Hi, 

This may be a controversial stance, but I believe that minimal pair drilling is a really, really bad idea.  Although students seem to improve during the lesson, what they go away with is a greater chance of confusing the words when they try to use them communicatively. 

Similarly, I would like to ban the use of tongue twisters for pronunciation. I accept that they can be fun, but I'm not convinced that they help develop pronunciation in any way. The main effect of tongue twisters is to demonstrate to students that good pronunciation is a far-off if not impossible aim.

 And the alternative? 

My view of teaching segmental pronunciation is that it is best to approach it as physical. I use activities from drama, voice training and speech therapy. In this way students gain control over the way they articulate sound. This approach does not impose any particular accent and it has the bonus that the activities are relaxing and enjoyable, and the resulting strengthening of the student's voice give extra confidence when speaking.  

 I believe we really do need to modify the activities in teaching pronunciation. And I believe that involves throwing out many of the activities that people take for granted as the best approach.  

 Anyone out there agree with me? 

Alex.

I have read your comments on the topic. You found that the use of minimal pairs and tongue twisters contributed little to teaching pronunciation in language classrooms. I believe that your alternatives work in our contexts too. However, I want to raise two small questions: Do you think that beginners can follow your approach without difficulty? Do they really need something basic to start with?

Hi Vu,

 I think it applies more than ever with beginners. The kinds of activities I mean are not complicated at all and it's best to get the mouth moving towards to a new "shape" for a language as soon as possible and to get used to hearing yourself sounding different from the way you sound in L1. 

In terms of pronunciation, beginners have a lot from the start - ie. their first (and other) languages and the ability to make a massive range of non-linguistic sounds.

If you only speak one language then your linguistic hearing and the muscles related to articulation are limited to the meaningful distinctions of that language. Through exposure to and speaking of a second language your hearing and articulation broaden gradually. However, if this process is left to happen unaided, it will be slow and limited. 

I should point out here that my aim isn't to teach the students to "sound like native speakers" - that is possible with acting methods, but only in the sense of being able to imitate a style of speech. Learning how to mimic doesn't aid the skills of pronunciation. 

At beginner levels, the aim is to help students get the strange new sounds and sound combinations out of their mouths. After that it's a matter of intelligibility. And after that it's about developing control of finer aspects of voice for really effective intercultural communication. I don't think it's necessary at any of those stages for the learner to sound "native". 

Hi AlexL:

      The idea that using minimal pair drills to teach pronunciation is a bad idea is not a controversial position to take.  There are a number of authors that would agree with you.  However, I do disagree with you in one respect and agree with you (perhaps) in another.  As for the "need to modify the activities in teaching of pronunciation," I am compelled to respectfully disagree.

     First, I use as many minimal pairs as possible when teaching American English vowel sounds (beat, bit, bait, bet, bat, soda, but, boot, book, boat, caught, and cot).  I don't use them for teaching other segmentals.  By using minimal pairs, I can isolate the vowel sounds and not be distracted by variation in consonant sounds.  Consequently, I am better able to focus on the students' pronunciation of the vowel sounds.  Additionally, it requires teaching a minimal number of consonant sounds as part of teaching the vowel sounds. Once a student has learned the correct pronunciation of the vowel sounds, I can teach consonant and consonant clusters without the use of minimal pairs since vowel sounds are no longer a problem.

    Second, from the students' point of view, the use of minimal pairs in learning American English vowel sounds puts them in the position of being able to focus on the differences in the vowel sounds without being distracted by variation in consonant sounds.  For example, native speakers of Mandarin can better focus on the differences in the vowel sounds between "bit" and "bet" and between "bet" and "bat" when the consonant sounds are held constant.

