34.1787, Review: Phonetics, Phonology: Liu, Jones, Reed (2023)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-34-1787. Mon Jun 05 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.1787, Review: Phonetics, Phonology: Liu, Jones, Reed (2023)

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Date: 05-May-2023
From: Lysander Schleh [lschleh at tulane.edu]
Subject: Phonetics in Language Teaching


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.449

AUTHOR: Di Liu
AUTHOR: Tamara Jones
AUTHOR: Marnie Reed
TITLE: Phonetics in Language Teaching
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Lysander Schleh

SUMMARY
Liu, Jones, and Reed’s “Phonetics in Language Teaching” is a new entry
in the Cambridge Elements series on the application of phonetics in
language classrooms with a focus on English language instruction. The
book relates research on teaching speech sounds and best practices for
language teachers teaching speaking skills. The book covers general
approaches, sound segments, coarticulation, suprasegmentals, and
technological aids. It will find its audience among language teachers,
particularly English language teachers, although it could also serve
as a supplementary text in a TESL certification program or other
teachers’ training program. The book is composed of seven sections,
each including pedagogical advice related to that section’s content,
and a helpful glossary of terms used.
Section 1, or “Introduction,” provides the goals of the book and
general concepts that shape the authors’ focus in the following
sections. They introduce the Intelligibility Principle and, following
Derwing and Munro (2005, 2015), suggest intelligibility as the goal of
language learners rather than reproducing a native speaker accent. The
authors also discuss and contrast three speech learning models: the
contrastive analysis hypothesis proposed by Lado (1957), the speech
learning model proposed by Flege (1995), and the perceptual
assimilation model proposed by Best (1995). Finally, the advantages of
drawing on these models, as well as further advantages and potential
pitfalls of teaching spoken language, are discussed.
Section 2, or “Phonetic Transcription,” introduces the International
Phonetic Alphabet, alternatives for classroom use, and their use in
the classroom. In this section, the authors address questions related
to the utility and application of these transcription methods for
students, suggesting that they can be of use in helping students
notice contrastive sounds. Section 3, or “Articulation of Segments,”
discusses the articulation of consonants and vowels with subsections
detailing physiology of the vocal tract and the articulation of
different sound segments, including place and manner of articulation,
voicing, lip rounding, etc. Particular attention is given to segments
that often cause difficulty for students, such as [θ] and [ð]. The
segments discussed are almost entirely English sound segments, though
some common speech sounds not found in English are also included.
Section 4, or “Coarticulation and Connected Speech Processes,”
discusses contextually triggered sound changes students are likely to
encounter in English and information on what to prioritize in teaching
as well as best practices for teaching. Section 5, or “Prosody,”
covers syllable structure, word stress, and sentence intonation.
Implications for teaching are covered, as well as some differences and
similarities with languages students may speak.
Section 6, or “Advances, Issues, and Technology,” begins with a
discussion of general frameworks that may facilitate the teaching of
speaking and phonetics in the language classroom. First, the authors
suggest using the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)
framework of Koehler and Mishra (2009). While teachers need the
knowledge of classroom technology, pedagogy, and phonetics, they need
to combine these to pass on speaking and listening skills to students.
The authors also highlight the strengths of the ‘agile’ or ‘scrum’
model (Schwaber and Beedle 2002). In this model, the language
classroom follows an iterative model, in which certain skills can
receive attention for a week-long cycle, but language skills are
assessed as a whole at the end of longer multi-week cycles. This
section also includes apps and websites that are particularly useful
for students working on speaking and listening. Finally, Section 7 is
a conclusion.

