Teach English in Taihe Zhen - Qingyuan Shi

This unit taught me a lot. For example, I had never seen the phonetic script before and it took my a while to get the hang of it. It was also the first time that I ever read about the muscular and aspects of how we articulate words. The instructions and example to feel the articulation and to consider the physical movements that our mouth, tongue, throat and air make when we pronounce words was very practical. It helped me to understand articulation in a profound way that will certain assist in teaching. It is my opinion that articulation is an aspect that should be highlighted and explained clearly when teaching a language. This opinion could be supported by the fact that, at the beginning of this chapter, the text references the fact that many students who study English have expressed a great desire to pronounce words correctly. As I read through the articulation section and practices saying words, I noticed a direct relationship between the articulation and correct pronunciation of a word. Similarly, this chapter made me understand that, to pronounce a word correctly there are multiple factors to consider. I believe that, prior to studying this chapter, I had always thought that pronunciation would be taught and learned through repetitive drilling and that you must listen closely to pronounce a word correctly. Now I believe that there are more effective was to teach and learn proper speaking patterns that will help a person to sound more like a native speaker if that is their goal. In fact, I think that many students will be disadvantaged in regards to pronounciation if they do not understand the importance of articulation, intonation and where the stress should be placed in a sentence.