加拿大语言学essay：Analysis on English Phonetics Teaching Model in

1.0 Introduction介绍

正式的英语语音教学始于19世纪后期，虽然语音学教学并没有得到学者和教育工作者（Jenkins，2002）的阅读，写作和词汇教学的重视，在过去的一个多世纪里，由于影响通过不同的语言学校和语言教学思想，英语语音教学也发生了很大的变化和进步，英语语音教学模式的变化随着人们对语音教育和社会发展的认识的发展，出现了很多关于英语语音教学的争议。其中一个最重要的争议是传统语音教学模式与本地化语音教学模式之间的争议。传统的语音教学模式强调教学内容，标准和应用应遵循英国和美国的标准（Varonis和Gass，1982; Wong，1987）。虽然本土化模式认为英语语音教学应该改变遵循英国英语或美国标准的做法（Jenkins，2002），外圈国家应该注意本地化的语音教学模式。这两种理论之间的争论今天仍然很普遍。不同的理论决定了语音教学，教材选择，教师就业和语音成绩评估之间的区别。因此，了解这一论点的内容和背景，并制定适当的语音教学策略，对于确定每个国家的语音教学能否达到预期的教学目标起着非常重要的作用。本文首先回顾了上述两种理论，然后对两种理论进行了批判性分析，以了解其优缺点，最后对未来的英语语音教学和实践提出了建议。

Formal English phonetics teaching began in the late 19th century, although phonetics teaching has not been paid as much attention as reading, writing and vocabulary teaching by scholars and educators (Jenkins, 2002) , in the past more than a century, due to the impact by different language schools and language teaching ideas, English phonetics teaching has also undergone great changes and progress, English phonetics teaching models change with the development of people's understanding of phonetics education and social development, a lot of controversy on English phonetics teaching emerge. One of the most important controversy is the controversy between traditional phonetic teaching model and localized phonetic teaching model. Traditional phonetic teaching model emphasizes that the teaching contents, standards and applications should follow the British and American standards (Varonis and Gass, 1982; Wong, 1987). While localized model believes that English phonetics teaching should change the practice of adhering to the British English or American standards (Jenkins, 2002), the outer circle countries should pay attention to localized phonetic teaching model. The debate between the two theories is still widespread today. Different theories determine the difference between phonetic teaching, choice of teaching materials, teacher employment and phonetic achievement assessment. Therefore, to understand the content and background of this argument and to develop appropriate phonetic teaching strategy plays a very important role in determining whether the phonetic teaching of each country can achieve the intended teaching goals. This essay first reviews the above two theories, then it provides a critical analysis on the two theories to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and finally it makes recommendations on future English phonetic teaching and practice. 

2.0 Traditional phonetic teaching model传统语音教学模式

根据世界英语交际方式，获取方式和跨文化交际中的功能领域，提出了三种同心圆理论。内圈国家以英语为母语，外圈国家以英语为官方语言或第二语言，扩展圈以英语为外语（Kachru，1977）。

Three concentric circle theories are put forward according to the way of communication of world English, the way of acquisition and the functional field in cross-cultural communication. The inner circle countries take English as their native language, and the outer circle countries take English as the official or second language, and the extended circle take English as a foreign language (Kachru, 1977).

Traditional model of phonetic teaching refers to that in phonetic teaching process, the teaching, examination and application are implemented completely in accordance with the standards of the United Kingdom or the United States. Over the years this teaching model has been selected as a phonetic teaching model by the majority of the outer circle countries (Varonis and Gass, 1982), this model is based on the assumption that the outer circle of different countries and regions have almost the same purpose of learning English and their context, function of using English are roughly similar, so the English phonetic teaching in the countries should follow the same standard model, and this standard model take the teaching model from the United Kingdom or the United States as a standard, this model denies the existence of English phonetic variants (Varonis and Gass, 1982). This model has been used in many countries for many years, the reason first lies in that the model has an international reputation and legal status, the supporting grammar teaching materials, dictionaries, teaching tools have been compiled, the original textbooks are rich, the international evaluation system is perfect (Wong, 1987). Second, English language teaching institutions of the inner countries often send native language teachers to other countries in the world to provide English courses and skills training, and they can give the outer circle countries relatively scientific and rigorous English phonetic teaching guidance and suggestions (Varonis and Gass, 1982). Third, in order to abide by the standards, to provide native students with internationally recognized "best" language education, many national education authorities tend to choose the model (Varonis and Gass, 1982).