     Third, I use minimal pairs for the purpose of practice after the student has learned to pronounce the vowel sounds correctly.  The acquisition of L2 pronunciation is the acquisition of a new motor skill.  Think of minimal pairs as aerobics for the tongue.  For example, after the first two days of instruction, students have been heard to complain that their tongue is tired.  This is just tired muscles.  Tired from being used to produce new movements. The proper execution of a new motor skill requires a lot of practice. Automaticity requires even more exercise.  Note however, that this use of minimal pairs is not for the purpose of teaching pronunciation.  I also use tongue twisters, but again, not for teaching.  I use them as a way for the students to practice what they have already learned - aerobics for the tongue.

    Forth, I use minimal pairs to TEACH pronunciation.  Where I agree that the use of minimal pairs is not a good idea is in the following context: an instructor standing in front of a class of 30 students pronouncing minimal pairs and having the students, as a group, repeat the words pronounced by the instructor.  For example, one recommendation (from Jull, D. (1992). Teaching pronunciation: An inventory of techniques. In P. Avery and S. Ehrlich, Teaaching American English pronunciation (pp. 207-214). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, p. 208) is:

          "After you have demonstrated the production of the contrasting sounds and are certain the students have begun to hear the difference between them, have the students pronounce the minimal pair.  They can first repeat the minimal pair after you.  Then, you can produce one member of the pair, after which they produce the other.  Finally, a student produces one member of a minimal pair and the other students identify it."

     I think that this is the misuse of minimal pairs that has given them a bad reputation.  However, this is not using minimal pairs to teach pronunciation since no teaching is taking place.  Contrary to the statement that "many learners will be able to produce new sounds simply by imitating what they hear" (Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English pronunciation. New York, NY: Longman, p. 69), adult learners are not able to acquire accurate pronunciation by just liistening and then repeating.  If this were the case, then the acquisition of correct L2 pronunciation by adults would be a non-problem.

     As for the use of activities in the teaching of pronunication, I do not think that they need to be modified.  I think that they have no place in teaching pronunciation.  Where I think activities, task based activities that is, are useful is in practicing what has already been learned.

     By the way, I do not teach pronunciation with the limited goal of intelligibility.  I only accept students who want to achieve a native speaker level of accuracy and fluency.  In general, these students are Chinese nationals who teach English in China.  So, our different take on the appropriateness of the use of minimal pairs may be due, in part, to having different teaching goals.  The teaching techniques for the goal of native speaker level accuracy and fluency are vastly different from those used for the goal of  intelligibility.

Hi Dan,  

I agree with much of what you say there. I believe that minimal pairs can be useful, but only if done as a careful form of articulation training and if the aim is a specific L2 accent - is that what you mean by using them to ‘teach’ pronunciation? As such, I would say that most classroom use of minimal pairs, following what is in course books and popular pronunciation manuals, is not beneficial and may be counter-productive.

Where our standpoints seem to differ is that I do not believe that sounding like a native is the highest level of pronunciation proficiency. Like you, I have found methods that allow anyone with such a wish to develop a “native sounding” voice fairly rapidly. However,  "sounding like a native" is not something I particularly encourage as an aim in pronunciation. My concept of pronunciation aims is perhaps best summed up as "voice skills for effective intercultural communication". So, I certainly don't stop at "intelligibility", but the directions we go in after that seem to be different. For me, the way our voices sound is part of our identity, and speaking another language is not about pretending to be from another country. 

The highest level of cultural awareness is not when you adopt the culture of another country. It is when you are able to mediate between your native culture and the culture/s you communicate with without stereotyping or “othering”. The same applies with pronunciation. The aim should not be to “get rid of your accent”, but rather to develop your voice and listening skills. 

In another thread I saw that you'd written a masters dissertation on pronunciation training. Is your dissertation available online? Could you give a link to it? Your research sounds fascinating and an area I've worked on (though in my case mostly with Spanish speakers and more recently with Japanese speakers).  