EVALUATION
“Phonetics in Language Teaching” takes what I consider a very
effective approach to teaching speaking and listening skills to
language students. Namely, a skills-based approach is recommended, and
the goal as described in this book is to develop students’ skills, but
there is room for providing students with metalinguistic knowledge
about what they are doing when they articulate a sound or how they are
distinguishing two minimal pairs. Because speaking and listening
classes are often focused on communication, teachers may shy away from
utilizing teacher-centered methods in the classroom. But, as the
authors show, there are good uses for explicit instruction in the
language classroom, even for speaking and listening. Using explicit
instruction to discuss articulation, differences between natural and
careful speech, and prosody, can be a real aid to students.
This work is an excellent source for language teachers and would be
particularly helpful to beginning teachers and those who have not had
coursework in phonetics or phonology. I stress this because the
authors have admirably distilled key information often included in
more theoretically than pedagogically oriented coursework and
programs. This is clear in the sections on articulation,
coarticulation, and prosody. A language teacher making use of this
book would be well situated to diagnose students’ pronunciation
difficulties and coach them. These sections include activities that
target specific pronunciation difficulties, e.g., students having
difficulty pronouncing [ɹ] can hold a pencil in their mouth. If their
tongue tip curls around the pencil instead of touching it, they are
producing the sound correctly. Or speakers of Portuguese having
difficulty producing [ʃ] instead of [tʃ] can place a drop of lemon
juice on their alveolar ridge. If they taste the lemon juice, they are
producing the sound correctly. There are a number of activities like
these that can easily be pulled out and used in the classroom without
too much preparation or difficulty on the part of the teacher.
Even for the experienced teacher, this book provides a clear summary
of recent pedagogical and linguistic research, ensuring the teaching
recommendations made by the authors are empirically backed. Because
this is a slim volume, space is at a premium, so only a limited
discussion is allotted to referenced work. I recommend readers follow
up reading by going to the original sources, but this book should be a
useful first reference for teachers encountering difficulties.
The book also provides a clear discussion of frameworks and approaches
that any language teacher will find useful. Its summary of different
speech learning models is effective and to the point. The proposal of
borrowing the agile/scrum model from software development and applying
it to language classes along with the illustration of how to put that
into practice is explained well. The authors’ argument, that language
must be taken as one system and that it must be assessed as a whole,
even if we set aside time for focusing on specific skills, is well
made. As they state, “a student may be able to produce the intonation
of a model sentence perfectly but does not or cannot use it together
with other features in daily communication” (p. 64). The outline that
they provide for developing specific speaking and listening skills
aims to avoid this sort of problem and promises productive classes.
While this book has plenty to offer English language teachers,
teachers of other languages will find less to benefit their own
classes. There is information that can be applied to any language
classroom here, but as the authors readily state, this book is clearly
written and structured with the English language classroom in mind.
This means that subjects like teaching lexical tones or tone sandhi in
Chinese are not covered. And while some non-English segments are
mentioned when relevant to teaching English, most segments not
generally found in most standard English varieties, such as retroflex
and glottalized consonants, are not covered. However, an enterprising
teacher might take a cue from the activities described in this book
and develop methods to drill these sounds, should their lessons
require it. Teachers of languages other than English can still draw
from this book even if they rely on different language specific texts
for in-classroom work, such as Wang’s (2005) “Hanyu Zhengyin
Jiaocheng” text for Mandarin pronunciation or online resources such as
“Spoken Yucatec Maya” (Blair & Vermont-Salas 1993).
Overall, I would happily recommend this book to fellow teachers. It
should prove a helpful reference to many and ease the pressure on
educators who may feel less than confident when approaching the
complexities of pronunciation and communication in their speaking and
listening classes.

REFERENCES
Best, Catherine T. 1995. A Direct Realist Perspective on
Cross-Language Speech Perception. In
W. Strange (ed.), Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues
in Cross Language Research, 167-200. Baltimore: York Press.
Blair, Robert W. & Vermont-Salas, Refugio. 1993. Spoken Yucatec Maya.
University of Chicago.
https://lucy.lib.uchicago.edu/
Derwing Tracy M. & Munro, Murray J. 2005. Second Language Accent and
Pronunciation
Teaching: A Research -Based Approach. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 379-397.
----- 2015. Pronunciation Fundamentals: Evidence-Based Perspectives
for L2 Teaching and
Research. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Flege, James E. 1995. Second Language Speech Learning: Theory,
Findings and Problems. In W.
Strange (ed.), Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in
Cross Language    Research, 233-277. Baltimore: York Press.
Koehler, Matthew & Mishra, Punya. 2009. What Is Technological
Pedagogical Content
Knowledge (TPACK)? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher
Education, 9(1), 60-70.
Lado, Robert. 1957. Linguistics Across Culture: Applied Linguistics
for Language Teachers. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Schwaber, Ken & Beedle, Mike 2002. Agile Software Development with
Scrum. Upper Saddle
River: Prentice Hall.
Wang, Ruojiang. 2005. Hanyu Zhengyin Jiaocheng. Beijing: Peking
University Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Lysander Schleh is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at Tulane
University. He has taught English language courses at universities in
the United States, China, and New Zealand. His interests include
second language acquisition, generative linguistics, and all aspects
of Sinitic languages.



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