Yeji Lee

Linguistics 260
Pronunciation Doctor
Team with Belle, Alice and Kierah
Tsukasa (Yeji)
Tsukasa is from Japan. He is in advance2, EIL. He went on his mission to Japan and had
some American companions. He sometimes spoke English with them, but it was rare. He has been
studying English since he was in the middle school. Because he is from Japan, he has typical Japanese
intonation and accent as normal Japanese do. He is majoring in accounting, and he has a big desire to
speak good English and wants to improve his pronunciation as well.
When he speaks English, he stresses on wrong syllables and has difficulties with blends, which are
smooth transitions between words and syllables. He has some problems with vowels. He is having a
hard time to pronounce between [], [], and [] sounds. He just pronounces every [] sound as []
sound. In the interview, he pronounce suffer [sfr], has [hz], angry [gri], answer [ns(r)],
casually [kuli], manner [mn(r)], language [lgwd], bad [bd] and hat [ht] as [] sound.
That is typical Japanese peoples sound. I have seen many Japanese students who cannot make []
sound. He has also problem with some of consonants. He does not pronounce [] such as third [3:rd]
and three [ri:], but he just makes [s] instead of []. He does not pronounce [l] sound clearly. For
example, he does not very care about [l] sound in formally [f:rmli], awhile [|wal] or
world[w3:rld]. Also, he does not pronounce [r] sound. For example, he did not pronounce [r], and I
think that he needs to more focus on segmental first. He is not very well trained in pronouncing vowel
and consonant sounds. What he needs to do is to fix this issue first, and then correct suprasegmental
such as word stress, sentence stress, intonation, connected speech and so on. He has some word stress
and intonation issues, and he is not very fluent when he read readings.
He mostly knows how to pronounce words on the papers I gave to, but he just needs to read more

fluently and make clear sound for each letter. I think that his intelligibility is 7 out of 10, and he needs
to correct [] sound to [] sound. This should be the priority. The second one would be to pronounce
[] sound for such as third [3:rd] and three [ri:]. The third one would be to make sure to pronounce
s sound when it is a plural noun or verb of the third person singulars. Lastly, he needs to pronounce
clearly between r and l.
He needs to learn how to pronounce each vowel first. Learning IPA would be great to correct his
pronunciation. He is confused between similar vowel sounds, so if he learns IPA, he will get to know
the differences between them. When he studies IPA and gets ready to move to the next step, listening
to the native speakers and repeats after them will help him to correct his pronunciation problems.
Reading out loud will help him as well. Teacher can catch the wrong pronunciations, and Tsukasa can
focus on those mistakes. He has some problems with making correct sounds th. This also be fixed
by native speakers. What he needs to is just listens a lot and tries to make the similar sound as much
as he can.
This chart might be helpful for students those who are struggling with consonants sound. Most of
them did not pronounce properly on some consonants. I would like to teach simple consonant
pronunciation based on this chart.
Letter

Sound

Example

/b/

beach, cabbage, cab

/d/

do, oddity, cod

/f/

for, coffee, off

/h/

hello, behind

/d/

judge, major

/k/

kick, making, take

/l/

leg, hello, poll

/m/

me, coming, plum

/n/

no, any, plain

/r/

run, carrot

/s/

sit, missing, kiss

/t/

tub, butter, but

/v/

very, having, brave

/w/

we, towards

/z/

zebra, lizard, maze

Megan (Alice)
She is from Korea, and she served her mission in Korea about two years ago. She was born
and raised in Korea, and now she is in EIL, advance 1. When she served her mission, she had some
American companions, so she spoke some English with them. She stared learning English since she
was in third grade of elementary school. The purpose to come to this school is that she always wanted
to study in abroad. Actually, she wanted to go to BYUH, Provo, but her companion recommended to
go to BYUH, so she decided to come here to study. She has been here for a year. She is studying
English education. I have known her before we came here, so I know that she has some aspiration
problems even in Korean, so her pronunciation in Korean is not very clear as well.
She is in trouble with stress, accent and intonation. She stresses on wrong syllabus. Because I am
Korean, I can hear Korean type of stress and accent. She has unnatural intonation at end of statements,
the way her voice should go down in pitch at the end of sentence, but it does not sound like the
statement is ended. She fails to lengthen stressed vowels in syllables and words in sentences. She does
not problem with improper vowel sound, but she has some problems with substituting improper
voicing between [s] and [z] sounds, and between [t] and [] sounds. She does not pronounce [z] sound
like [z:]. For instance, she does not pronounce [z:], but just simple and short [z] sound for the words
like graze [grez], New Zealand [z:lnd], breeze [bri:z]. and broke [brok]. She does not pronounce
th words as [] or [] sound. For example, she just simply says think [tink] and there [de(r)] instead

of [k] and [er]. She has some omission of consonant such as r, l, k, -ed, and -s. She does
not pronounce [r] and [l] sound clearly. Sometimes it cannot be heard, so purpose [p3:rps], dormitory
[d:rmt:ri], and cultural [kltrl] sound like [p3:ps], [d:mt:ri] and [kltrl] .

