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Timeline to developing an accent | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 89 of 100 07 April 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In the vast majority of cases, getting the students to make the right sound is not a big problem. Actually, that's the easy part.
Let me take a very simple concrete example. I have Japanese students -- smart kids, top of the class from top universities -- who say things like "ando", "hab", "sing" instead of and, have and thing. When you correct them -- and eventually, when you ask them to correct themselves --, they'll give you a perfect and, have and thing. Get them to talk about anything and you'll get ando, hab and sing again. I think that when they repeat or correct themselves on cue, they are "stretching the truth" so to speak, pushing their pronunciation outside of their usual pronunciation just to match your request. When they speak freely, there is too much to monitor at once and they can't correct themselves -- and the incorrect representation resurfaces. Changing that representation is the really hard part. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5224 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 90 of 100 07 April 2014 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Is the problem really changing the representation? The problem may be more with the instruction. If I can quote myself again: "With lots of corrective feedback, we can bring the learner to produce the sound relatively accurately. Then we have to consolidate that sound in various words and contexts." It's the consolidation in various contexts that is the hard part. Speaking in entire sentences is much harder than in isolated sounds because of all the co-existing phenomena. I don't see this as a question of changing representation. I see it as a problem of working with larger units of production and with constant repetition. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5224 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 91 of 100 07 April 2014 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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How does a dialect coach work with actors? It's listening and guided production with a ton of feedback. It must be
said that actors are working with a specific script. It's not that they are learning to speak the dialect spontaneously. Could the actor learn the dialect spontaneously just by listening over and over again? Could you develop perfect pronunciation of a foreign language just by listening to tapes. Probably not. That's why the coaches charge $150 an hour. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5224 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 92 of 100 07 April 2014 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If mental representation is such a big part of phonological performance, how does one go about modifying it? It
seems to ,e that it all boils down to working on production. Here is the course outline of a 10-session package for the American Accent Acquisition Course from English by the Hour and for $1250 US over Skype: "The three areas of focus include: Pronunciation of individual vowels and consonants: Learn the International Phonetic Alphabet Practice articulating both long and short vowels Learn how to pronounce consonants in all environments: initial, medial, and final Tongue twisters & articulation exercises Breath exercises Word stress patterns: Rules of both English and foreign-derived words Dividing words into syllables Syllable length Stressed and unstressed syllables Word form stress shift patterns Nouns, adjectives & adverbs vs. verbs Compound nouns Intonation, rhythm, and linking: Neutral or “unmarked” patterns for statements and questions Contrastive stress and usage Content vs. function words Rhythm and linking Word clustering/grouping and Powerful Pauses Most importantly: transfer and error correction techniques and exercises to support change! " There's probably some time spent on listening to recordings, but I'm sure that most of the time is spent on talking. Edited by s_allard on 07 April 2014 at 7:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 93 of 100 07 April 2014 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why would a student continue to mispronounce -- in the same way -- a word that they can otherwise pronounce just fine if they aren't returning to a persistently false representation of that word? 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5224 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 94 of 100 07 April 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
This actually a good question. Why do learners keep making the same mistake that has been previously corrected? Basically, it's the imperfect nature of the learning process. Most errors don't disappear immediately. It takes time but hopefully they go away as the learner gains mastery of the new skills. This is nothing new or surprising. But what is important here is the learning or the teaching process. As long as you work with isolated sounds this problem with endure. As soon as the student can master the isolated sounds, you have to start working at higher levels. It's the same problem with grammar. If you only work at the word level, progress will be slow in terms of fluent speech. At some point you have to start working with entire phrases and dialogues. Why are most people who have studied a language for years unable to speak fluently? The basic reason, along with others, is that they never really learned how to speak. Their head is full of words and rules that they cannot use properly because they never learned properly in the first place. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| poorenglish_ Newbie Spain Joined 4428 days ago 12 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Spanish* Studies: English | Message 95 of 100 08 April 2014 at 12:22am | IP Logged | |||||
That's exactly what happens to me. Is there any way to improve it? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5224 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 96 of 100 08 April 2014 at 1:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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If we return to the OP, we can look at it in terms of what does it take to get a very good accent in the target
language. This can be framed in terms of mental representation of sounds, if so desired. I look at the passage between hearing and speaking as a black box that can have various contents. But the real question is what should the user do. There is all the usual stuff. Lot's of listening and shadowing. Drill the known difficulties. Record yourself. But the number one thing to do is to get feedback from a good teacher. This is a person who can diagnose what is wrong with your accent and how to correct it. The problem is that people don't want to spend money on something they believe they can do on their own. They don't mind spending money on a personal trainer in a gym, but when it comes to their speaking a foreign language, they somehow think that it should be free or that it's easy. All you have to do is buy a book, Speak A Language Like A Native. People should use language trainers just like personal trainers. It can make all the difference between wasting your time going in circles and making real progress. This is something that rich people have known for a long time. Tutors exist for a reason. If speaking well is important for you, get a good tutor. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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