Phonological Aspect of English Teaching and Learning - Annotated Bibliography Example

Abd-Elbasseer, M., Barakat, S. English speech intelligibility test among persons of Arabic native language (2008). Giza: National Institute of Standards, 1-3 The work of Abd-Elbasseer and Barakat analyzes intelligibility of English speech among Arabic language native speakers. The authors state that speech intelligibility is not something like a physical quantity but has the same importance in the field of language teaching and learning. In this work, the speech intelligibility tests were described together with the presentation of their results in form of charts. Speech rate measurement, chart of scores of speech intelligibility at different speech rates, average speech intelligibility score at normal speech rate of 190 words per minute were done. This research is useful because non-native English speakers conducted the tests and among the persons learning English for at least eight years living in Cairo, Egypt, who are, apparently, non-native English speakers. Another strong point of this paper is that visual demonstration of the tests results allows for better understanding of how the non-native English speakers perceive native English speech and enables to make the following suggestion. Arabic language native for the persons tested affects English speech comprehension, as English speech heard compares to the mother tongue speech, and the sounds of both languages can be confused which may lead to decrease of the test score. Abedrabu, A. Oral communication problems encountering English major students: Perspectives of learners and teachers in Palestinian EFL university context. (2013) Arab World English Journal, 4(3), 226-238. The research article of Abu Alyan Abedrabu investigates into problems of oral communication of the Palestinian English major students. The author has used qualitative analysis for studying of possible problems of such a kind from the perspective of both the teachers and the learners. This work has discovered that the major part of problems with oral communication includes limited vocabulary, incorrect pronunciation, insufficient exposure to the English language, and interference of the mother tongue. This work is particularly interesting to my research topic as it has stated that pronunciation creates obstacles in fluent oral communication of the students. It is also possible to observe the problems while pronouncing vowels, consonant clusters, phonemes of supra segmental level. The article defines lack of exposure to the English language as one of possible problems which prevent the students from speech intelligibility. This leads to a conclusion that mastering English pronunciation can be facilitated by increase of pronunciation studying hours in universities and schools curriculums. The main benefit of the article which corresponds with the topic of my research is a statement that mother tongue influences English learning and this influence is extremely visible in students’ pronunciation. Kavaliauskiene, G. Role of mother tongue in learning English for specific purposes. (2009). ESP World, Issue 1(22), Vol. 8. The research made by Galina Kavaliauskiene completely devotes itself (Passive voice: This sentence appears to be written in the passive voice. Consider writing in the active voice) to studying the problems and evidences of the role of the mother tongue in learning English. The paper demonstrates that there is a need for the English learners to be assisted by the mother tongue, and the extent of such assistance bases itself upon the students’ English proficiency. The author emphasizes that, though teaching English through English is considered to be the best technique available today. The idea of total deprivation of the learners from their mother tongue cannot be applied to all the learners, as some of them receive guarantees of security of the experience gaining with relying on their mother tongue. The key ideas of the research by Galina Kavaliauskiene are that it is impossible to completely abandon mother tongue use cannot while learning English. It is possible to reduce the influence of mother tongue may when the differences between the mother tongue and English language are known and investigated. The research paper also presents visual chart of the data from the research which explain the phenomena observed and enable facilitating of proper and correct use of the mother tongue to the extent it would not harm mastering the English language. Ryan, A., Meara, P. The case of invisible vowels: Arabic speakers reading English words. (1991). Reading in a foreign language, 7(2), 532-534. The work by Ann Ryan and Paul Meara provides very illustrative evidence why the Arabic speakers confuse the sounds of English and their mother tongue. The work explains the process of confusing the phonemes and gives the examples of such phenomenon within the Arabic language. According to the authors’ observations, this happens because of the differences in the syllable forming and the role of vowels and consonants in originating of the words. The authors also stress that the differences of Arabic and other European languages contribute to the problem of the speech intelligibility. The authors also enforce their conclusions with their studies of the Arabic authors’ literature in the subject matter of their research. The research paper of the above -mentioned authors enables revealing of the sounds confusion between English and Arabic and provided graphical evidences such as tables and words lists which enforce perception of the causes of the problem. This fact gives one more confirmation in regards to the mother tongue influence, namely its phonological basis, on the process of learning English and mastering English pronunciation. Another strong point of the article is that it informatively represents the tests results, in the form of charts as well, and their analysis. Rampton, M. Displacing the native speaker: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. (1990). ELT Journal, 44(2), 97-101. The author stresses that the concepts “native speaker” and “mother tongue”, though being widely criticized, are still playing an important role in today’s linguistics and it is impossible to omit them. The author of the article gives arguments for these terms being used and states that it is possible to state that the speaker is either a native speaker or not. The