She has

confusion between ed and s endings. She mostly skips -ed and -s such as dressed, learns,
problems, begins, takes, States and so on. She is lack of using segmental and suprasegmental
features. She has some stress problems with segmental and intonation problem with suprasegmental. I
guess her intelligibility of pronunciation is between 6.5-7 out of 10. Her pronunciation difficulties in
priority is that the first would be having a strong Korean accent, and the second would be making
clear sound with [t],[], and[z] pronunciation, and the last one would be skipping -ed, -s sounds.
Korean and Japanese have definitely similar syntactic system and sentence structure, so Tsukasa and
Megan have problems with the same pronunciations. The fun thing is that three of them have the same
issues with -ed and -s sound except Oscar. Overall, I think that the problem with omission of
consonants would be a trouble for all international students.
Megan knows how to pronounce words but she just skips the letter at the end of every word. She
needs to overcome that problem first because that can be easily corrected. I mentioned about her
intonation so she may need to learn how to have a correct intonation. Intonation is the way the voice
goes up and sown in pitch when people speak. First, She needs to listen to the native speakers certain
sentences over and over. In the future, she will acquire proper English stress and intonation. Megan
needs to break her own intonation first, and then she needs to know word stress patterns and sentence
stress types.
<Word Stress Pattern>
Word type

Where is the stress?

Nouns

on the first syllable

Verbs

On the last syllable

Nouns
(N + N)

On the first part

Two syllables

Compound

Examples
Sunset
Jacket
Repeat
Record
Bookstore
Dishwasher

(Adj. + N)
Adjetives
(Adj. + p.p)
Verb
(prep+verb)

On the last part

On the last part
(the verb part)

Through this chart above, she can learn which part and when she needs to stress. This chart below will
give ideas how many syllables they have and which part should be emphasized.
Ooo

oOo

ooO

Canada

BaNAna

KangROO

Grammar

PhoNEtic

undersTAND

Quality

Ridiculous

She also can learn Jazz chant. Chant would help learners to have fluent and correct intonation and
flow.
The example of chant:
<Jazz Chant>
Couch Potato
Do you like to swim?
Do you like to swim?
I am a couch potato.
I like TV.
Does he like to swim?
Does he like to ski?
Hes a couch potato.
He likes TV.
He doesnt like to swim.
He doesnt like to ski.
Hes a couch potato.
He likes TV.

Through this chant, she will learn intonation as she sings. She does not have to fix her original
intonation forcefully. She will learn and acquire practical English rhythm and flow.

Ben (Belle)
He is from Thailand. He was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. He served his mission in
Thailand. He has been studying English when he was seven year old. He is good at reading and
writing English compared to speaking and listening. Now he is in EIL, advance2.
Overall, he reads and speaks fluently compared to other students. I can say that he is the most
intelligible person among the group. He has his own accent, but it is not too serious. He stresses on
wrong syllable as usual students do. He speaks too fast, so some words are hard to be understandable.
I guess that he does not want show his weakness of English, so he tries to speak fast to hide it.
Because he read too fast, I could not hear some of the words even though I looked at the passages
while he read. He has unnatural intonation at the end of statements. He needs to finish up the sentence
with finished-tone intonation, but it sounds like the sentence will keep going. He fails to reduce
vowels in unstressed words. He does not pronounce d and -d sounds such as dressed and kind.
He has a few of omission of consonants. He does not speak clearly for world as -ld sound, war as-r
sound, all as -l sound and so on. He is confused to pronounce between ch[t] and sh[]. When he
reads cheese, he pronounces [i:ld] instead of [ti:z], and when he reads short, he pounces [t:rt]
instead of short [:rt]. He must be confused between ch[t] and sh[] sounds. Lastly, he does not
pronounce th letters as [] sound. He makes mistakes every th word such treat, three, third, think
and thankful. Instead of saying [], he just simply says [t]. I think his suprasegmental features are
okay but not segmental features. Generally, he is fluent, and he does not have a strong intonation or
accent, but he has some problems with single words pronunciations. I would say his rate is 7.5 out of
10, and it will be good if he starts to focus on correcting th[] sound first, distinguishing between
ch[t] and sh[] sounds next, and pronouncing consonants clearly at the end.

He needs to know exact pronunciations for certain words, and to be trained. He has a problem with
unclear pronunciation, so he Tongue-twister would be a good way to practice his pronunciation. For
example:
<Tongue-twisters>
-

There was a writer called Wright, he thought his son to write Wright right: its not right to
Wright, Rite, please try to write Wright right!

Frivolous fat Fannie fried fresh fish furiously.

