A good teacher resource for comparative phonology is Learner English:  A
Teacher’s Guide to Interference and Other Problems by Michael Swan and
Bernard Smith, published by Cambridge.  I like the idea of the numbered grid
for vowel sounds and will use it this week!

 

"Faith isn't just loyalty to tradition, but a readiness to become something
new."  Peter Manseau

 

Luri Owen, M. A.

Bayfield and ESOL Coordinator

Pine River Community Learning Center

Phone/Fax:  970-884-7765

-----Original Message-----
From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Ted Klein
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 6:48 AM
To: Adult English Language Learners List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 1982] Sequencing That Works for Me in ESL

 

I've been in ESL for so many years that there was no acronym for "teaching
English as a second language, foreign language or to speakers of other
languages." When I started we were still using the "thee" and "thou" forms.
I exaggerate of course, but do wish to comment on what seems to be a missing
dimension on some of your fascinating reports; phonology and how to use it
in the classroom. I'm not talking about phonics, which apparently is fine
for native speakers of English.

 

For the past eight years, I have returned to the classroom "trenches" and
have taught mixed level ESL immigrant students, ranging from "Me Tarzan, you
Jane" level up to some who were classified as "intermediate."  They are all
adults. I teach for Austin Community College in Texas. Most are Spanish
speakers, but I've also had students from Asia, Africa, the Mideast, Brazil
and the Caribbean. Over the years I've become convinced that the ears are
more important than the eyes in all language skills; listening, speaking,
reading and writing. The problem is that a great deal of comprehension
difficulties are caused by both phonemic (basic sounds that can change
meaning) and phonetic difficulties, or how these sounds BEHAVE in English in
different word and phrase environments. Many students are adverse to
advertise that they are not accurately hearing, discriminating, and
identifying sounds on the discrete level, that are having daily impact in
the communication process. 

 

I taught ESL for six years in and out of the USA before I took a course in
Spanish Applied Linguistics at the University of Texas. Even though I had
been a reasonably competent ESL instructor, I noticed that I was getting
better results quicker, after I became  familiar with using phonology in the
classroom. I applied what I had learned to ESL. My students began to speak
and understand better when dealing with persons who were not accustomed to
dealing with speakers of other languages. I have spent decades looking at
sound features in English and several other languages, contrasting them and
figuring out what the differences were, what was causing the problems and
what to do about it. If one goes to the doctor with a stomach ache, there
will be questions:

 

1. Where does it hurt?    2. What have you been eating?     3. Do other
members of your family have similar problems?  etc. etc.

To solve any problems we need to know what is causing them.

 

I did a through study of the English and Spanish sound systems. I found that
although there were some phonemes in common, how they behaved in real speech
were often very different. I also found that these differences on the
phonetic level were every bit as much of a problem as the presence or
absence of a basic sound. For example, both English and Spanish have a /t/
sound. The Spanish /t/ is dental and the English /t/ is made further back.
However, we can say that they are similar. How they "behave" is different.
In American English we have the words:  TOP        STOP        LATER
HOTEL        POT     

 

A Spanish speaker listening to, or speaking English, will have problems with
all of these words. The /t/ in "top" is aspirated. That means a little puff
of air follows it, acoustically important to the native English speaker to
identify the sound, so that it won't be mistaken for /d/. Voiceless stops
are never aspirated in Spanish. In the word "stop," because it is the second
part of a consonant cluster, it is not aspirated, similar to Spanish.
However, in Spanish whenever there is /s/ followed by a second consonant,
there is always a vowel sound in front of it. (escuela, español, etc.) This
is why Spanish speakers say "eschool, esnow," etc. In the word "later" in
American English, the sound is a "flap" similar to R sounds in Spanish words
like "caro." This is because the /t/ in American English preceded by a
primary stress converts to a flap. In the word "hotel" in which the /t/ is
followed by a primary stress, we have another aspirated stop, because that's
how this sound "behaves" in English. In a word like "pot" the /t/ is not
released. In Spanish, it would always be followed by a vowel sound. My
conclusion based on both comparisons and classroom observations was that
English and Spanish seemed to have just one phoneme that behaves the same
way; /f/ and that's not in all Spanish dialects!

 

The vowel sounds of English and Spanish, as well as other languages, are all
totally different and as the nucleus of the syllable, are critical to
comprehension. The first thing that I do with a new class, whatever language
they speak, is to put a "vowel hatch" on the marker board, similar to a tic
tac toe design. This represents a schematic diagram of the interior of a
human mouth facing left. Each vowel sound gets a permanent numerical
designation; 1. beat  2. bit  3. bait  4. bet  5. bat  6. bot  7. bought
8. boat   9. book  

10. boot   11. but.  Students first listen and begin to associate these
sounds with their numbers, presented numerous times. They also learn the
diphthongs; buy  6+2, bough   6+9,  and boy 7+2.  I move to the back of the
room to avoid lip reading and call out the words at random. Students then
call out as a group and as individuals the number of the vowel sound that
they hear. "bat   5"    "but    11" "bite    6+2," etc. After the class is
able to identify these sounds numerically, we move into flashcards with
pictures on them. I ask, "What's this?"   Student: "It's a fish." "What
color is the fish?"  Student: "The fish is green." The cards are designed in
such a way that all sounds; initial, medial and final, are covered on them.
All of these words, including thecolors, are written on the marker board.
The class repeats the words and begins to recognize words and connect them
with their sounds. The transition into reading has already begun on a simple
word recognition level.

 

This process is described on my website at
http://www.tedklein-esl.com/ESL/chickenegg.htm  in an article that I wrote
several years ago.  I remain one of those old timers, concerned that several
times during my four decades plus career in ESL, some theoreticians tossed
out the baby with the bath water too often, in a desire for change and
research grant $. 

 

 

       Theodore A. (Ted) Klein, Jr.
  Independent Consultant in Language
         and Intercultural Training
                 Austin, Texas 
             taklein at austin.rr.com
            www.tedklein-ESL.com     
             

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 



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