Hi AlexL:

     Yes, I use minimal pairs and my knowledge of articulatory phonetics of AE and Mandarin to teach a specific accent.  The accent I teach is my own.  I am not qualified to teach any other English accent.  I don't know any other English accents. Before I accept a student, I make sure that my accent is the one they want to learn.  If they say they want to sound like someone from Boston or learn British RP, for example, then I refer them to another instructor.  I agree with you regarding the information in course books being counter-productive.  For example, one author (Hong, B. (1991). Speak Chinese today: A basic course in modern language) in reference to sounds in Chinese words, states, "many of these sounds have fairly approximate English equivalents" (p. 13), and provides the example "d as in 'dirt'" (however, the /d/ is not voiced in Mandarin and the tongue shape is concave not convex). Perhaps it is from such a book that my first semester Mandaring teacher, a native speaker of AE, got the idea of teaching Mandarin /r/ in 人 (ren 2) by stating that 人 is pronounced EXACTLY like the AE word "run" (sorry, not even close). Saying that a sound in one language is "similar to," "like," and so on, a sound in another language is not helpful (similar in what way?).  The result of such information is that learners end up with misunderstandings regarding how to produce the sounds of a target language correctly.  They spend a lot ot time practicing the wrong thing.

     As for the degree of accuracy in the pronunciation of an L2, I am of the opinion, as you seem to be, that a native-speaker level of accuracy and fluency is not always the appropriate goal.  However, some students (people who teach a language that is their L2, movie actresses and actors, airline pilots, students studying to be translators and want a competitive edge, and so on) frequently have native-speaker level accuracy and fluency as their goal.  Additionally, I only teach students whose goal is native-speaker level accuracy and fluency because I don't want to get involved in the problems associated with teaching something short of that, the goal of intelligibility, for example.  The problem I have with teaching pronunciation to a level of intelligibility is - intelligible to whom? A teacher of English as a second language who has been teaching English for many years?  Someone who as never studied a foreign language? Someone who is a sympathetic or unsympathetic listener? I may never forget the time when, as an undergraduate student in TESL, I was observing a speaking class in which the students were retelling stories from newspaper articles - the instructor was laughing at the funny parts while I didn't understand a single word (literally, not a single word) because the student's pronunciation, stress, and intonation was not accurate. At what point in the acquisition of pronunciation can an instructor say that a student's pronunciation is "good enough"?  For me, there is no clear boundary line between "good enough" and "not good enough."  I think it would have to be defined in terms of a particular student's goals. If the students in a class have different goals, then what? Teaching pronunciation with the goal of native-speaker level accuracy and fluency places students in a learning environment where it is possible for them to achieve the level of competence they want. I don't want to place myself in a position where a student might say that I didn't do a good job teaching pronunciation. As for "pretending to be from another country," there are many articles regarding the issue of the relation between language and personal identity.  I have met Chinese students studying in the USA who wanted to retain their Chinese accent because "I'm Chinese, not American." On the other hand, a student from France gave up AE pronunciation training after she was told that American men like a French accent. For myself, I do not associate my language or my accent with who I am, my identity. For me the issue is simply: do I speak Mandarin (by definition, a Beijing accent) correctly or not? Only the blind and people speaking to me on the phone have mistaken me for a Chinese person. When I started to study Mandarin, I made the decision to learn correct pronunciation becuase I didn't want to waste my time learning how to do it incorrectly (together with the issue of how good is good enough).  I had a reason, of course.  Now, when students ask me to teach them AE pronunciation, I say a sentence or two in Mandarin and then ask them, "if you learn to pronounce AE as well as I just pronounced Mandarin, would you be happy?"  Additionally, my having learned to pronounce Mandarin correctly results in my students beginning their study of AE pronunciation with the confidence that they will be able to achieve their goal.

     My master's thesis is available from Amazon.com for, unfortunately, a price.  If you are associated with a university, your library should be able to get you a microfilm copy for free by way of an inter-library loan.  Perhaps a public library can do the same, I am not sure.

Dan Jenkins (Foreign Expert, English Department, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, China)