The problems that are faced by non-native speakers of English

As most of us acknowledge, non-native speakers of English (NNS) often have problem with pronunciation. As their tutor, I feel so sorry for them and REALLY want to help them. Can you tell me, what are the problems areas that faced by them? Is it intonation? or word stress? or sounds? or rhythm? Your help will be highly appreciated and this will help me a lot for the sake of my NNS students future. Thanks.

Re: The problems that are faced by non-native speakers of English

The problem is they need to learn a WHOLE new system of speaking. Don't spend too much time feeling sorry - concentrate on having the students speak HOWEVER THEY SOUND. The big question is can you and other accomplished speakers UNDERSTAND them. If you can then give them a big high five and move to the next lesson. As a native speaker of English I hear lots of "bad" English but I can ofen figure out what the speaker wants to say. That is all that is required for communication.

Re: The problems that are faced by non-native speakers of English

I'm not a teacher at this forum, but I read your request and want to put in a comment. Problems regarding pronounciation mostly depends on what language the learner's mother tongue is. All of the elements you mentioned may cause problems, but if you want to help them, you need to know about the specific differences between the mother tongue language and English. What causes problems to a Japanese and an Italian respectively is probably not the same. My mother tongue is Norwegian, and I know that some specific English sounds cause problems because they lack counterparts in Norwegian. Students need to practise the sounds to get them right. We also have a different intonation system, so it has to be learned. I don't know if this was to much help, but I know that if your students have the same mother tongue, your job will be easier than if they have different languages as a starting point! Good luck!

http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/59495-problems-faced-non-native-speakersenglish.html

Non-native pronunciations of English

Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native users of any language tend to carry the intonation, phonological processes and pronunciation rules from their mother tongue into their English speech. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first language.

Overview
The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English, either by transferring the phonological rules from their mother tongue into their English speech ("interference") or [1] through implementing strategies similar to those used in primary language acquisition. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first [1] language. The age at which speakers begin to immerse themselves into a language (such as English) is linked to the degree in which native speakers are able to detect a non-native accent; the exact nature of the link is disputed amongst scholars and may be affected by "neurological plasticity, cognitive development, motivation, psychosocial states, formal instruction, language [2] learning aptitude," and the usage of their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. English is unusual in that speakers rarely produce an audible release between consonant clusters and often overlap constriction times. Speaking English with a timing pattern that is [3] dramatically different may lead to speech that is difficult to understand. More transparently, differing phonological distinctions between a speaker's first language and [4] English create a tendency to neutralize such distinctions in English, and differences in the inventory or distribution of sounds may cause substitutions of native sounds in the place of [5] difficult English sounds and/or simple deletion. This is more common when the distinction is subtle between English sounds or between a sound of English and of a speaker's primary language. While there is no evidence to suggest that a simple absence of a sound or sequence in [6] one language's phonological inventory makes it difficult to learn, several theoretical models have presumed that non-native speech perceptions reflect both the abstract phonological [7] properties and phonetic details of the native language. Such characteristics may be transmitted to the children of bilinguals, who will then exhibit a [8] number of the same characteristics even if they are monolingual. [edit]Examples [edit]Arabic See also: Arabic phonology Speakers tend to speak with a rhotic accent and pronounce /r/ as a flap or trill.
[9]

[edit]French See also: French phonology

Because of the phonetic differences between English and French rhotics, speakers may [10] perceive /r/ as /w/-like and have trouble distinguishing between /r/ and /w/. French speakers have difficulty with /h/ and systematically delete it.
[11]

[edit]German See also: German phonology Speakers may not velarize /l/ in coda positions as most native speakers do.
[4]

They have a smaller pitch range, less consonant cluster reduction and less vowel [12] reduction.

[edit]Hebrew See also: Modern Hebrew phonology The lack of discrimination in Hebrew between tense and lax vowels makes correctly [13] pronouncing English words such as hit/heat and cook/kook difficult. Dental fricatives// (as in "the") and // (as in "think") are often mispronounced. Hebrew speakers may confuse /w/ and /v/.
[13] [13]

In Hebrew, word stress is usually on the last (ultimate) or penultimate syllable of a word; speakers may carry their stress system into English, which has a much more varied stress [13] system. Hebrew speakers may also use Hebrew intonation patterns which mark them as [13] foreign speakers of English.

