I recently conducted an English language teaching (ELT) workshop at a school in Chennai, in which over 25 English language teachers participated. During the first session, one participant raised this thought-provoking question: What is the most important aspect of learning English? Even before I answered the question, other participants gave their probable answers, which included motivation, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading, and developing the ability to think in English.
Though everything listed above is important, I consider pronunciation the most important aspect of learning a language. The purpose of using a language is to communicate. Effective communication involves conveying a message to a target audience effectively. In simpler terms, one must make oneself understood. A person with intelligible pronunciation can make himself/herself understood. What is intelligible pronunciation? It is stressing the right syllables in words and stressing the right words in sentences.
The English language has many polysyllabic words. In such words the stress falls on one syllable and the others tend to be passed over lightly. In the following words, the syllables indicated in CAPS are stressed.
1. eduCAtion, popuLAtion, botheRAtion, NAtion, cultiVAtion
2. engiNEER, pioNEER, mountaiNEER, auctioNEER
3. psyCHOlogy, biOlogy
4. ethNIcity, auDAcity, creaTIVity
5. geOGraphy, phoTOgraphy
English pronunciation focuses on specific stressed words. Not all the words in a sentence are stressed. Every language has content words and function words. Content words are more important than function words. Stressing the right word in a sentence implies stressing the content words. Content words are usually nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Since these words help us understand the content of the sentence, they are called content words. Function words are pronouns, determiners, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs. These are the words we use to make our sentences grammatically correct. There is no rule that states that all content words should be stressed and all functional words should be unstressed. In some situations, depending on the intention of the speaker and the message, even functional words can receive prominence and be stressed. Look at these sentences:
1. The name of the most intelligent student in the batch is Milton.
2. He will come on Monday if he is free; otherwise, he will call to inform you when he can meet you.
In the first sentence, though there are thirteen words, only the six underlined words are stressed. Unstressed words are glided over. In the second sentence, there are 21 words, but only nine are stressed.
Here are a few tips to improve your pronunciation.
1. Write down a few sentences. Identify the stressed and unstressed words. Underline all the stressed words. Then read the sentences aloud, stressing the underlined words and gliding over the unstressed ones.
2. Listen to those who speak English well. Focus on how the speakers stress certain words.
3. Download audio files and transcripts from VOA Special English. Focus on how the newsreaders stress certain words and glide over others. Visit the site http://learningenglish.voanews.com
4. If you are an advanced learner of English, download TED talks and watch the videos. Visit the site http://www.ted.com/talks/quick-list
5. Watching English movies regularly helps improve listening as well as speaking skills.