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Teaching Pronunciation for Arabic Speakers of English Noureddine Cherif MA TESL Student Northern Arizona University AZ TESOL 2012, Phoenix, Arizona noureddine.cherif@nau.edu. Outline. Rationale Common Problems Suggested Activities. Rationale.

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  1. Teaching Pronunciation for Arabic Speakers of EnglishNoureddineCherifMA TESL StudentNorthern Arizona UniversityAZ TESOL 2012, Phoenix, Arizonanoureddine.cherif@nau.edu

  2. Outline • Rationale • Common Problems • Suggested Activities

  3. Rationale • English and Arabic have two different phonological systems (Swan & Smith, 2011). • It is important for Arabic learners of English to be able to identify the difference in the range of sounds used and the emphasis placed on vowels and consonants in expressing meaning (Swan & Smith, 2011). • Speaking/pronunciation teachers should have various activities that will ensure an intelligible pronunciation of the English language.

  4. Activities should enhance students’ mastery of English stress, rhythm, intonation, syllabicity, and consonant clusters. • Many of these phonological features such as stress are never mentioned by Arabic grammarians because stress in the Arabic language does not follow any stress pattern but it depends on the dialect spoken (Comrie, 1987).

  5. Common Problems

  6. Problem 1 • Consonants: Arabic speakers of the English language have difficulties with the /p/ vs. /b/, /v/ vs./f/, / θ / vs. / ð/, the / ŋ /, and the English /r/

  7. Problem 2 • Consonant Clusters: Arabic has no clusters of more than two consonants, and there are no word-initial clusters in most dialects

  8. Problem 3 • Tense vowels vs. lax vowels: Arabic only has short and long vowels; thus, Arabic speakers do not make a distinction between tense and lax vowels in English

  9. Problem 4 • The /a/ vowels and its vowels distinctions / æ/, / ɛ/, / ʌ/: Arabic language has only six distinctive vowels; thus, Arabic speakers of the distinctive pronunciation that one vowel /a/ may have in English

  10. Problem 5 • /ɛ / vs. / ɪ/: Arabic speakers do not distinguish between /ɛ / and / ɪ/ like in pet and pit and they usually produce a vowel between the two.

  11. Problem 6 • Word stress: In Arabic, stress is fairly regular, unlike in English

  12. Problem 7 • Vowel reduction: Unstressed vowels in Arabic are not reduced to the extent they are in English

  13. Suggested Activities

  14. Activity 1

  15. Activity 2

  16. References • Avery, P. & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English Pronunciation. Cary, NC: Oxford University press • Comrie, B. (1987). The world’s major languages. New York: Oxford University Press • Swan, M. & Smith, B. (2001). Learner English: A teacher’s guide to interference and other problems, 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  17. Teaching Pronunciation for Arabic Speakers of EnglishNoureddineCherifMA StudentNorthern Arizona UniversityAZ TESOL 2012, Phoenix, Arizonanoureddine.cherif@nau.edu

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