[edit]Hungarian The dental fricatives // and // may be replaced by and

[14]

Since Hungarian lacks the phoneme /w/, many Hungarian speakers substitute /v/ for /w/ when speaking in English. A less frequent practice is hypercorrection: substituting /w/ for /v/ in instances where the latter is actually correct.
[15]

[edit]Italian See also: Italian phonology A study on Italian children's pronunciation of English revealed the following characteristics:
[16]

Tendency to replace the English high lax vowels // // with [i] [u] (ex: "fill" and "feel", "put" "poot" are homophones), since Italian does not have these vowels. Tendency to replace // with [] ("singer" rhymes with "finger") or as [n] (combined with the above tendency makes the words "king" and "keen" homophones) because Italian [] is an allophone of /n/ before velar stops. Tendency to replace word-initial /sm/ with [zm], e.g. small [zml]. This voicing also applies to /sl/ and /sn/. Tendency to add /h/ to some vowel-initial words.

Tendency to replace // with [a] so that mother is pronounced [madr] or [mar], since Italian does not have this vowel. Italian does not have dental fricatives: Voiceless // may be replaced with a dental Voiced // may become a dental . or with [f].

Since /t/ and /d/ are typically pronounced as dental stops anyway, words like there and dare can become homophones. // is replaced with [], so that bag sounds like beg [b]. Tendency to pronounce /p t k/ as unaspirated stops. Schwa [] does not exist in Italian; speakers tend to give the written vowel its full pronunciation, e.g. lemon [lmn], television [tlevin], parrot [pro , intelligent [intlid nt], water [wtr], sugar [uar].

Italian speakers may pronounce consonant-final English words with a strong vocalic offset, especially in isolated words, e.g. dog [d]. This has led to the stereotype of Italians adding [] to the ends of English words. Tendency to pronounce /r/ as a trill [r] rather than the English approximant //, e.g. parrot [ pro .

In addition, Italians learning English have a tendency to pronounce words as they are spelled, so that walk is [wlk], guide is [wid], and boiled is [bld]. This is also true for loanwords borrowed from English aswater, which is pronounced [vatr] instead of [wt]. Related to this is the fact that many Italians produce /r/ wherever it is spelled (e.g. star [star]), resulting in a rhotic accent, even when the dialect of English they are learning is nonrhotic. Consonants written double may be pronounced as geminates, e.g. Italians pronounce apple with a longer [p] sound than English speakers do. [edit]Japanese See also: Japanese phonology, Engrish, and Japanese speakers learning r and l Speakers tend to confuse /l/ and /r/ both in perception and production,
[17]

since the Japanese

language does not make such a distinction. The closest Japanese phoneme to either of [18] these is //, though speakers may hear English /r/ as similar to the Japanese /w/. [edit]Russian See also: Russian phonology There is no /w/ in Russian; speakers typically substitute [v]
[19]

Native Russian speakers tend to produce an audible release for final consonants and in consonant clusters and are likely to transfer this to English speech, creating inappropriate releases of final bursts that sound overly careful and stilted and even causing native listeners [20] to perceive extra unstressed syllables.

There are no dental fricatives (// and //) in Russian, and native Russian speakers may pronounce them as [s] and [z].
[21]

Difficulty with English vowels. Russian speakers may have difficulty distinguishing /i/ and / /, // and //, and /u/ and //; similarly, speakers' pronunciation of long vowels may sound more like their close counter part (e.g. // may sound closer to //)
[22] [22]

Speakers may articulate an alveolar trill instead of an alveolar approximant. Likewise, /h/ may be pronounced like its closest Russian equivalent, [x].

[23][22]

[edit]Spanish See also: Spanglish and Spanish phonology Since Spanish does not make voicing contrasts between its fricatives (and its one affricate), speakers may neutralize contrasts between /s/ and /z/; likewise, fricatives may assimilate the voicing of a following consonant.
[24] [24]

Speakers tend to merge /t/ with //, and /d/ and // with /j/. /j/ and /w/ often have a fluctuating degree of closure.
[24]

For the most part (especially in colloquial speech), Spanish allows only five (or six) word-final consonants: /s/, /n/, /r/, /l/ and /d/ (plus // in Castilian Spanish); speakers may omit wordfinal consonants other than these, or alter them (for example, by turning /m/ to /n/).
[5]

In Spanish, /s/ must immediately precede or follow a vowel; often a word beginning with [s] + consonant will obtain an epenthetic vowel (typically [e]) to make stomp pronounced [est mp] rather than [stmp].
[5]

In Spanish, a voiceless dental fricative // phoneme exists only in certain Peninsular dialects; where this sound appears in English, speakers of other Spanish dialects substitute /t/, /s/ or /f/ for it.
[24]

Speakers tend to merge // and /d/, pronouncing both as voiced dental plosive unless they occur in intervocalic position, in which case they are pronounced . occurs with /v/ and /b/.
[24] [25]

A similar process

The three nasal phonemes of Spanish neutralize in coda-position; speakers may invariably pronounce nasal consonants as homorganic to a following consonant; if word-final (as in welcome) common realizations include [n], deletion with nasalization of the preceding vowel, or [].
[24]

