Why create the Pronunciation Planner?
A person’s pronunciation in a second language (L2) is generally believed to be most strongly influenced by the pronunciation features and patterns of his/her first language (L1). Most published guidance on teaching pronunciation acknowledges this; and there are a number of well-known reference books which contrast the pronunciation of English with the pronunciation of other languages in considerable detail.
However, for teachers working with multilingual classes and for materials writers creating courses for international markets, there is little guidance available on the challenges that learners with different L1 backgrounds might have in common. This makes it difficult for language educators to identify pronunciation priorities for diverse groups of learners.
The Pronunciation Planner provides a solution to this problem. It acts as a searchable database, allowing users to generate a broad pronunciation syllabus for learners from up to 12 different L1 backgrounds and see where those learners’ areas of difficulty are likely to overlap.
What research is the Pronunciation Planner based on?
The contents of the Pron Planner are informed by research into which features of English pronunciation facilitate mutual understanding by speakers in international contexts. Underpinning this research is the principle that by far the most common use of English worldwide today is as a lingua franca, that is, between people who have different first languages but all speak English, so choose to use English as their language of communication.
In such contexts of interaction, speakers and listeners are likely to have slightly different needs and expectations than those traditionally assumed by materials and approaches which emphasise a need for ‘native-like’ pronunciation. This is the main reason why some users of the Pron Planner might feel that certain things are missing which they would normally see in ELT courses (for example, intonation patterns or connected speech): such features have been demonstrated to be low-priority by research into what constitutes intelligible pronunciation in international English contexts.
A full list of primary data sources used to compile the Pron Planner is available below.
How is it related to English Profile?
The Pronunciation Planner is not directly related to English Profile, which is based on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Unlike vocabulary and grammar, pronunciation features cannot be grouped by CEFR level. From the very lowest levels of proficiency, virtually any given pronunciation feature could occur in any word or phrase. For example, sounds commonly perceived as ‘more difficult’, like /ð/, occur even in high-frequency words learned by beginners, like the word ‘the’. Thus, it is generally advisable to derive priorities for pronunciation instruction based on differences between the phonology of English and of the learner’s L1, not based on the learner’s general proficiency level.
To ensure that pronunciation practice exercises are appropriate to a particular CEFR level, teachers and materials writers can first identify high-priority pronunciation features using the Pron Planner, and then find CEFR level-appropriate examples of words and phrases in which the chosen pronunciation features occur. These words and phrases can be cross-referenced using English Profile to ensure that learners are presented with examples suited to their general level of proficiency in English. Thus, the sound /b/ might be illustrated by ‘big’ at A1 level, by ‘balcony’ at B1 level or by ‘bid’ at C1-C2 level.
Dealing with differences between data sources
When compiling data for the Pron Planner, where different sources gave different or contradictory information, additional sources were consulted in the first instance in order to find further explanation or a majority opinion. Where uncertainty remained regarding the difficulty of a particular pronunciation feature for speakers of a particular L1, it was judged best to include it. If a course or teacher addresses this feature and it proves straightforward for the students, no harm is done and relatively little time lost.
Where certain L1s have several significant varieties and/or standards with different pronunciation characteristics (e.g. Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese), different sources take different varieties as their starting points and give accordingly different guidance. This has been dealt with in the Pronunciation Planner through caveats in the ‘comments’ column, for example, by noting that ‘some’ speakers ‘might’ have difficulty in certain areas. This is also reflected to some extent by the colour-coding in the ‘priority’ column, which gives some indication of how widespread a particular pronunciation difficulty is likely to be among speakers of a given L1 (red = high priority; green = generally not problematic).
Bibliography of sources in alphabetical order
The main sources used in compiling the Pron Planner were:
Baker, A. (1982). Introducing English pronunciation: A teacher’s guide to ‘Tree or three?’ and ‘Ship or sheep?’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kallestinova, E. (2009). ‘Voice and aspiration of stops in Turkish’, Folia Linguistica, Vol. 38, Issue 1-2, pp. 117-144.
Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English pronunciation. Harlow: Longman.
Osimk, R. (2009). Decoding sounds: an experimental approach to intelligibility in ELF. Vienna English Working Papers, 18(1), 64-89.
Patsko, L. (2013). Using the Lingua Franca Core to promote students’ mutual intelligibility in the multilingual classroom: Five teachers’ experiences. Unpublished MA thesis, King’s College London. [The Pron Planner has its origins in this master’s degree research project, recognised by the British Council in 2014 as having potential for impact on ELT policy and practice and downloadable from https://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/filefield_paths/patsko_2013_madissertation_0_1.pdf]
Rajadurai, J. (2006). Pronunciation issues in non-native contexts: a Malaysian case study. Malaysian Journal of ELT Research, 2, 42-59.
Rogerson-Revell, P. (2011). English phonology and pronunciation teaching. London: Continuum.
Siptár, P. & M. Törkenczy (2000). The phonology of Hungarian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swan, M. & B. Smith (eds.) (2001). Learner English: A teacher’s guide to interference and other problems. (2nd edn.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (VARIOUS CHAPTERS ON SPECIFIC L1s)
Varga, L. (1975). ‘A contrastive analysis of English and Hungarian sentence prosody’. Working papers of the Hungarian-English Contrastive Linguistics Project. Published by the Linguistics Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Center for Applied Linguistics.
Walker, R. (2001). ‘Pronunciation for international intelligibility’. English Teaching Professional 21. Retrieved 22 Dec 2011 from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/internationalintelligibility.html
Walker, R. (2001). ‘Pronunciation priorities, the Lingua Franca Core, and monolingual groups’. Speak Out! The newsletter of the IATEFL Pronunciation Special Interest Group. 18: 4-9.
Walker, R. (2010). Teaching the pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (VARIOUS SECTIONS ON SPECIFIC L1s)
Zhang, F. & P. Yin (2009). ‘A study of pronunciation problems of English learners in China’. Asian Social Science, Vol. 5, No. 6, pp. 141-146.
Zoghbor, W. (2009). ‘The implications of the LFC for the Arab context’. Speak Out! The newsletter of the IATEFL Pronunciation Special Interest Group. 41: 25-29.
