This is a short extract from our forthcoming book Breaking the Sound Barrier: Teaching Language Learners How to Listen. Expect to see this on Amazon in early July, or from other retailers some time after.
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We all know how often our students struggle to understand authentic speech when they encounter it for the first time. "It's not like the language we hear in class." "They speak so fast!" "The accent is really weird." "They seem to miss words out."
As you have gathered, we do not believe in presenting and practising a diet of fast, authentic speech to beginner-to-intermediate students, since this goes against principles of comprehensibility, scaffolding new language, slowing things down to make them easier, moving from easy to harder, avoiding cognitive overload and so on.
However, with this approach, it is possible to neglect preparing students for cases where the natural spoken form is unlike the ‘correct’ grammatical or written form. This typically occurs when speakers elide from one sound or word to the next, drop redundant words or omit some sounds completely. In English, if you say Do you know what he does for a living? it might actually sound something like this: Dje know wha' 'e does fer a livin?
Imagine the difficulties this can create for a novice learner of English. Look what happens to this French sentence: Tu n'aimes pas ce qu'il a fait il y a deux ans? (Don’t you like what he did two years ago ?) It would probably sound something like this: T'aime pa squ'il a fait ya deux ans? Or how about this example: Je ne sais pas si tu as fait tes exercices. (Chai pas si t'as fait te zercices.)
This kind of perceptual difficulty confronts students all the time, especially in languages like English and French where there are so many mismatches between sound and spelling, so many mute sounds, liaisons between words, de-stressed words and syllables, and omitted words or sounds. We would suggest some specific classroom activities which help students adjust to these problems of perception. The focus here is specifically on French, but think how these would apply to other languages.
1. Dictate short sentences, slowed down or at natural speed, with examples of perceptual difficulty. Students have to write down what they hear using their own phonetic code (assuming you have not taught them the basics of the International Phonetic Alphabet).
2. As above, but ask students to write down correctly spelled versions of the same utterances. Target frequently occurring examples of mismatch between authentic speech and ‘correct’ forms. For example, in French these could include: omission of ne, e.g. Je sais pas, je pense pas, je crois pas or before imperatives (fais pas de bêtises) and omission (elision) of the /u/ sound before verbs beginning with vowels as in: t'aimes, t'adores, t'écoutes.
3. Have students transcribe pairs of sentences with identical meaning, some with phrases or chunks which have optional liaison in French. (Liaison between vowels and consonants is often optional in natural spoken French).
Examples: Vous aimez aller, Venez-ici, Un prix trop élevé, assez intelligent, vous pouvez aller, vous voulez avoir, je vais aller, très habile.
4. Teach samples of some common differences in accent in various forms of the L2, e.g. in French alternative pronunciations of the /r/ sound (uvular or other), variations of nasal vowels (including the common addition of the ng sounds after nasals in the south of France), the Canadian accent - or at least one form of it, variations in the pronunciation of ait (é or the more open ai).
5. Do choral and individual repetition of all the above to help embed these forms in students' memories. Make it fun!
6. Make occasional use of non-text book authentic audio, e.g. from snippets on audio-lingua.eu or authentic videos from a commercial product such as This is Language or TeachVid. Do targeted gap-fill focusing on ‘non-standard’ examples of the L2.
7. Be prepared to use natural-sounding L2 in your own speech to help students get up to speed, e.g. when practising likes and dislikes let them hear both Qu'est-ce que tu aimes faire? and Qu'est-ce que t'aimes faire?
8. Mix up your pace of delivery in teacher-led oral work, e.g. QA or oral drills. Your default should be a bit slower than normal, but not artificially very slow.
****************************************************
We all know how often our students struggle to understand authentic speech when they encounter it for the first time. "It's not like the language we hear in class." "They speak so fast!" "The accent is really weird." "They seem to miss words out."
As you have gathered, we do not believe in presenting and practising a diet of fast, authentic speech to beginner-to-intermediate students, since this goes against principles of comprehensibility, scaffolding new language, slowing things down to make them easier, moving from easy to harder, avoiding cognitive overload and so on.
However, with this approach, it is possible to neglect preparing students for cases where the natural spoken form is unlike the ‘correct’ grammatical or written form. This typically occurs when speakers elide from one sound or word to the next, drop redundant words or omit some sounds completely. In English, if you say Do you know what he does for a living? it might actually sound something like this: Dje know wha' 'e does fer a livin?
Imagine the difficulties this can create for a novice learner of English. Look what happens to this French sentence: Tu n'aimes pas ce qu'il a fait il y a deux ans? (Don’t you like what he did two years ago ?) It would probably sound something like this: T'aime pa squ'il a fait ya deux ans? Or how about this example: Je ne sais pas si tu as fait tes exercices. (Chai pas si t'as fait te zercices.)
This kind of perceptual difficulty confronts students all the time, especially in languages like English and French where there are so many mismatches between sound and spelling, so many mute sounds, liaisons between words, de-stressed words and syllables, and omitted words or sounds. We would suggest some specific classroom activities which help students adjust to these problems of perception. The focus here is specifically on French, but think how these would apply to other languages.
1. Dictate short sentences, slowed down or at natural speed, with examples of perceptual difficulty. Students have to write down what they hear using their own phonetic code (assuming you have not taught them the basics of the International Phonetic Alphabet).
2. As above, but ask students to write down correctly spelled versions of the same utterances. Target frequently occurring examples of mismatch between authentic speech and ‘correct’ forms. For example, in French these could include: omission of ne, e.g. Je sais pas, je pense pas, je crois pas or before imperatives (fais pas de bêtises) and omission (elision) of the /u/ sound before verbs beginning with vowels as in: t'aimes, t'adores, t'écoutes.
3. Have students transcribe pairs of sentences with identical meaning, some with phrases or chunks which have optional liaison in French. (Liaison between vowels and consonants is often optional in natural spoken French).
Examples: Vous aimez aller, Venez-ici, Un prix trop élevé, assez intelligent, vous pouvez aller, vous voulez avoir, je vais aller, très habile.
4. Teach samples of some common differences in accent in various forms of the L2, e.g. in French alternative pronunciations of the /r/ sound (uvular or other), variations of nasal vowels (including the common addition of the ng sounds after nasals in the south of France), the Canadian accent - or at least one form of it, variations in the pronunciation of ait (é or the more open ai).
5. Do choral and individual repetition of all the above to help embed these forms in students' memories. Make it fun!
6. Make occasional use of non-text book authentic audio, e.g. from snippets on audio-lingua.eu or authentic videos from a commercial product such as This is Language or TeachVid. Do targeted gap-fill focusing on ‘non-standard’ examples of the L2.
7. Be prepared to use natural-sounding L2 in your own speech to help students get up to speed, e.g. when practising likes and dislikes let them hear both Qu'est-ce que tu aimes faire? and Qu'est-ce que t'aimes faire?
8. Mix up your pace of delivery in teacher-led oral work, e.g. QA or oral drills. Your default should be a bit slower than normal, but not artificially very slow.
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