3.0 Localized phonetic teaching model

Kachru (1977) pointed out that there is a big difference in the language environment and purpose of English teaching between different countries, especially the outer circle countries. In school education, it should be based on specific language communication environment to adjust the English phonetic teaching model and standards. For example, the written English language in Singapore should not be too far from the standard of British English, but the spoken language and the pronunciation is a sign of Singaporean national cultural identity, it is not necessary to fully adhere to the British standard in phonetic teaching. He believed that Singapore's phonetic teaching model can use acrolect teaching as a phonetic teaching model. Kachru's (1977) approach is suitable for English teaching in outer circle countries. It advocates the practice of English phonetic teaching in outer circle countries that it should break through traditional textbooks and the practice of adhering to British English or American phonetic standards. The outer circle countries should pay attention to the localization model of phonetic teaching.

Jenkins (2002) analyzed the communication failure and verbal adaptation of non-native speakers in the social context to establish a set of core pronunciation features called lingua franca core. The characteristics of the lingua franca core will affect the mutual understanding in communication, they can be taught and can be learned, and they can be used as the focus of phonetic teaching content for international English learners. The characteristics include: excepting fricative pronunciation and fuzzy pronunciation of tongue side, pronunciation of all consonants should be clear; consonant plexus can be simplified in a word; vowel quantity is important than vowel quality, and so on. For vowel sound quality, word stress, rhythm, voice changes and other elements which can not be taught easily, learners are only required to understand in the phonetic level (Jenkins, 2002). 

4.0 Critical analysis

4.1 Advantages and disadvantages of traditional model 

The main advantage of traditional phonetic teaching model is that, first of all, there are mature and clear teaching materials and standards to facilitate the teachers and students to comply in the teaching and learning process. Second, at present, pronunciation taught by traditional phonetic teaching model is accepted by the majority of countries and English users, master the British or American standard pronunciation can be fluent in English communication in the global context (Tokumoto and Shibata, 2011. There are many shortcomings in traditional phonetic teaching model, first, Varonis and Gass (1982) required to fully take the British standard for phonetic teaching, which leads to a large number of demands for English native teachers, and some of English native speakers who fail to accept professional training can also be employed, which is not conducive to local teaching work (Tokumoto and Shibata, 2011). Second, teaching in accordance with the English native language standards, making it difficult for local teachers to teach in accordance with the English mother tongue standards, they will feel depression in teaching, if even the local teachers can not fully qualified for English phonetic teaching, neither can the students. This will make the students have frustrated feeling and weaken their motivation of English learning (Tokumoto and Shibata, 2011). Finally, there are many regional variations in the English pronunciation of the inner circle countries. In the case of the United Kingdom, people using received pronunciation takes only 3% to 5% of the total population, Scotland English, Welsh English and other accents coexist, which means that foreign students need to understand what the remaining 95% - 97% of the British people say, which is difficulty (Jiang and Du, 2003). And universities of the inner circle countries also recruit teachers from the outer circle, and pronunciation of some of the English teachers from the inner circles countries is not entirely in line with the British English phonetic standards.#p#分页标题#e#

4.2 Advantages and disadvantages of localized model 

Advantages of localized model lies in that it is conducive to play the roles of advantages of local teachers and enhance the teachers’ self-esteem and self-confidence, similar language, acquisition experience and bilingual background makes the teachers better understand the students' learning difficulties, thus they can provide more professional guidance. The students take local teachers as an example, they know that as long as they make effort, they will be able to achieve the phonetic objectives provided by the model (Kirkpatrick, 2007).

