Learning Phonetics

I tend to have a reading habit, that is, always connecting what I am reading with my prior experience. Maybe this just matches the theories of our literacy development: new information interacts with our existing background knowledge, then this interaction contributes to the L2 literacy development.

To be frank, I would have no idea about what IPA is if I did not enroll in this program. The time I began to learn English pronunciation was the 1st year of my middle school. My teacher learned English almost all by himself and at that time, British English was very popular in our country. In my university course, I don't have the memory that one of professor mentioned IPA symbols as well. Actually, what I learned at university is kind of a combination of American English, British English and New Zealand English, since I have professors who studied in US, from US & New Zealand, who studies British English in his whole life. When I began to teach English in middle school, American English was popular and all the textbooks are in American English. I don't think they used IPA symbols, either. That's why I was kind of struggling to get those symbols which are different from what I've already feel familiar with. Unfortunately, I usually messed them up easily. This is consistent with a Hungarian proverb: " What is learned in the cradle lasts until the grave."

Anyway, I really liked the part about the place and the manner of articulation. These knowledge help people to get the right sound in a comparatively easy way.Fro example, I think I have problem in produce dark /l/. I tried to do it as the what Finegan talks about the features of this sound, my friends said I was able to get it now. I strongly believe these knowledge could be very helpful to adult learners. However, I need to carefully think about how to integrate this knowledge in our pronunciation teaching to younger learners, especially elementary kids.