmer, and got back in again. DC >><snip> >>> > ESL students, though, are neither being taught to speak, nor [quoted text clipped - 89 lines] > >DC "Three" separate samples. > >and always get the intonation wrong. I suspect that they might have a > >pool of consonants, and instead of having four seperate samples of:- [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > "Three" separate samples. I'd like to see it done with brute force, all the words sampled completely, even several times with different stresses and intonations. >> >and always get the intonation wrong. I suspect that they might have a >> >pool of consonants, and instead of having four seperate samples of:- [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >I'd like to see it done with brute force, all the words sampled >completely, even several times with different stresses and intonations. Quite. But we're talking about handheld devices here, and there's obviously a limit to the amount of storage available, so designers are going to attempt to maximise what there is. This is total guesswork mind you; I would really like to get a handle on the technical side of of how these things are designed - any info most welcome. DC > >> >and always get the intonation wrong. I suspect that they > might have a >> >pool of consonants, and instead of having four [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > there's obviously a limit to the amount of storage available, > so designers are going to attempt to maximise what there is. Given the efficiency of current speech-compression algorithms, and the ever-falling price (and size!) of electronic storage, I'd guess that storage isn't the limiting factor. Consider rather the labour involved in making recordings of every word in the lexicon. > This is total guesswork mind you; I would really like to get a > handle on the technical side of of how these things are > designed - any info most welcome. OK. Some numbers garnered on a quick web crawl: - A good phone-quality voice digitization will produce about 64 Kbits of data for each second of voice (uncompressed). - Special data compression techniques for voice can reduce this to as low as 3.5 kbps, although one should expect a corresponding increase in the cost of the microprocessor that implements the decrompression. - Prices of 1Gbit NAND flash chips may drop about 50 percent to 3 to 4 $ per chip by the end of the second quarter of 2005. - Toshiba's 1Gbit chip measures about 20mm x 12mm x 1mm. Using these numbers, and the following assumptions: - 100,000 words to be stored. - Average one second per word. I conclude that the audio could be stored on about half of a single 1 Gb chip costing about $8 today - half that next year, if the prediction above is correct. This tends to confirm my suggestion that the cost of storage is not a significant factor. *********************************************************** Changing the subject... Intonation, which has also been called 'sentence stress', would not, you might think, be a factor when representing the pronunciation of words in isolation. But there are problems with this. Consider the modal verb 'can'. Stop any passer-by and ask how this word is pronounced and (after giving you a funny look) they will undoubtedly say something like /k&n/. The truth of the matter is, though, that unless this word occurs at the end of an utterance (or there is some special reason to stress it), that same speaker will actually pronounce the word /k@n/, with a schwa. Should the 'talking dictionary' store both of these pronunciations, and if not, which one should it store, given that the version with the schwa is by far the more common? And if it stores both, how does it present the choice between the two to the user? Bear in mind that the user is in all probability looking for a short answer to her question, and not a lesson in phonology. Personally, I find that the more that I think about teaching and learning English, the more inclined I am toward the view that such things really aren't important. The student needs to be able to comprehend connected speech, and as such needs to recognise /k@n/ as the modal 'can' - but there really isn't any vital need for her to 'swallow' sounds as a native speaker does, unless she's planning to go into the espionage business and needs to be able to pass herself off as a native speaker. A student who produces the sentence "I'll go now and you can come later" as "I _will_ go now and (/&nd/) you can (/k&n/) come later" does not sound like a native speaker - but her fault (if such it is) lies in being *more* comprehensible than a native speaker. Should we really be worrying about this? I think the talking dictionary I design would give the pronunciation as [k&n] (or, if I was the speaker, [kan]), and leave the matter of weak forms to the student's teachers, or other references. SignatureMark Barratt Budapest www.geocities.com/nyelvmark >> >> >and always get the intonation wrong. I suspect that they >> might have a >> >pool of consonants, and instead of having four [quoted text clipped - 89 lines] >leave the matter of weak forms to the student's teachers, or >other references. Food for thought on storage and challenging stuff about weak forms - I'll get back to you tomorrow. DC >Read your CV BTW. I started off in EFL, got out and also worked as a >programmer, and got back in again. > >DC Oops, that reads like it's an imperative! I meant 'I read your CV'. DC > > Read your CV BTW. I started off in EFL, got out and also > > worked as a programmer, and got back in again. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Oops, that reads like it's an imperative! I meant 'I read your > CV'. Yes, but I took your meaning on the second reading. Don't, for heaven's sake, adopt Bob Cunningham's[*] scheme and start using "redd" and "reed". [*] A poster on alt.usage.english. SignatureMark Barratt Budapest www.geocities.com/nyelvmark >> > Read your CV BTW. I started off in EFL, got out and also >> > worked as a programmer, and got back in again. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > >[*] A poster on alt.usage.english. I'm currently engaged in the 'football; don't use the s-word' thread on AUE with Bob. I like AUE, but I find it a bit cliquey, dominated by people who've been posting for the last decade +. I also post to AEU and very occasionally to Sci.lang (but not the stuff about Etruscan orthography.) DC > >> > Read your CV BTW. I started off in EFL, got out and also > >> > worked as a programmer, and got back in again. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > decade +. I also post to AEU and very occasionally to Sci.lang > (but not the stuff about Etruscan orthography.) I haven't seen that - I'll go take a look now. SignatureMark Barratt Budapest www.geocities.com/nyelvmark "Mark Barratt" <mark.barratt@enternet.hu> ha scritto: >> (American) babies learn to speak first, then read (if lucky by >> listening to their mom or dad read to them). Teachers expect ESL [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >these skills. Acquiring a second language is not the same process >as acquiring the first. A (perhaps silly) question for you teachers: Wouldn't it be more "natural" to teach ESL students listening and speaking (English) before reading and writing, as it happens for babies? >> Watching tv doesn't seem to help teach pronounciation or >> meaning. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >taught himself English by watching the in-flight movies on >transatlantic trips, but I don't think he was being serious. I have only watched a few in-flight movies, but a good few English and American TV-series on DVD. Needless to say, I reckon telly can help a lot! SignatureEnrico C /testing Pimmy/ Reply to: enrico /dot/ c /at\ people \dot\ it |
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