Research suggests that intonation and pitch play a more important role in listener comprehension than stress and phonemes do. So, why does the current national curriculum tend to focus on the latter sounds?
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The current national curriculum tend to focus on the stress and phonemes maybe because stress/word stress is a majic key to understanding spoken English according to some Linguists.Native speakers of English use word/sentence stress naturally.It is so natural for them that they don't even know they use it.
ReplyDeleteWhile Non-native speakers without using word stress, encounter some problems. One is, They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those speaking fast. Another is, the native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.
And i think, one reason why they tend to focus on the phoneme because it is the smallest contrastive unit in sound system of a language and it is very important in learnig English as second language for the beginner. Teachers should focus first on this area because this is one of the basics in teaching English Language.
Actually I wonder which coutry the word "national" in your question means. If I'm right, that might mean "Korean". Frankly, I have not recognized that Korean curriculum tends to focus on stress and phonemes. If so, that might comes from differences of language system and stress and phomenes are more basic than intonation and pitch.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Koreans are not accustomed to stress because Korean words don't differentiate meaning up to stress even though they have several exceptions. If somebody say with strange stress, we still understand and just think that it may be an dialect or he/she has an extraordinary language preferance.
Second, Korean language has a different syllable system. We often meet Koreans prouncing 'DESK' in 3 syllables. That's because Korean language always puts vowel after each consonant. To prevent that situation, Koreans need to learn the concept of Enlgish phonemes-the smallest units of sound with meaning.
Therefore, the curriculum designers seem to think that Koreans can speak with natural intonation and pitch in sentences after learning stress and phonemes exactly in words.
An opinion the national curriculum tend to focus on the stress and phonemes is reasonably acceptable itself. However, before mentioning the reasons, I would like to recommend the idea that this phenomenon is not only to Korean but also to other second language learners and teachers. Therefore, I am sure people definitely agree with the following reasons.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, by the needs that language learners desire to build up their language ability through using basic linguistic elements first including words and phonemes, the system can be easy to incline and to focus on the words and stress.
Another reason is that, even though people know intonation and pitch are more important, it is a very challenge to adapt because every language has every different ways sounded intonation and pitch. For making a efficient curriculum, the access of linguistic understanding and knowledge might be added to learn other language even if it is not a simple mission.
- 2nd EDITION ^^ -
ReplyDeleteAn opinion the national curriculum tend to focus on the stress and phonemes is reasonably acceptable itself. However, before mentioning the reasons, I would like to recommend the idea that this phenomenon is not only to Korean but also to other second language learners and teachers. Therefore, I am sure people definitely agree with the following reasons.
First of all, by the needs that language learners desire to build up their language ability through using basic linguistic elements first including words and phonemes, the system can be easy to incline and to focus on the words and stress.
Another reason is that, even though people know intonation and pitch are more important, it is a very challenge to adapt because every language has every different ways of intonation and pitch. For making a efficient curriculum, the access of linguistic understanding and knowledge might be added to the language program even if it is not a simple mission.
In my humble opion, the reason why Korean curriculum tends to focus on stress and phonemes instead of intonation and pitch is that the latter two are the basic elements to learn. Once students pick up stress and phonemes of English, it becomes much easier for them to learn intonation and pitch. Moreover, I believe Koean Egnlish teachers have difficulty when it coems to teach intonation and pitch because English is not their mother tongue. Thus, native teachers should take more responsibility on teaching both of them.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, the Korean education system has been stubborn so far. The old teachers don't like to change their teaching methods. It's more difficult to teach intonation and pitch than stress and phonemes because the syllables are usually a new concept to English learners. It is true that every teacher does not have the full ability to teach all sections of English, especially speaking.
ReplyDeleteBut this is changing in Korea. I think that the current Korean curricuum doesn't tend to focus on stress and phonemes as much anymore.
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ReplyDeleteThere are many kind of languages in the world. Korean and English are the kind of languages. During the terms of English colonial period English had has strong power and the domina-tion of a weak country by Enlish. Since that time, English laguage hold an advantageous position.
ReplyDeleteStress and phonemes are easier to explain to students. Pitch and intonation are skills that require listening and are best learned in a natural native environment.
ReplyDeleteIntonation and pitch don't follow standard rules. so it is difficult to teach.
And pitch and intonation convey the speakers feelings and meaning.
Without intonation, speech would be very confusing for listeners.
When many Korean people speank in English,
they tend to use wrong intonation. This can change the meaning of English totally.
(For example, "They will sell FISH."and "They will SELfish." )
If non-native speakers speak fairly with strong intonation, native speakers will understand more easily.
Teaching Intonation in English is a hard task for Non Native Teachers.
ReplyDeleteI might say that because of the shortages of Native-Teachers, Korean curriculum tends to focus on Stress and Phonemes.
We do not have intonation in korean,so hard to adopt and teach them.
We admit that Intonation and tones are important to communicate effectively.