Through this activity, he can focus on certain pronunciations, and finally, he will be able to overcome
1his weaknesses. He can read English sentences, and teacher can immediately fix wrong ones as well.
Because he already has a basic intelligibility, what he needs to is to remember pronouncing
consonants clearly and read slowly, so he can make correct sound.
Oscar (Kierah)
Oscar is from Hong Kong. He is nineteen years old, so he has not served his mission yet. He
came to BYUH because his sister was here, and he heard that BYUH had a good English program. He
has been learning English since he was very little, but the school did not give him many opportunities
to apply English. Now he is in EIL, intermediate2. He seems like that he is very outgoing and
passionate with learning.
First of all, I am amazed by his speaking. He is from Hong Kong, and usually Chinese speakers have
their own strong Chinese accent. Sometimes it gives me a hard time understanding, but his
pronunciation was fine to me even though he is in his first semester at BYUH. He pronounces all the
consonants which mean plural noun or verb of the third person singulars such as begins, learns,
and problems. In addition, he pronounces the consonants clearly which are located to at the end of
words such as dressed and offered as not as the other students who omit pronouncing those
consonants. Many EIL students do not care very much about pronouncing those letters, but he does a

good job on it. On the other hand, he does not pronounce some of consonants. For example, he seems
like he cannot notice omitting l, r, t, p and n sound. He pronounces year [[j(r)] as [j],
friendly [frendli] as [frenli], old [ld] as [d], and develop [d|velp] as [d|vel]. Likewise, he skips
most of consonants. This is his biggest problem to fix. He stresses on the wrong syllables and
misplaces sentence stress. Also, there are many words that he does not know how to pronounce. This
makes him to be difficult to read fluently. I would say that his intelligibility-rate is 6.5-7 out of 10. I
think that he needs more improvement for both segmental and suprasegmantal phonemes. He needs to
study vocabulary first, and learns how to read those. Next step will be learning word stress, sentence
stress, intonation and connected speech. First of all, he needs to learn basic IPA as the other students
need. The basic step is to learn how to pronounce. When he is ready for that, he can go even further.
For his fluency of reading, I recommend emphasizing key words activity. Sentences real meaning can
be changeable according to speakers emphasis/stress. For instance, there are three same sentences:
<Finding real meaning>
-

I do not want to go on a hiking tomorrow. (I do not want anything.)

I do not want to go on a hiking tomorrow. (I want to do something else, but not hiking.)

I do not want to go on a hiking tomorrow. (I just do not want to go on a hiking tomorrow, but
another day will be fine.)

Likewise, the meaning of the exactly same sentences can be changed according to the speakers stress.
This might help Oscar to convey his intentions.
The speech collection interview is definitely effective! Before we teach something, we have
to know what students levels are and what students struggles are. Especially, pronunciation is a quite
hard subject to approach. It takes a number of time and efforts on pronunciation. Many courses do not
have a specific curriculum of pronunciation, thus it was very new and interesting project to be done. I
hope that if it had more sentences with a variety of consonants and vowel sounds, it would be more
helpful to define students pronunciation intelligibility easily and exactly.

The easy thing about this assignment was having an interview with an EIL student, and it was very
fun to listen to different races of students pronunciations. It was very interesting to analyze each
students pronunciation. The difficulties were time consuming and defining students weaknesses. It
took many hours to listen and catch the problems with students pronunciations. I listened to it over
and over, and every time I listened to, I caught a new mistake. Sometimes it was obvious to find
mistakes, but sometimes it was very hard to find those.
Phonology is the study of speech sounds which is dealing with how we interpret and systematize
sounds. English phonology is quite different from many Asian languages. I have learned linguistics
for several semesters, but through this assignment, I got to know the phonology, and I got to have a
chance to define phonological vocabulary and use them practically. Actually, it was funny that I
defined and analyzed others pronunciations, because I am a non-native speaker, and I am not perfect
with English pronunciation either. For this opportunity, I rethink about what kind of problem my
pronunciation has and what kind of weaknesses Korean people have. I could hear my voice through
the interview record, so I was able to evaluate my pronunciation as well. I have searched many
websites to find good resources about pronunciations, so I got some very useful article and websites.
Those will help my pronunciation development as well as future teaching. I think that I am always
aware of what ESLs weaknesses are, and I am trying to avoid those kinds of mistakes, but through
this project, I confirmed in which parts of English international students are weak. Most EIL students
have the same problem with their pronunciations. When I go to teach in the field later, I will be able to
have clear ideas about how to deal with pronunciation. As I have done this assignment, I had an
opportunity to study deeper about linguistic pronunciation. It reminded me of things I have learned in
class and I have not known before. It was such a great opportunity to apply what we have learned
throughout half of semester. Because I have experienced to analyze EIL students, it will help me to
catch my future students troubles and struggles easier. I always thought teaching pronunciation was
hard and abroad, but as I participated in this project, I learn plenty of good sources for helping
students pronunciation issues. I am very excited to apply those inventions and activities I have found.