Localized model has the following limitations. First, Jenkins' (2002) study on lingua franca core is based on the assumption that English communication mostly occurs between non-native speakers, but this assumption is largely inconsistent with the reality, English communication will occur between English native speakers and non-native speakers. If phonetic teaching is limited to teaching of a group of lingua franca core features, students will not be able to decode non- lingua franca core features in the phonetics of native speakers when communicating with English speakers. Second, lingua franca core deprives students of their right to choose their own pronunciation goals. A large number of studies on the language attitudes of English learners in the extended circle and outer circle countries show that learners are still pursuing native language pronunciation and they believe that the approximate mother tongue pronunciation is a sign of success of English learning (Murcia, 1987). Some learners do have the talent to learn phonetics, they should be given attention to their phonetic learning aspirations and talent in the teaching (Kirkpatrick and Xu, 2002). Finally, if the English variant of the outer circle countries has just been developed and it has not been widely accepted by the community, in the extended circle countries, it should not take the model, because the supporting textbooks and other codified information is lacking, in the actual teaching operation, it will encounter many problems (Tokumoto and Shibata, 2011).

5.0 Further research

At present, arguments about the two kinds of theories continue, more and more educational researchers in the theoretical circles tend to adopt localized phonetic teaching model, and in practice, a lot of students tend to choose traditional phonetic teaching model, they still want to learn the standard British or American pronunciation. About which teaching model can more satisfy the requirements of students and the purpose of phonetic teaching, so far there is no conclusion, therefore, the future researches on phonetic teaching model need to be further improved in the following three aspects.

First of all, in reality, English communication occurs between non-English native speakers, English native speakers and non-native speakers. However, Jenkins (2002), Kachru (1977) mainly studied the phonetic errors in the communication between non-native speakers of English. Varonis and Gass (1982), Wong (1987) mainly studied the phonetic errors in the communication between English native speakers and non-native speakers. There were some limitations in their selection of samples, leading to that the research results were not very able to reflect the reality of English communication. Future researches should focus on the following aspects, to have a comprehensive understanding that in different cultural background, in different countries, what phonetic errors people often have in using English to communicate, so as to determine whether the phonetic characteristics of lingua franca core can help with people’s smooth English communication in the global context.

Secondly, from a number of aspects to analyze the reasons leading to phonetic errors that students of different countries and cultural backgrounds make, such as: cultural differences, thinking habits, educational traditions, etc., to understand these reasons will help the countries to take the phonetic teaching model which is more appropriate for their local conditions, and it will also help the countries with teaching materials selection, teacher training, development of assessment standards and other aspects.

Finally, both the traditional phonetic teaching model and the localized phonetic teaching model have their own shortcomings and advantages, future researches in this area should be able to consider how to help them to play the roles of their own advantages to avoid their own disadvantages. For example, for countries using a traditional phonetic teaching model, they should cultivate and recruit teachers with received pronunciation, while creating a suitable language exchange environment to reduce the difficulty of phonetic learning for students; for countries in which localized phonetic teaching model is used, they should determine mature localized phonetic teaching material, methods and evaluation systems, as well as how the localized phonetic teaching enable the students to communicate by using fluent English with people from other countries in the world. 

6.0 Conclusion

In the context of globalization, English as the world's most widely used language, the importance of English phonetic education has been paid more and more attention. The traditional phonetic education and the localized phonetic education model has their own advantages and disadvantages, the future relevant research should be further improved to provide theoretical support to help different countries to develop appropriate phonetic teaching model.

 

References

Du, R. Q. and Jiang, Y. J. (2001). A review of studies on "Chinese English" in recent twenty years. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 1, 37-41.

Jenkins, J. A. (2002). Sociolinguistically based, empirically researched pronunciation syllabus for English as an international language. Applied Linguistics, 23(1), 83-103. 

Kachru, B. B. (1977). The new Englishes and old models. English Teaching Forum, 15(3), 29- 35.

Kirkpatrick, A. and Xu, Z. C. (2002). Chinese pragmatic norms and “China English”. World Englishes, 21(2), 269-279.

Murcia, C. M. (1987). Teaching pronunciation communicatively. MEXTESOL Journal, 7(1), 10-25.

Tokumoto, M. and Shibata, M. (2011). Asian varieties of English: attitudes towards pronunciation. World Englishes, 30(3), 392- 408.

Varonis, E., & Gass, S. (1982). The comprehensibility of nonnative speech. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 4,114-136.

Wong, R. (1987). Teaching pronunciation: focus on English rhythm and intonation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.