As a Non Native Teachers, we have to concentrate on developing the skills.
Watching movies or dramas can be useful.
When speaking to others in English people use intonaton and pitch to communicte fo giving their feelings to listeners. A native Korean speaker would already uderstand the concepts of intonation and pith. To use exact intonation, we need to know thier cultures first.
ReplyDeleteThe tendency of focusing on intonation and pitch play more shows that the current national English curriculum has been changing towards more practical ways of use.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like the reason why we study English is just for getting higher score or just for reading the book. Just to store up the knowledge in each ones' head cannot be the purpose of learning English. Our ultimate goal has to be the smooth communication without any difficulties. In other words, to concentrate more on intonation and pitch play could be a great help to use and understand spoken English. The trend of the latest English use seems like that the more functional way it could be, the better.
Even though research found that intonation and pich are in charge of more essential role in listening comprehension than stress and phonemes do, we know that our current national curriculum does not follow the evidence. The reasons why I think of are followings : stress and phonemes are easy to teach, understand, and memorize the structure of English relatively than stress and phonemes, and the teachers do not have enough skills to teach intonation and pitch in ESL situation. To solve this problem, we need to focus on what is more important, or less important at first. Also, we need to find some ways to teach stress and phonemes well.
ReplyDeleteWhen we learn the second language, we usually start with small units(alphabets, words) and then buid up to bigger units(phrases, clauses, sentences).
ReplyDeleteAlmost every language has different phonemes and to the ESL or EFL learners, learning brand-new phonemes which they don't have in their mother tongue is not easy and takes a lot of time until they are accustomed to those differences.
Stress is really improtant when we speak English words. If stress is put in the wrong syllable, then there might be difficulties in understanding.
Phonemes and stress play key roles when learners increase their language abilities especially with the low level learners. And then once they are exposed to the longer units such as sentences, paragraphs, and dialogues, they need to focus on pitch and intonation.
So it is quite natural that current national curriculum tend to focus on the stress and phonemes. It's just like nobody can do multiply and divide if they don't master addition and subtraction. Learners who have trouble in using proper stress and phonemes will be hardly improved in speaking with proper intonation and pitch. That's why the current national curriculum concentrates on stress and phonemes.
The korean teachers like to teach stress, phonemes,because they are easy to teach. It takes long time to learn intonation and pich that we can get from the real conversations. Teachers don't know the rules how to teach.They can be in chaos. Also intonation and pich are hard to evaluate on the test. That's why teachers avoid teach them.
ReplyDeleteNot only teachers but also students prefer stress and phonemes to intonation and pith. They can get the informations such a stess and phonemes from the dictionaries. They are familiar with them.
When the native teacher who is my co-worker teaches new words every lesson, Korean teacher ask her to teach I.P.A(International Phonetic Alphabet). She said to me that she is not familiar with it even though she is a native speaker.
I feel the korean like to divide something from the whole. It would be better to intake the language as a whole.
**I think why the current national curriculum tend to focus on the 'stress' sounds than 'pitch' stems from whose character of Korean language is a syllable-timed language like the family of Altaic origins unlike English, stress-timed language. **Therefore we are used to clear the stress within word itself than the pitch which relating to the words mutually(Intelligibility) acted and In colloquial expression. **These phenomena in Korea, however, have been giving the Korean EFL students difficulty to speak English out resulting that the Korean EFL were very shy of their poor ability of pronunciation comparing with some students, who's been english speaking countries for few years. ****Thus, this is time to focus to teach well Intonation and good pitch than stress, which would help understanding english naturally, especially korean EFL learners whose mother language And make in mind that there are various pitch patter even between English and American.
ReplyDeleteLetter sound is, not only important part but also a basic foundation in English. Also, for the beginner, it is necessary and popular to learn Phonic while learning English.As we all know, consonants and vowels makes up a word, which if you know how the exact pronunciations and rules of consonants and vowels, then your English will develop faster then anyone else. When people speak, they speak sentence, not words. Obviously, sentence is longer then words, so when they speak, naturally have intonation and pitch by the person's characteristic and breathing. Therefore, speaking with intonation and pitch is helpful during conversation for easier understanding It will also be easier to get to know each other better.
ReplyDeleteWho should teach English in Korean classroom?
ReplyDeleteThere are native speakers and non-native speakers as an Enlish teacher in Korean classroom. I want to talk to native speakers. Korean schools need more native speakers as an English teacher than before. There are lots of good native teachers of course. But sometimes not. It sometimes seems Some native teachers don't have knowledge and understanding of their learners. In my kindergarten, I heard a native teather said children are MONSTER. And He treated them impolite. I think he don't have understanding of children. Schools or institutes often tends to employ English teacher just because he or she is native speaker. It's no right.
And then what is good standard to employ? I think he or she has good character, educational spirit and knowledge and understanding of their learners even though he or she doesn't have teacher's certificate. Korean shcools have to employ proper person through detail interveiw, I think.