Unit 3.

PHONOLOGY.

Angel, J. (2014). Phonemic-Chart. Retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/5KaQrDKPUgn5m5f37

The third unit in the book “The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3” is about phonology and its features. This unit will answer the questions: What can one learn from this? And, How teachers can apply that knowledge in a teaching situation?

Nowadays, as teachers or students, it is important to know the correct meaning of phonology. According to the TKT book, (Spratt, Pulverness y Williams 2011), it is the study of the sound features in order to communicate meaning. However, there are some other definitions of phonology, for instance, according to Panevov´a & Hana, (2010) it is the study of how sounds are organized. Once we already know what phonology is, it is useful to know about its features. Firstly, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. There are many phonemes that are part of the phonemic chart which divides sounds into vowels, diphthongs and, consonants. Additionally, Eclinic, (n.d.) gives us an example of a phonemic chart with some examples in order to have a better understanding. Secondly, word stress in which a syllable will have greater energy of stress than the rest of syllables. Thirdly, in English, stress also influences how sentences and groups of words are pronounced, this is called sentence stress.  It is important to take into account that sentence stress is a characteristic of connected speech which is a spoken language in which words are joined to make a connected stream of sound. Finally, intonation is the way a speaker uses their voice level to show meaning. Also, it is another important feature of connected speech.

To sum up, as teachers or future teachers, we must know how to teach phonology to our students in order to develop their pronunciation. Here we have two examples;

1. In each English class, we can show flashcards with different phonemes and some examples. While, the teacher is pronouncing the phonemes and their examples, learners repeat what the teacher is saying. At the end of the course, they will learn all the phonemes with their correct pronunciation.
2. Listening to music, conversations, short stories in each class, it is also another way to teach phonology because in this way students can practice in hearing and recognizing sounds through these tools.

For further information:

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003

Eclinic. (n.d.). American English Phonetic Symbols. Retrieved from https://koreatesol.org/sites/default/files/EClinic- Phonetic Symbols.pdf

Panevov´a, J., & Hana, J. (2010). Intro to Linguistics – Phonology. Retrieved from http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~hana/teaching/ling1/04-Phonology.pdf