speaker inherits the mother tongue along with the birth or belonging to a certain social group. According to the author, there are also differences between the terms “inheritance” and “affiliation” and often confused ones. For example, these are language classification (first, second, third) and division into categories (working, studying language). The article provides informative and exhaustive arguments why the speaker of a certain language, including English, is either native or not. The speaker inherits language, either genetically or by being born to a definite social group. Language inheriting is speaking the language very well; either the people are native language speakers or mother tongue speakers or not; a native speaker grasps the language comprehensively. Being a native speaker is similar to being a citizen of a certain country. The article discovers the reason for confusion and difficulties while non-native speakers learn English: as English is not their inherited language, they have to learn it. Being more widely used by the learners, the inherited language may interfere with the material received while mastering English. This fact relates to the topic of my research because the realization of the fact that the students can only learn English gives proof of the worthiness of the efforts taken to master English. Rababah, G. General problems of Arab learners of English. (2003). TEFL Web Journal, 2(1), http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/mdajani/Pages/ArabLearners.aspx Ghaleb Rababah in his research article admits that students-native speakers of Arabic encounter serious problems while learning English. This occurs because they study English within the surrounding and with the teachers who are Arabic native speakers. They also have very little opportunity to get access to original English speech and to communicate with a native speaker of English. One more important difference, Rababah suggests, that English is not studied in everyday situation, whereas Arabic is the language used by default everywhere the students must perform communicative activity. This results decrease the degree of proper use of English by the Arabic speaking students in casual situations, as the educational material mainly consists descriptive and linguistic material. The article emphasizes that the students’ access to native speakers of English is vital for successful mastering and problems overcoming while learning English, and that this access is primarily useful for those students who face pronunciation and other phonological problems. These are such problems as intonation or word and sentence stress, because being exposed to the original speech it is much easier to clarify how the speaker should articulate the phonemes and how they should sound. This is a proof of necessity of teaching English by means of use of audiovisual aids. Their use is extremely necessary when it is impossible to involve a native speaker of English. Tauroza, S., Luk, J. English: Accent and second language listening comprehension (1997). RELC Journal, 28(1), 54-71. This article investigates into the fact of accent influence on mastering the skill of listening to English speech. The authors prove that it is incorrect to suppose that accent may bring some benefits to learning English, the listening skill in particular. The paper proves the hypothesis that familiar accents cause no problems to the listeners. The results of the authors’ tests support the idea that it does not matter how familiar the accent is, the only thing that matters is the fact of familiarity. The benefit this article has is that it is important to exclude accented speech from English studies and possibly to add more of original one. Young, T., Walsh, S. Which English? whose English? an investigation of “non- native” teachers’ beliefs about target varieties. (2010). Language, Culture and Curriculum, 23:2, 123-137. Tony Young and Steve Walsh concern themselves with the problem of what and how to teach in regards to English language. The authors investigate into the issue of English as a Lingua Franca, EFL, and English as an International Language, EIL, and their comparison with the native speakers’ varieties. The article covers the problem of what is considered to be appropriate to teach and what the beliefs of the English language teachers about this matter are. The article also explains such problem as whether it is necessary to master English to the degree of a native speaker or just to the degree of communication which will enable understanding of the interlocutors. Taking great efforts to be as close as possible to the native speaker level and whether it is correct to apply such terms as NS, native speaker, and NNS, non-native speaker are also the points of concern. The article is useful because of its idea of interviewing the teachers of English from different language surroundings and representing the results of these tests which reflect the teachers. Teachers’ beliefs of their own English spoken and taught and what they think appropriate to teach their students are the paper focus. It is also very beneficial for my research topic to consider that there are local English variants, such as Thai English, Indian English and Korean English and they influence on the English taught and learned. Zoghbor, W. English varieties and Arab learners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries: Attitude and perception. (2014). Arab World English Journal, 5, 167-186. Wafa Shahada Zoghbor investigates into the issue of relationships of Arab learners of English and the varieties of English, native and non-native ones. Her article researches the problem of English variants considered to be native and those newly emerged, emerging ones and which seem to be linguistically equal, but not socially as they are not that widely spread. The author distinguishes what influences awareness and attitudes towards these variants; according to the article, these are their “ethno linguistic vitality” and “linguistic imperialism”. The article deeply studies into the phenomenon of native speaker and non-native speaker variants of English, their differences and significance of use in certain countries. The article relates to the topic of my research as it investigates into the variants of the English language and concerns itself with the problem of their recognition and difficulties which may arise from their use. Read More