[edit]Vietnamese See also: Vietnamese phonology Note: There are two main dialects in Vietnamese, a northern one centered around Hanoi and a southern one centered around Ho Chi Minh City. Speakers may not produce final consonants since there are fewer final consonants in [26] Vietnamese and those that do exist differ in their phonetic quality:

Final /b/ is likely to be confused with /p/ Final /d/ is likely to be confused with /t/ Final /f/ is likely to be confused with /p/ Final /v/ is likely to be confused with /b/ or /p/ Final /s/ is likely to be confused with // or simply omitted Final // is likely to be omitted Final /z/ is likely to be confused with // or /s/ Final /t/ is likely to be confused with // Final /l/ is likely to be confused with /n/ Final /t/ is likely to be confused with /k/ (by southern Vietnamese)
[27]

Speakers also have difficulty with English consonant clusters, [28] or epenthetic vowels being inserted. as /d/ and // respectively.
[29]

with segments being omitted

Speakers may not aspirate initial /t/ and /k/, making native listeners perceive them

Speakers often have difficulty with the following phonemes, which may depend in some [27] cases upon where in Vietnam they are originally from: //, which is confused with /t/ or /s/ //, which is confused with /d/ or /z/ /p/, which is confused with /b/ //, which is confused with /k/ /d/, which is confused with /z/ //, which is confused with /z/ or /d/ /s/, which is confused with // (by northern Vietnamese) /t/, which is confused with /d/, /t/ or /t/ (by northern Vietnamese) /v/, which is confused with /j/ (by southern Vietnamese) //, which is confused with /i/ //, which is confused with /u/ or // //, which is confused with // //, which is confused with // or //

Vietnamese is a tonal language and speakers may try to use the Vietnamese tonal system or use a monotone with English words. They may also associate tones onto the intonational [28] pattern of a sentence and becoming confused with such inflectional changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-native_pronunciations_of_English#Overview

What Causes Pronunciation Problems Among Small Children?

By Allison Edrington, eHow Contributor | updated August 15, 2011

Children sometimes mispronounce words if they have a hearing problem.

Children primarily develop their pronunciation skills from the moment they begin to talk up to about age 7 or 8, but hearing problems and other influences may negatively impact a child's articulation. While some children may have an speech sound disorder, those that do not can often self-correct their speech over time and benefit from encouragement and practice.
Read more: What Causes Pronunciation Problems Among Small Children? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_10066788_causes-pronunciation-problems-among-smallchildren.html#ixzz1rS1Ct52e

Normal Development

According to the nonprofit Summer Institute of Linguistics' department of International Children's Education, 3-year-old children are often able to pronounce the sounds of "p", "b", "m", "n", "d", "g" and "h." By age 4, they can usually pronounce "k", "t", "f", "v", "ng", "j" and "ch." Five-year-old children often know the more complicated sounds of "sh" and "zh" and many 7-year-old children can pronounce "l", "r", "s" and "th." Consonant clusters in the center of words are the hardest for children to speak.

Hearing

If the child is still under 8 years old, she is still in the development phase and the error may correct itself over time. Some articulation problems come from poor

hearing, as imitating sounds is how children learn to pronounce words -- if your child has frequent ear infections or wax build up, she may not be hearing correctly and should see a doctor for a hearing evaluation.
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Non-native Language

Articulation problems can occur if the parents or guardians of a child are not native speakers of a language they want to teach their child. If an English-speaking parent was trying to teach his child Spanish, many of the Spanish words would not be pronounced correctly if the parent was not fluent in Spanish. However, if a child learns her parent's native language and a different language common to the region where they live, the child will likely adapt the accent and articulation of her peers for the region's language over time.

Prevention

For children who are not developmentally delayed nor have a speech disorder, there are ways to help them improve their articulation. One method is to not let a child suck on her thumb or pacifier after 12 months of age, as that can cause the roof of the mouth to not develop correctly and cause pronunciation problems. Having a child talk in front of a mirror or watch you when you talk will allow her to see how the mouth should be shaped for certain sounds. You can also have her practice tricky sounds and imitate how you say them.

Disorders

Children who are unable to articulate correctly after reaching age 8 may have a speech sound disorder, which includes problems with making certain sounds or sound patterns. Developmental disorders, genetic syndromes, hearing loss, illness and neurological disorders can all cause a speech sound disorder, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Children with a speech sound disorder may replace one sound for another, such as "wace" instead of "race," or they may omit a sound altogether, such as "anana" instead of "banana." Parents or guardians who suspect their child may have such a disorder should seek the advice of a doctor.

Read more: What Causes Pronunciation Problems Among Small Children? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_10066788_causes-pronunciation-problems-among-smallchildren.html#ixzz1rS1IMb42